Role of Professional Ethics

The purpose of Chapter 3 was to introduce you to the role and function of professional ethics.  But beyond this cognitive purpose, the hope was also to stimulate you to begin to value the need for a professional code of ethics and a desire to embrace it for your profession.  The following is intended to assist you in this valuing process.  Read each of the following scenarios.  Identify and discuss areas of ethical concern in which issues of autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice may be operative: In the case illustration throughout the chapter, the client, Maria, shared the possibility that she was having unprotected sex with a boyfriend whom she identified as having AIDS.  Since AIDS is a medical condition and sexual activity is a personal decision, should either of these issues be of ethical concern for Ms. Wicks, the counselor? Given your current level of training and the ethical concern for practicing within one’s level of competence, what type of helping or for what type of client or problem do you currently feel competent to assist?  What else will you need to do to increase your level of competence to be an ethical professional? If codes of ethics are commonly shared guidelines to be employed by each member of a specific profession, what role and level of responsibility does a member have in monitoring that his or her colleagues practice ethically? Identify two forms of unethical practice that you feel deserve maximum sanctioning by one’s profession.  What form should the sanctioning take? This assignment will be graded based on: Quality of content including the ability to communicate and demonstrate insight into your values and how they impact your opinion, your ability to clearly identify a goal and treatment strategy, as well as clearly stating how your opinions, biases, values and culture experiences have influenced your choices