WRITTEN ESSAY- ETHICS IN COUNSELLING

Introduction:

This essay is intended to describe ethics in counselling processes. During the process of counselling, clients always demand ethics, therefore, it is necessary for the counsellors to be professionally ethical. Ethics sometimes creates difficulties because it is not always concise and clear. However, counsellors always have the responsibility of protecting the information of the clients.

Discussion:

Ethics refers to the rule of conduct for moral principles for a group or an individual. The ethics term comes from ethos in the Greek word that means customs, characters or habits. In the process of counselling, ethics underpins the course of action as well as the nature of activities that are taken by the counsellors (Bond, 2015). According to the nature of the profession, counsellors must act according to the best interest of clients, protect the right of the clients, promote the goal of the client, minimise the harm and maximise the goods. This expectation is increasing because of the inherent power of relationship among counsellor as well as clients (Sivis-Cetinkaya, 2019). Ethics in the process of counselling includes the principles as well as ethical code that are associated in balancing the power and ensuring that counsellor act for the good of clients and not for them.

Every practitioner in the process of counselling must follow the ethical framework in the ways that are appropriate for their role and communicate effectively based on the ethical expectation as well as accountability. Client refers to the term who is the recipient of the ethical services that can be organisation, individual, group or couple. For generating ethical values in the process of counselling, it is necessary for respecting the rights of human and protecting the client’s safety (Clarke & Wallgren-Pettersson, 2019). Other ethical values that must be followed by the counsellor are increasing personal effectiveness, enhancing the quality of professional knowledge and enhancing the quality relationship with the clients. For offering a better provision of counselling, the counsellor must strive an adequate as well as the fair provision of counselling (Ghazali et al. 2017). Appreciating to the variety of human culture as well as experience is highly important. It is the duty of the counsellor in following the ethics during the counselling process. This fact can be explained with the help of deontological ethical theory. According to Mandal, Ponnambath & Parija (2016), deontological class of the ethical theories demonstrated the fact that an individual must adhere to the duties as well as an obligation when ethics are applied and when they are engaged in the process of decision making. This fact critically demonstrated that a person must follow their obligation to another person or society because upholding the duty of an individual is ethically correct. As an example, it can be said that deontologist always follows the law and keep their promises. Therefore, by applying the theory, it can be said that a counsellor must follow those duties to the clients that are ethically right (Ponterotto, Park-Taylor & Chen, 2017). By applying the deontological theory, a counsellor must become trustworthy to the clients. By becoming trustworthy, a counsellor must ensure that the expectations of the clients are met and confidentiality of the clients is effectively maintained. For becoming deontologist, a counsellor must follow autonomy (by respecting the right of clients towards self-governing), non-maleficence (commitment to avoid the harm to the client) and beneficence (commitment to promoting the well-being of the clients.  

Ethics underpin actions. Therefore, a counsellor by the duty of their profession and the nature of the profession must be acted ethically. Good ethical code of conduct is helpful for the counsellor in developing awareness about the ethical code that ensures the desire of an individual in doing the right thing (Iqbal, 2015). Thus, it can be said that ethics is helpful for the counsellor in offering the right counselling to the clients. For ensuring the implementation of ethics in the counselling process, awareness or knowledge of the client about the code of conduct is highly important. The client must have the degree to which they can discuss their feeling with the counsellors. When a counsellor will not be able to treat the clients ethically then they can be considered as the unethical. This fact can be explained with the help of virtue ethical theory.  This theory mainly judges a person as per their character rather than their action that is normally deviate from the usual behaviour (Curren, 2016). Therefore, it can be said that when a counsellor will not be able to follow ethical principles such as autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence and justice in offering to counsel to their clients then they can be called as the unethical. This theory considers the reputation, morale and motivation of an individual to rate the irregular behaviour that is considered as unethical (Linkeviciute & Sanchini, 2016). Therefore, ineffective consideration of the ethical principle can make an individual unethical as per the virtue ethical theory. 

During the process of counselling, developing a proper guideline about the code of conduct is necessary. This is because, every counsellor has its characteristics, behaviour, therefore, they offer counselling in different ways. From this fact, it can be said that the moral qualities of the practitioners are utmost important to offer to counsel. There are some of the practitioners who have moral qualities but some of the practitioners do not have moral qualities. Though it is the duty of the practitioners in having ethics during offering counselling processes some of the practitioners do not follow the principles. It is not appropriate in prescribing the practitioners some ethical principles as it is one of the personal characteristics of the individual. Different personal qualities that ensure ethics in counselling processes are resilience, empathy, integrity, wisdom, fairness, humanity, courage, respect and many more.  

Conclusion:

From the above description, it can be said that moral principles are always related to ethics. The challenge lies in what is considered as ethical or moral. Every counsellor has its own set of standards and values. Individual principles and how they can be used with efficiencies sometimes creates dilemmas. Therefore, for resolving the ethical dilemmas, considering a good set of ethical principles are always necessary to reduce the chances of an ethical dilemma. 

Reflection:

This essay is one of the group essays where every individual plays an important role to conduct research and submit the work. Working in the team creates a good experience for me. This is because every individual was very good and offer a significant level of support to another team member so that the entire task can be finished within time. This cooperation and coordination among us helped to complete the essay tasks within the pre-determined time.  

The entire essay work was good but one of the team members was not supporting. He was not communicative and offering proper support to us. This fact has created a de-motivation among other team member but after that, we have decided that we will complete the entire without the team member. However, the team member joined us after some days and offer proper support. He told us that he have understood his fault and he feels guilty. After that, we have completed the essay work with efficiencies. If I will be the team leader of the team then I will provide emphasise on the development of communication so that any kind of miscommunication cannot be avoided among the team member.