¶ … Online HIPAA Training changed how you view ethical principles and professional responsibilities within the human services profession? The Online HIPAA Training has reinforced the importance and responsibility that I feel as my role of practitioner within the human service profession. The websites have made me more aware of the numerous contacts that I influence and the huge ramifications of my role. As the National Organization for Human Services has observed:

[Human service professionals] enter into professional-client relationships with individuals, families, groups and communities who are all referred to as "clients" in these standards. Among their roles are caregiver, case manager, broker, teacher/educator, behavior changer, consultant, outreach professional, mobilizer, advocate, community planner, community change organizer, evaluator and administrator.

HIPAA regulations have reinforced my acknowledgment of the fact that the client is in a vulnerable position -- this is no equal situation of friendship -- and that I cannot take advantage of his vulnerability. Perception of the fact that this is a 'different' sort of relationship provides it with a certain hallowedness and uniqueness that...

My behavior is more respectful to the client, but at the same time I am more detached perceiving him or her as a client who has to be respected. With the HIPAA regulations in mind, I am less likely to be personally hurt by the client since the relationship assumes more of a detached impersonal stance. On the contrary, personal hurt should make me suspect my professional stance and conduct.
The principles seem to flow from one another: confidentiality protects the relationship and emphasizes its uniqueness. The practitioner steps out of himself -- it is as though he is diminished -- and steps into the client. The client fills the room; the practitioner, in order to most effectively help him, has to give him his undivided attention.

And yet I realized that counseling is far more than a small cocoon between client and practitioner. Rather, ac practitioner becomes far larger and, like an amoeba, elongates into the outside world. The client, plastic as he is, involves many more worlds (her community, family etc.) and the practitioner, helping the client, is helping those worlds too. Accordingly, the practitioner has to be in constant contact with community and society, aware of his…