Application: Addressing Ethical Issues

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Counselors often face difficult decisions in their work that may have ethical ramifications. Ethical dilemmas span all areas of the counseling practice from record keeping and fee setting to confidentiality, privacy, and cultural considerations. For this Assignment you concentrate on cultural considerations that may pose challenges to ethical practice. (Culture is broadly defined here as the behaviors, traditions, and/or beliefs of any subgroup.) Select one of the two case studies below to use for this assignment. After analyzing the case study, consider how you might address the issues present using the codes of ethics put forth by either the American Counseling Association (ACA) or the International Association of Marriage and Family Counselors (IAMFC).

Review the case studies below before completing the assignment.

Case Study #1

Nitin and Priya Pathak came to your office for counseling, along with their 16-year-old son Sujay. Nitin and Priya are first generation Indian-American immigrants, while their son was born and raised in the United States. They were reluctant to engage in counseling, but are doing so at the request of Sujay. In Sujay’s view, his parents are being overly controlling regarding his upcoming choice of college, which is causing increasingly frequent clashes between him and his parents. Sujay wants to attend art school, while his parents want him to attend engineering school. They state that a career in science, religion, law, or medicine is the appropriate path for a person of his caste. Sujay claims that while he wants to please his parents, he feels they are stifling his passion and imposing cultural norms that, to him, are a part of their “world” and not his. You have little knowledge of Indian culture or the caste system and are unsure whether the issue at hand is a matter of controlling parents dealing with a life transition issue or a serious conflict involving social and cultural influences.

Case Study #2

Nicole and Julia explain to you that their relationship has felt strained lately and that they fear they are heading for a breakup. The couple explain to you that they have been in a long-term, non-monogamous relationship, but that lately, Nicole has expressed desire to change this practice. Julia feels that Nicole is “changing the rules halfway through the game” and that her sexual relationships with others are of no consequence to how she feels about Nicole. Their current relationship practice conflicts with your own personal opinion about the role of monogamy in relationships, and thus you feel conflicted about how to handle the situation.

The assignment (2–3 pages)

• Identify the case study you chose and describe the ethical issue(s) present in it.
• Explain how you would address each of these issues.
• Justify your response using the appropriate ACA/IAMFC codes of ethics.

Support your Application Assignment with specific references to all resources used in its preparation. You are asked to provide a reference list for all resources, including those in the Learning Resources for this course.

Readings

• Course Text: Gurman, A. S., Lebow, J. L., & Snyder, D.  (2015). Clinical handbook of couple therapy (5th ed.). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
  • Chapter 19, “Couple Therapy and Intercultural Relationships”
  • Chapter 18, “Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Issues in Couple Therapy”
• Article: American Counseling Association (ACA). (2014). ACA Code of Ethics. Retrieved fromhttp://www.counseling.org/docs/ethics/2014-aca-code-of-ethics.pdf?sfvrsn=4
• Website: American Mental Health Counselors Association. (n.d.). Transformation in action. Retrieved from http://www.amhca.org/
• Article: Hernández, P., Rickard, J., & Giambruno, P. (2008). Transformative family therapy with a lesbian couple: A case study. Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, 20(4), 281–298.
  Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.
• Article: Hendricks, B.E., Bradley, L. J., Southern, S., Oliver, M., & Birdsall, B. (2011). Ethical code for the International Association of Marriage and Family Counselors. The Family Journal, 19(2), 217-224.
  Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.
• Article: Seto, A., & Woodford, M. S. (2007). Helping a Japanese immigrant family cope with acculturation issues: A case study. The Family Journal, 15(2), 167–173.
  Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.
• Website: American Mental Health Counselors Association. (n.d.). Transformation in action. Retrieved from http://www.amhca.org/
• Website: American Counseling Association. (n.d.). American Counseling Association. Your passion. Your profession. Our purpose. Retrieved from http://www.counseling.org/
• Website: International Association of Marriage and Family Counselors. (n.d.). Excellence in couples and family counseling. Retrieved from http://www.iamfconline.org/

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

• Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
• Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
• One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
• I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.

Weekly Participation

• Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
• In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
• Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
• Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.

APA Format and Writing Quality

• Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
• Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
• I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.

Use of Direct Quotes

• I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
• As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
• It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.

 

LopesWrite Policy

• For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
• Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
• Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
• Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.

Late Policy

• The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
• Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
• If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
• I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
• As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.

Communication

• Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me: 
  • Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
  • Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.