Post an explanation of how legal and ethical considerations for group and family therapy differ from those for individual therapy. Then, explain how these differences might impact your therapeutic approaches for clients in group and family therapy. Support your rationale with evidence-based literature.

Legal and Ethical Considerations

Psychotherapy is a method applied in group and individual settings to address psychiatric disorders. The group and family settings involve the application of psychotherapy concepts among two or more individuals at the same time and within the same setting. However, individual setting involves applying psychotherapy concepts to an individual. In applying psychotherapy concepts, therapists face different ethical and legal concerns. Legal and Ethical Considerations Example Paper  The therapists must be aware of these concerns in order to act in a professional manner while providing the much needed treatment services (Gehart, 2016). Confidentiality and privacy are legal and ethical considerations in both individual and group settings. Still, these considerations differ in their presentations. With respect to individual therapy, confidentiality and privacy concerns are centered on the therapist as the client is not bound by the same considerations. The client holds domain over the medical information and can make a decision about which third parties can access the information. On the other hand, confidentiality and privacy concerns in group and family therapy are centered on the therapist and clients. This creates a subtle environment as the information provided by one client is available to the therapist as well as the other clients (Jones-Smith, 2016). While the therapist is bound by professional principles to keep any disclosures private, these principles do not extend to the other clients.

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Given this awareness about the change in therapeutic dynamics when shifting between individual and group therapies, the therapist must make the clients in group therapies aware of these subtleties and the need to develop trust within the therapeutic alliance. Developing trust within the group and between group members would allow them to interact with each other and freely interact within the therapeutic environment without fear of judgement, intimidations, or unnecessary disclosure private experiences and thoughts (Capuzzi & Stauffer, 2016). In this respect, the therapist must be aware of the subtleties, ambiguities and nuances of interpersonal interactions, and leverage them to develop trust in group and family therapy in order to address confidentiality and privacy concerns as legal and ethical considerations.

References

Capuzzi, D., & Stauffer, M. (Eds.). (2016). Counseling and Psychotherapy: Theories and Interventions. American Counseling Association.

Gehart, D. (2016). Theory and Treatment Planning in Counseling and Psychotherapy (2^nd ed.). Cengage Learning.

Jones-Smith, E. (2016). Theories of Counseling and Psychotherapy: An Integrative Approach (2^nd ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc.  Legal and Ethical Considerations Example Paper