ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses Ethics of Practice for Advanced Clinical Work. Several codes of ethics exist for mental health professionals. The confidentiality of the counseling relationship forms one pillar of its effectiveness. With such a guarantee, clients become free to expose troubling concerns and experiences that would under other circumstances remain suppressed or avoided. Dual relationship is the term often applied to clinical situations in which counselors inappropriately choose to begin counseling relationships with clients with whom they have a conflict of interest or in which clinical boundaries slip and produce inappropriate counselor–client relationships. Implementing a course of action that focuses on the establishment and maintenance of boundaries is complicated by the fact that clients, for the most part, know almost nothing about mental health ethics. The Approved Clinical Supervisor Code of Ethics offered by the Center for Credentialing and Education provides one set of particularly useful specifications.
