mental health treatment.
Respond by suggesting strategies to address the legal and ethical considerations your colleagues discussed. Support your responses with evidence-based literature.
(positive comment)
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Psychotherapy is an integral part of mental health treatment. Psychotherapy involves accepted therapies that are capable of producing change or maintain acceptable behavior or function in individuals and families as well as alleviate emotional distress or symptoms that affect individual or family growth and development (American Psychiatric Nurses Association-APNA, 2014). Like in every profession, there are always rules and regulations that guide the actions. Psychotherapy of any type allows the therapists to get to individual’s or families’ confidential issues. Therefore, the legal and ethical rights of the people involved must be considered and respected. However, it is crucial to understand the differences between individual, family, and group therapies.
Difference between legal and ethical considerations for group and family therapy and individual therapy
When it comes to the ethical and legal considerations in psychotherapy, Miller (2018) identified the following essential issues; Responsibility, Confidentiality, personal value as well as informed consent. Responsibility: The therapists must understand her limits in each type of therapy. In individual therapy, the therapist has a one to one relationship with the client; however, the relationship differs in family therapy and group therapy, the therapist views the family or the group as one unit and acts as the group leader, facilitator, environmental manager, educator/teacher, and or cheerleader. The therapist is committed to promoting the welfare of every member involved in the treatment process. Confidentiality, on the other hand is one vital ethical issue in psychotherapy. In individual therapy, the therapist is concerned with keeping the information of the one individual in confidence, whereas in family therapy, confidentiality becomes very crucial. Though the family is considered as one unit, every individual’s secret or information must be kept in confidence. Every member must understand the issue of confidentiality. This issue of confidentiality becomes more difficult in group therapy than individual therapy due to more chances of leakage or breach of confidentiality among the group members. Confidentiality should become one of the most critical group norms, and it should be discussed openly, thoroughly, and often among group members (McClanahan, 2014). Another ethical issue is respect for personal value. It is easy to study and respect individual and family values and culture. However, in group therapy, the counselor has a more significant work of studying every member of the group to avoid offending anyone or be misunderstood.
