Self-Assessment of Any Familiarity With Ethical Codes

¶ … self-assessment of any familiarity with ethical codes, principles and laws and personal professional development goals for the semester in relation to these topics and your growth to date. You should discuss your strengths and weaknesses using these, and your plan for enhancing your assets and reducing your limitations.

I am familiar with the general principles of ethics that are mainly intuitive, for instance, respecting the other, treating their coincidences confidentially, and not manipulating them in any way as well as not having dual relationships. The ethics of counseling / social work / related disciplines are actually intuitive and built into the system with all the details revolving around this.

On the other hand, I do need to gain a greater in-depth familiarity with the various nuances so that I familiarize myself with different situations and know how to apply myself in particular situations that may differ from the rule. I will also need to infrequently review the code so that I make sure that my conduct is ethical. Ethics is intrinsic and extremely crucial to my development as professional aside form ensuring that I accord the patient quality treatment.

Ethics in fact is tied up to personal professional development since a part of the APA code of ethics is continuous development of my skills. The ethical code too regulates my humility as practitioner so that even though I am in a position of power, accordance to the ethical code ensures that I do not misuse this position.

My strengths are that I am intent on perfecting my skills and on providing clients with quality care. I care about my job and value its responsibilities. My weaknesses primarily lie in the huge labor that is involved in painstakingly listening to background nuances and each and every word of client -- practicing a listening that is not merely hearing but goes beyond that in that it is active listening. And this sort of listening is extremely hard. Knowing, too, all the punctilio and details of the ethical code seems to me to be onerous.

Methods that I can use are:

1. Continuously practicing my listening skills on colleagues and others outside of the counseling practice and seeking feedback.

I can also read as much as possible on the subject.

2. Regularly reviewing the ethical code and asking colleagues for monitoring of my practice.

There seems to me to be one statement in general that really sums up for me my focus as counselor. As stated, counseling puts me in an autocratic position. I believe in patient-directed counseling where it tis the client not I who directs counseling. To that end, this principle of the ACA impacted me:

Counselors inform clients of the purposes, goals, techniques, procedure, limitations, potential risks, benefits of services to be performed, and other pertinent information. Clients have the right to expect confidentiality and to be provided with an explanation of its limitations, including supervision and/or treatment team professionals; to obtain clear information about their case records; to participate in the ongoing counseling plans; and to refuse any recommended services and be advised on the consequence of such refusal. (A.3.a.)