In the state of Illinois, the extent to which therapy sessions with adolescents are confidential is at the determination of the therapist when it comes to whether or not to disclose to parents. I highly value the confidentiality of the therapy context, and believe that it's my job to work to have an adolescent tell his or her own parents important information, so that I can eventually be out of the picture and they have new skills in regard to communication with one another. But there are limits to that, and I often tell the teen, you can tell your mom/dad at the end of the session, or I will. Which do you prefer? Or, you have until our next session to tell mom or dad this or we'll be doing it in that session.
Here's a list we're supposed to rank for my Advanced Ethics course. What do you think? Tell me your ratings and then I'll show you mine after some people have responded.
Would you require disclosure to parents (or anyone else) for any of the following behaviors on the part of your 16 year teen client even if the teen doesn’t want you to disclose? Give your rating on the following scale for each of the following:
Rank the 0-10 with 0 being Would Not Disclose, 5 Totally Depends, 10 Definitely disclose.
_____ Being sexually active?
_____ Being sexually active without the use of protection?
_____ Being sexually promiscuous?
_____ Doing marijuana once per week on the weekend?
_____ Smoking pot daily before school?
_____ Doing ecstasy once per month?
_____ Driving into a dangerous neighborhood to buy heroin for the teen’s personal use?
_____ Dealing / selling drugs?
_____ Vandalism (graffiti)
_____ Petty retail theft
_____ Buying a fake i.d. to use in bars
_____ Selling fake ids to others
_____ Your client tells you that she is having sex with an 18 year old girl
_____ Your client tells you that she is having sex with a 35 year old
_____ Stealing bikes from kids in the neighborhood and re-selling them elsewhere
_____ Your client was in a group fight with kids from a rival high school and thinks that he may have broken the nose and arm of another kid and possibly fractured the other kid’s skull as well
_____ Your client stole a car
_____ Your client plans to be involved in a large scale fight between rival groups this weekend
_____ Your client plans to have a party at her home this weekend when her parents are away
_____ Your client is pregnant and her parents don’t know
_____ And she is thinking about having an abortion
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5 comments:
I think the only ones you could break confidentiality over would be the gang fight and possibly the possible fractured skull. Maybe the heroin buy. And maybe the sex with the 35-year old.
Oops, that comment was actually me, not Nicole. Learn to sign out, dammit! :)
LOL. love the banter. Okay, let me look them over and I'll weigh in too. You're doing this during the Bears game? You're no chicago fan either!
That's my husband bantering with himself due to his inability to manage to click "sign out." He also didn't follow the directions. ;)
I think the issue (and this is purely theoretical for me, obviously) is what good do you hope to gain. Will you stop some self-destructive behavior for one weekend only to lose the trust relationship? Will you only push that on to another therapist?
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