PSYC 403 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Suicidal Ideation, Therapeutic Relationship, Interpersonal Psychotherapy
13 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
• Most common ethical issues
o Confidentiality and its limits
▪ Almost everything in psychotherapy remains confidential
• Necessary for clients to feel safe and be honest
▪ Exceptions are threats of harm to self or someone else or harm/neglect
• Explain this at start of therapy
▪ Tarasoff vs. board of Regents of University of California
• Famous case
• He was seeing a therapist and described dangerous behavior,
named someone he wanted to kill
• Dropped out of therapy
• Eventually went and killed his ex-girlfriend
• The family of the victim sued the university for not warning their
daughter of the threat
• The patiet’s fail o
• Duty to warn and protect
• US case, no equivalent in Canadian case law
• Been adopted in Canadian case law, in terms of the responsibility
of the therapist
o Confidentiality and treating adolescents
▪ When they expect confidentiality, disclosures increase
▪ Most times, guardians hold rights to records
• In Quebec adolescents over the age of 14 hold their own
confidentiality rights
• In therapy and in medical setting
• Except for the general duty to warn requirements information
cannot be shared with a parent
o When to disclose?
▪ Hard to know
• Self-harm or suicide?
o Oftentimes teens self-harm without suicidal ideation
• What about risky sexual activity?
▪ Considerations
• Immediate as well as future harm
• Parental reaction and client-parent relationship
• Best of interest of client and therapeutic relationship
▪ If disclosure is needed:
• Partner with adolescent and provide them some autonomy
o Multiple relationships
▪ Multiple roles with same person or someone closely associated with
person with whom psychologist has a professional relationship with
▪ Not always necessarily unethical
▪ Can create conflicts of interest
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
