Amy is a divorced marriage and family therapist who has been in practice for 14 years.
Recently, she went out with her longtime girlfriends. After a few drinks, her group became increasingly loud and Amy started dancing on the table. As she left the bar, Amy ran into a client, Lisa, who had apparently witnessed her wild behavior. Amy first began to work with Lisa when she lost her husband and child in a drunk driving accident. While Amy feels that she is allowed to do what she wants on her time off, she also begins to wonder how this will affect her relationship with her client, Lisa. She begins to think about all of the ethical considerations that would come into play with this client.
While professional codes of ethics may not have specific guidelines for professional behavior, there are issues in this scenario that Amy may want to consider. For your initial discussion post, address the following:
Responsibility to clients: Is Amy respecting the welfare of Lisa if she chooses to continue to see Lisa? What specific standards in the AAMFT Code pertain to this scenario?
Professional integrity: Although it may be acceptable to continue to counsel Lisa, is it a good moral decision?
Use the AAMFT Code of Ethics (linked in Resources) to support your answer.
2)Discussion Context
There has been increased attention to spirituality and religion as a dimension of biopsychosocial identity and consideration in promoting health and wellness. Recently, Blair (2015) studied the influence of the therapist’s spirituality (or lack thereof) on therapeutic work. The way in which the spiritual or religious aspect of biopsychosocial identity, or lack thereof, is incorporated into your worldview will be an important consideration in this unit’s assignment.
As you prepare to complete your assignment, put yourself once again into the shoes of a Marriage and Family Therapy intern at Riverbend City who is researching for a cultural autobiography to help fulfill part of the cultural competency requirements in an internship. For your cultural autobiography, in addition to relating personal reflections and experiences from interviewing an individual with whom you share a cultural heritage, you will be drawing upon evidence-based models and competencies from scholarly and professional sources.
Discussion Prompt
This discussion focuses on reflecting upon your own spirituality (or lack thereof) and the ways it influences your practice.
( I am going to use Christianity)
In your initial discussion post:
Discuss Blair’s findings on how our spirituality influences therapy in terms of your own spiritual or religious orientation (or lack thereof).
Weave in aspects of other pertinent readings from this unit as support for further discussion as to why this is important for clinicians to understand and address.
Describe at least two strategies you will implement to prepare for ethical and effective therapy with one of the populations addressed in this unit.
Be sure to number the discussion in the essay so I know which discussion is which.
