Journal of Psychology & Psychotherapy
Open Access
ISSN: 2161-0487
ISSN: 2161-0487
Stavroula Paraskevopoulou
Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Psychol Psychother
In psychotherapy with adolescents there are very frequent cases of conflict of duties in which the therapist will have to violate one ethical principle in order to respect another. Adolescents often seek help from the psychotherapist at the urging of their parents and reveal during psychotherapy various issues that they had hidden from their parents and do not want their parents to find out, such as drug use, involvement in delinquent groups and illegal activities, termination of pregnancy etc. At this point the following question arises: Should the psychotherapist respect the principle of autonomy and privacy but violate the principle of benefit and leave the adolescent at risk or should disclosure confidential information to parents to protect the adolescent and violate the principle of autonomy and professional confidentiality? This paper concludes that codes of conduct do not provide ready-made solution because it is not possible to predict all the possible situations that may arise in the psychotherapeutic context. Excellent knowledge of the codes of ethics is necessary but not enough, because general guidelines it gives should be treated critically and according to the specifics of each case in order for psychotherapy to achieve its purpose, that is the promotion of health, quality of life and prosperity of society.
Dr. Stavroula Paraskevopoulou is a clinical psychologist-psychotherapist specialized in ethics in psychology, postdoctoral researcher at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and Consultant Professor at Hellenic Open University.