Week 6 Discussion

Main Post: Ashley Shackelford

Boundary Issues

Population of Interest

The population that I select is children and adolescence. I have a background with working with children and also the adult area. I had the pleasure to work with the nationally acclaimed Summer Treatment Program for ADHD children in Miami Florida. It was a summer treatment program counselor at the Florida International University, where I worked with children with Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Conduct Disorder (CD), and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), learning problems, attention problems or behavior problems.

Potential Boundary Benefits or Harm

“No ethical and legal issue has caused more controversy among helping professionals than determining the boundaries of the therapeutic relationship” (Remley & Herlihy, 2014). When working with children there are many potential boundary issues that was to be considered one issue is cross an boundaries when clients want you to accept gifts or items similarly for the work you do. On one hand you don’t want a client to have a feeling of rejection because you can not accept a gift, but you as don’t want to have an ethical issue because you accept any type of gift. Dr. Perepiczka (Laureate Education, 2012) states in the media video you have to let clients know during the discussion of informed consent that even though the relationship they are building is beneficial to helping the client reach their goals, they are paying for a service that helps in their own treatment. Giving or receiving gift is extra. The only thing they should focus on is achieving goals outlined in their treatment.

Consultation

There are many different types of potential consultants professional counselors can turn to when dealing with a ethical issue when is comes to potential boundaries or harm to a therapeutic relations. Counselors have the ability to use colleagues and friends that are in the same field, who may have had potential boundary issues in their past. Most people learn from experience, and are a great resource to turn to. Professional counselors can also use supervisions and referrals in order to deal with boundary issues. As a new counselor in the field, supervision is going to be a great resource for counselors to ask questions and find knew knowledge of issues they face.

Reference

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2012). Clinical mental health counseling: Boundary issues [Video]. Baltimore, MD: Author

Remley, T.P., Jr.  & Herlihy, B. (2010). Ethical, legal, and professional issues in counseling (3rd ed., pp. 194-219). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Pearson Education.