Risk Management: Towards Ethical Risk Management Practices

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Therapists have been warned by risk management experts, attorneys, and insurance companies to never touch a client, to limit self-disclosure and gifts, to avoid bartering or making home visits or leaving the office with clients and, by all means, to stay away from any form of dual relationship. This course will help therapists differentiate between boundary crossings and boundary violations and also to differentiate between clinical, ethical and risk management issues. While minimizing risk is clearly important, the course is concerned with risk management practices that are carried out at the expense of clients’ welfare and of therapeutic effectiveness.

This intermediate-level course is comprised of 11 articles and one audio with transcript. It sheds light on the origin of and the forces behind risk management practices and realistically looks at the level of risk that therapists are facing in their line of work. More specifically, it provides basic guidance on issues such as gifts, fees, touch, and therapy outside the office. The course also reviews the ethical and legal considerations regarding risk management and proposes ethical ways to minimize risk to therapists without compromising their clinical integrity. Additional resources and references are provided for further study, but they are not part of the course.

Educational Objectives

Describe the complexities of risk management practices.
Report the origin of and the forces behind risk management.
Explain how to minimize risk to therapists without compromising their clinical integrity.
Cite the relationships between risk management and the standard of care.
Discuss the relationships between risk management practices and the codes of ethics and the law, with emphasis on California law.
Utilize tools to make clinical and ethical decisions with regard to risk management concerns.

Syllabus

Introduction to Risk Management
Reducing Risk in Psychotherapy and Counseling
Differentiating Between Clinical, Ethical, Legal and Risk Management Issues
Risk Management and Clinical Effectiveness
Concerns with Boundaries: Differentiating Between Boundary Crossings and Boundary Violations
Standard of Care and Risk Management
Reviewing Issues of Gifts, Touch and Therapy Outside the Office as They Relate to Risk Managment
Re-Thinking the Slippery Slope Concept
Guidelines to Ethical Risk Management
Laws and Risk Management with Emphasison California Law
Guidelines for Ethical Risk Management

RM201

May 14, 2018

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