Ethical and Legal Issues in Counseling Clients With Eating Disorders

Are we there yet? Faculty Members’ Beliefs and Teaching Practices Related to the Ethical Treatment of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Clients

“…For instance, clients might request that therapy be focused on something that is known to cause harm, and in such cases, therapists have a responsibility to redirect the focus of therapy in order to follow their ethical mandate to do no harm (Trinh et al., ). As an example, if a client is struggling with an eating disorder and requested help with learning strategies to be more disciplined in restricting her food intake, a therapist would clearly not comply with such a request and might redirect therapy to address the societal pressures experienced by women to conform to unrealistic ideals of thinness (Brown, Weber, & Ali, ; Choate, Hermann, Pottle, & Manton, ). Another example that illustrates this flawed argument for client autonomy would be a heterosexual man who seeks therapy to improve his ability to better control the behaviors of his wife and children.…”