Ethics and Grief Counseling: A Professional Reflective Journal

Introduction: Ethics in Professional Counseling

The work performed by qualified professional counselors involves the development of an extremely intimate relationship with clients who expect and deserve confidentiality, cultural sensitivity, and other conventions of ethical treatment as mandated by the American Counseling Association's Ethics & Professional Standards. Throughout my professional training and practice, I have witnessed firsthand how maintaining a commitment to personal ethics has improved my professional conduct. The best counselors are able to balance their personal emotions toward a given situation confided to them by a client — be it infidelity, thoughts of suicide, or other extremities of life experience — and upholding a personal ethic of objectivity during counseling work enhances one's ability to provide effective treatment across the widest possible spectrum of potential client interactions.

I find that when I am able to refrain from indulging in private judgments of a client's behavior, the depth and scope of my counseling efforts improves significantly. Preserving this professional ethic is an extension of my personal commitment to scientific neutrality. There are situations, however, which force me to reexamine this ethical obligation to remain impartial — namely those involving a client grieving the sudden death of a loved one.

Personal Grief Responses and Bereavement Research

Based on my own personal experience, I have found that the grieving processes identified by researchers as most commonly adopted by professional counselors are those I typically resort to as well. In my own experiences with grieving, I have learned to avoid dwelling on the pain inevitably felt by focusing instead on positive memories, shared experiences, and the time I was fortunate enough to spend with those I have lost. After reviewing the current research on grieving models and the process of coping with bereavement, I realize that this subconscious desire to limit my emotional intake to pleasant recollections may be a form of internalized denial — the first stage of the Kübler-Ross grief model — as I am simply avoiding the emotional trauma of death by choosing to focus on life.

Nonetheless, this process has allowed me to effectively cope with grieving within my personal life, so despite learning much from the available research, I believe my own approach to grieving will remain intact. The problem I have often encountered during my experience as a counselor is that, in light of my own approach to grieving, I find it difficult to understand those clients who tend to dwell on such issues. The ethic of impartiality demands that I identify viable methods to separate my personal coping processes from the counseling I offer others who are experiencing severe emotional grief. Understanding the bereavement process through multiple theoretical lenses is therefore essential to providing balanced, client-centered care.