Ethical Challenges for Mental Health Professionals

A practical, hands-on guide to understanding and resolving common ethical issues that arise in mental health practice.

This book, intended for a broad audience of professionals, is a practical, handy guide to ethical decision-making in one’s daily work. Each chapter outlines key ethical issues that arise in mental health practice, cites relevant ethics code principles and standards, and illustrates the dilemmas with vignettes drawn from real life, followed by questions and answers to promote critical thinking.

Common ethical challenges described by the authors include maintaining confidentiality, practicing within one’s area of competence, and providing informed consent. Chapters cover work with special populations--including children, older adults, and individuals struggling with their gender identity--as well as work in specialized areas such as assessment and forensic settings. This book provides readers with the framework they need to think through ethical challenges flexibly and make decisions that benefit and protect their clients and themselves.