Adolescent Risk-Taking Behaviors: When Do Student Counselors Break Confidentiality?

Abstract

Confidentiality is integral to counseling relationships, particularly for adolescent clients. The presence of “serious and foreseeable harm” (American Counseling Association [ACA], 2014, p. 5) may require a counselor to breach confidentiality to protect client well-being. However, counselors disagree about the ethicality of a number of professional behaviors, including definitions of risk. Such ethical divergences are even more pronounced for student counselors and when ethical concerns are value laden. A sample of 208 student counselors responded to a brief demographic questionnaire and 16-item ethics survey about an adolescent client engaging in various risking-taking behaviors. Results indicated student counselors were more likely to endorse notifying a parent/guardian as the frequency, intensity, and duration of behaviors increased or if the behavior involved self-harm. Student counselor age was the only participant/training program variable significantly correlated with ethical ratings. Implications for enhanced student counselor training for ethical work with adolescent clients engaged in risk-taking behaviors are discussed.