Ethical Issues and Dilemmas among the Counselors in Nepal

Abstract

It would be interesting to know how counselors in Nepal deal with ethical dilemma in the absence of necessary laws, licensing body and ethical code of rules published by professional associations deemed necessary for professional integrity and effectiveness. Hence, in this context, the current study was conducted to explore understanding of three most important ethical dilemmas among the counselors in Nepal i.e. value conflicts, confidentiality and boundary. The study was based on primary data collected through a questionnaire which included both open and close ended item that mostly relied on descriptive analysis. Purposive and snowball sampling method was used where majority of the respondents were working as counselors in different NGOs providing psychosocial counseling services to the various communities around the country. The result showed that the counselors were aware that they should never impose their values on their clients, maintain confidentiality and boundary issues such as not to have sexual and economic relationships with their clients. However, counselors also seemed to have a very brief exposure to courses related to ethics during their training programs as upon further exploration it was found that nearly 57 percent of the counselors were not sure that it was their responsibility to report a child sexual abuse to the concerned authorities which was in contrast to majority of the developed countries such as USA, UK and Australia which require mandatory report of child sexual abuse. As counseling and psychotherapy aren’t ubiquitous in this country, such clarity would ensure compliance of professional ethics among the counselors which may require promulgation of necessary laws and publication of code of ethics by concerned professional associations working in the field.