Helping professionals assist people with complex and sometimes highly personal problems. This often means delving into many aspects of human behavior spanning a wide spectrum of relationships, organizational settings, and other interwoven circumstances and situations. Doing this in a professional manner requires an ethical awareness that is both well informed and effectively practiced.

Becoming an Ethical Helping Professional takes mental health professionals on a wide-ranging tour of ethics—covering both the theoretical as well as practical aspects of providing sound, ethical care. Coverage goes beyond a laundry-list approach to rules of conduct, and plumbs the philosophical roots embedded in today's professional codes. Engaging case studies explore how ethical rules and principles apply in various real-world settings and specialties.

After covering ethical philosophies, codes, and standards, Becoming an Ethical Helping Professional further discusses:

• The helping relationship from beginning to end
• Confidentiality and trust
• Boundaries, roles, and limits
• Assessment: peering through the right lens
• Research, efficacy, and competence

In addition, this reader-friendly guide includes the specifics of counseling in settings such as:

• Agencies
• Private practice
• Schools
• Rehabilitation counseling
• Couples and family counseling
• Addictions counseling
• Teaching, mentoring, and supervision
• Multicultural settings and situations

A unique and comprehensive resource, Becoming an Ethical Helping Professional challenges students and professionals to consider both the process and the content of making ethical choices as a helping professional.