CA Law and Professional Ethics: Ethics of Psychotherapy and Counseling

Fulfills Requirement: Professional Ethics for all professions. Check with your state board if you have questions.

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This course is also offered as part of a Pre-licensing Savings Package

This unique 18 credit hour (18 content/clock hours) course is one of the most extensive courses offered on the ethics of psychotherapy and counseling. Comprised entirely of articles, the course covers a wide range of topics, issues, and considerations regarding the standard of care, ethical-decision-making, codes of ethics, and more specific ethics concerns with confidentiality, record-keeping, adult and dependent abuse reporting, treatment of children, fees, insurance, and termination. It then reviews the important cutting-edge developments in digital ethics and the impact of technology on the delivery of mental health services. Next it reviews specific concerns with ethical boundaries, such as touch, gifts, self-disclosure, and home visits. It then discusses how to respond to subpoenas and reviews the more controversial topics of multiple relationships, risk management, and therapy outside the office walls.

The course also specifically attends to CA laws and regulations relevant to LCSWs, LPCCs, and psychologists. It covers a wide range of topics, such as scope of practice, reporting laws, working with dangerous clients, shifts or trends in standard of practice, treatment of minors, confidentiality, licensing laws, different work settings, and many other topics required for pre-licensure in CA for LCSWs and LPCCs.

This extensive course consists of nine sections. The first section of the course reviews the ethical/legal topics of the standard of care, confidentiality, record keeping, termination, and fees and insurance considerations. It also attends to issues relating specifically to California law. The second section reviews the ethical and legal issues resulting from the impact and utility of modern digital technologies in mental health services. The third section defines therapeutic boundaries, differentiates between boundary crossings and boundary violations, and discusses the specific boundary issues of self-disclosure, physical touch, gifts, dual or multiple relationships, home visits, and therapy outside the office. The fourth section reviews the ethical issues that are presented in three different work settings, i.e. forensic, small/rural communities and the home office. The fifth section outlines the issues involved in responding to subpoenas. The sixth section discusses the legal and ethical complexities and ethical issues involved with risk management. The seventh section details CA laws and regulations regarding elder and adult dependent abuse reporting laws and issues of treatment of children, child abuse reporting laws, and treating dangerous clients. The eighth section details CA law regarding licensing laws and the process of obtaining licenses for LPCCs and LCSWs. It also discuss the issues of scope of practice for LPCCs and LCSWs.Finally, the last section provides an extensive list of the codes of ethics on a variety of topics, such as confidentiality, termination, subpoena, telemental health, record-keeping, gifts, and much more. Additional resources and references are provided for further study, but they are not part of the course.