Ethical Consideration on Addiction Counselors' Multiple Relationships

Abstract

Although addiction counselors are more likely to have ethical dilemmas due to multiple relationships than other counselors, there is a lack of clear ethical guidelines or research on this. The purpose of this study was to identify the issues that can cause ethical dilemmas in relation to multiple relationships in addiction counseling and to identify appropriate guidelines accordingly. As a result, 38 ethical considerations were extracted and classified into six categories: 1) revealing to the client that the counselor himself is a recovery ('self-disclosure'), 2) counselor and client participating together in a selfhelp group ('participation in self-help group'), 3) counselor's relapse ('relapsing counselors in recovery'), 4) recovering counselor's excessive desire to intervene in client healing ('excessive intervention'), 5) thinking that the experience and the client's recovery experience would be the same ('overidentification with the client'), 6) hiring a former client as an employee ('employment'). This study is meaningful in that it reveals the unique issues that addiction counselors may experience in relation to multiple relationships and suggests guidelines accordingly, which will be helpful in ethical education for addiction counselors in the future.