The Ethical And Legal Dilemma Of Confidentiality

The Ethical and Legal Dilemma of Confidentiality

Tatum Reynolds

Department of Psychology, North Central University

PSYC 370: Crisis Counseling

Professor Doucette

April 30, 2023

In the article When to Break Confidentiality as a Therapist, the authors explain the concept of confidentiality in counseling. The authors also list the exceptions to confidentiality in therapy, describing the legal ethical dilemmas involved. To begin, the TheraNest Team explains that the client-therapist relationship involves legal and therapeutic elements, controlled by laws that require confidentiality (2022). This means that counselors must consider more than what their clients are saying and feeling‒they must take into account laws and ethics that pertain to each particular case. Thus, they must honor

There are situations where confidentiality must be broken. A “client can’t expect you to keep their disclosures private” all the time, as it could be out of your, the clinician’s, control (TheraNest Team, 2022). Each client’s right to privacy is a commitment that must be honored by clinicians. However, “the promise of confidentiality between a client and a mental health provider is not absolute,” (James & Gilliland, 2017, p. 523). Simply put, there are situations where previous confidentiality must be breached. According to the TheraNest Team, this is sometimes up to the discretion of the counselor, but not always. Sometimes, clinicians are obligated to throw confidentiality to the wayside. This is usually done to protect public or personal safety (TheraNest Team, 2022). Nonetheless, James and Gilliland explain that “regardless of the setting, when it is determined that a practitioner must break confidentiality, it is the practitioner’s ethical duty to disclose only necessary information,” (James & Gilliland, 2017, p. 523). This helps ensure that a client’s privacy is kept intact to the best of a clinician’s