It’s the Lack of Thought That Counts: Ethical Decision Making in Dual Relationships

The Modern Therapist's Survival Guide with Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy

It’s the Lack of Thought That Counts: Ethical Decision Making in Dual Relationships

Curt and Katie chat about dual relationships. We talk about the types of dual relationships, how often therapists get in trouble for these types of relationships, how to manage dual relationships, and the ethical decision making process to go through to decide whether to engage in a dual relationship. This is a law and ethics continuing education podcourse.

Transcripts for this episode will be available at mtsgpodcast.com!

In this podcast episode we talk about ethical decision making to navigate dual relationships

We take a deeper dive into the complex relationships that we can have with our clients, our supervisors and our supervisees.

What are dual relationships?

• Therapists know a lot about a very specific dual relationship: having sex with your clients, which is not acceptable
• There are many different types of potential dual relationships (we talk about the definitions of each type)
• The different hats we may wear with clients and colleagues

What is a strong formal process for ethical decision making?

• Pope and Vasquez have a 17 Step Process for ethical decision making
• Deeply examining the question, the impact, and exploring any bias
• Identifying and understanding relevant laws and ethics
• Consultation, documentation, and evaluation
• We walk through a specific dual relationship question: what happens if your client refers a friend and colleague to you? How do you decide whether to take the client or not?

For more information about the podcourse: learn.moderntherapistcommunity.com/pages/podcourse