Ethical considerations in research and practice

Ethical Implications of Nonmaleficence

As a professional counselor, one is in a unique position to influence the mental health and emotional well-being of one's clients. Indeed, the profession places the individual in direct contact with highly vulnerable subjects, creating a great opportunity for the provision of meaningful psychological care. However, this same capacity for influence can be problematic if not checked by a proper degree of ethical control. This is especially well demonstrated through the concept of nonmaleficence, which denotes the ethical responsibility of the counselor to refrain from any influence that might compromise the rights of or cause harm to the subject.

The two scholarly articles considered here help to broaden our understanding of this concept and the expectations which it imposes upon the professional mental health counselor. To this end, the text by Zur (2010) offers a precise understanding of nonmaleficence as a counseling concept. According to Zur, the responsibility of the counselor not to inflict harm on the subject emerges from the unique power dynamics in the patient-counselor relationship. According to Zur, "Clinicians tend to ignore the issue of power that is a reflection of the culture at large that often associates power with coercion, abuse, or injustice, in order not be perceived by themselves or others as controlling and dominating (Proctor, 2002). (The exceptions to the rule have been some feminist, humanist, narrative and postmodern psychotherapists.) As a result, the discussion of power has been primarily confined to ethics and risk management classes, licensing boards and court hearings. In these settings the emphasis has been on harm and on the supposed vulnerability of clients to therapists' immense power and influence." (p. 1)

This scholarly article denotes that there are certain power dynamics which come from far-reaching cultural conditions rather than pure ethical dilemmas. This presents an example where the hegemonic racial or cultural perspective of the counselor might produce undue or maleficent pressure on the subject to behave according to certain cultural expectations. The implication is that there is a need to broaden the ethical discourse on nonmaleficence to include conversations on the cross-section of ethics and cultural sensitivity.

The text by Pieterse et al. (2009) contributes to this asserting, suggesting that the educational conditions forming the current generation of counselors may not be sufficient to prevent the occurrence of maleficence between differing cultures. According to the researchers, "whereas the findings identify social justice content as a growing presence in multicultural courses, there is a need to more clearly outline the fundamental points of distinction and overlap between multicultural competence and social justice advocacy in counselor and counseling psychology training." (Pieterse et al., p. 93)