Assignment: Ethical Case Study Analysis

Assignment: Ethical Case Study Analysis

Case Study

James is a community counseling student who is interning with the College Counseling Center at the local university. James is a 25 year-old Caucasian male, who attended a private high school in a small rural town. In terms of being a counselor, James admits that one of his challenges is that he has not experienced much diversity in his relationships. He states that this is not a significant issue because he plans on opening a private practice in his hometown as soon as he graduates. Since he “knows the town” he doesn’t feel that this is a big deal. Also, in terms of finding clients, James states that he is sure he will be able to get referrals because his father works for the town newspaper and will run an ad as soon as he moves home.

James admits he has no clinical experience but is pleased, upon arriving at his internship site, to see that his ex-girlfriend is going to be his assigned clinical supervisor. Since they have not seen each other in years, James figures that meeting once a week will give them a good opportunity to catch up on “old times”. James also figures that she could continue to supervise him in private practice until he receives his license. James is relieved because he knows she won’t mind, since he will be graduating in nine months, if he puts her credential, Licensed Professional Counselor, after his name since she is supervising him.

After discussing private practice, James asks his ex-girlfriend if he can begin to see clients right away because he is anxious to get experience and begin working on his practice. Since she figured he would be a pretty good counselor, she agreed and paired him up with Lisa, a 21 year-old Latina female.

During the first session, James was running late and was unable to fully cover all of the intake documents with Lisa. He put them aside and said, “We don’t really need to review these. It is just paperwork required by the Center. Please sign here.” As the counseling session continued, James thought he might have recognized symptoms associated with depression including decreased motivation, loss of appetite and overall dissatisfaction. He thought about bringing these up with his supervisor but forgot once he left the session.

James continued to meet with Lisa. The first few sessions focused mainly on her recent break-up with her boyfriend and the resulting academic difficulties. She was very concerned that her career dream of becoming a lawyer may be in jeopardy.

In the third session, Lisa casually mentioned that she began to experience depressive symptoms as a child when her mother’s partner began to physically abuse her at the age of 5½ years. Lisa told her mother about the abuse, but she did not intervene. Shortly after the physical abuse began, the man began to also sexually abuse her. Once again, Lisa reported this to her mother and also to a teacher at her school, but nothing was ever done. Lisa reported that when she was 7, she placed an unknown prescription medication of her mother’s into this man’s alcoholic drink. Later that same day, the man experienced a stroke and was rushed to the hospital where he later died. Lisa also reported learning that her mother’s partner’s stroke and subsequent death were related to the combination of prescription medication and alcohol. The client has never told anyone other than James that she had placed medication in this man’s drink.

Directions:

• Read the case study provided and identify all three of the ethical dilemmas presented.
• Describe the nature and all dimensions of the three ethical issues.
• Identify the ethical code numbers and definitions of each issue presented using both the APA and ACA codes.
• Discuss alternative courses of action that could be taken by the counselor to rectify each dilemma.
• Describe the implications of each alternative action; lay out the limitations and advantages of each alternative considered.
• Choose one course of action and provide a justification for this selection.
• Describe the ethical decision-making model (from your course materials) you used throughout the process to arrive at a final decision (i.e., Forrester-Miller and Davis). Make sure you outline each step.

You will be graded on the process you used to arrive at your recommendations and the reasoning behind picking a specific recommendation (and not the actual recommendation itself). You should utilize and cite at least two peer-reviewed journal articles to include in your research.

The body of the paper should be no less than 5 pages in length. Your paper should be double-spaced, in 12 point Times New Roman font, with normal 1-inch margins, written in APA style, and free of typographical and grammatical errors. It should include a title page with a running head, an abstract, and a reference page.

Save the paper as AU_PSY430_M3_A2_LastName_FirstInitial.doc and submit it to the M3 Assignment 2 LASA 1 Dropbox by Wednesday, April 20, 2016.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

• Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
• Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
• One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
• I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.

Weekly Participation

• Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
• In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
• Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
• Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.

APA Format and Writing Quality

• Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
• Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
• I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.

Use of Direct Quotes

• I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
• As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
• It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.

LopesWrite Policy

• For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
• Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
• Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
• Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.

Late Policy

• The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
• Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
• If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
• I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
• As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.

Communication

• Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me: 
  • Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
  • Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.