Counseling Ethics for the 21st Century

"The authors have provided an up to date, thought provoking, clearly written, state of the art resource for seasoned professionals as well as neophyte counselors and therapists. They present ethics, not merely as minimal prescriptions but as choices that are maximally or virtuously ethical. Professional mental health workers with a wide variety of training and licenses can benefit from the insights and challenges presented by Elliot and Gale Cohen. The various levels of ethical practice that professional mental health workers face and deal with on a regular basis are explained. The authors allow for a variety of possible ethical resolutions when it is appropriate. I most enthusiastically recommend this book for professionals who function in the ever changing world in which they live and who wish to provide high quality service to their clients." -- Robert Wubbolding, Ed.D. "As one of the founders of the philosophical counseling movement and inventor of Logic-Based Therapy, Elliot D. Cohen has once again made an enormous contribution to the literature in his new book co-authored with Gale Spieler Cohen. In Counseling Ethics for the 21stCentury, the Cohens provide an original analysis of the morality of counseling by examining many ethical challenges that beset all types of professional therapists and mental health practitioners. They argue for what a virtuous therapist should be like while helping others and address many facets of practice including cultivating good character, applying ethical standards, being mindful of the issue of confidentiality and privacy, internet based-interventions, record keeping, working with vulnerable and abused populations, as well as respecting and working with diversity issues. The authors' introduce the technical principles of applying a step-based approach to ethical decision making peppered with lengthy case examples in a wide array of counseling situations that give the reader a real feel for what it is like to be in the consulting room. This is an ideal text for graduate students first being introduced to the counseling process." -- Jon Mills "The orientation of this text around case studies makes it much more understandable and usable for master's-level students in their quest for excellence in counseling." -- Anna M. Viviani