Faculty Contact Information:
1. Telephone: 0033-(0)3-88-22-21-10. I live in France and the first two numbers indicate the country code and the following 0 is only used when calling within France. Otherwise, drop the first 0 when dialing. I have an answering machine and will be able to contact you within 24 hours within the week.
2. Email: My email address is: priceb@faculty.ed.umuc.edu. With the number of students in class writing to me about various issues, it may be helpful to include a summary of any previous correspondence to help my memory.
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Consultation:
| Consultation is available by either email or telephone, although email is probably more reliable as I will also be commuting a lot for Term I. | |
Required Texts and Readings:
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Swenson, L.C. (1996). Psychology and the law for the helping professions. 2nd Edition. Wadsworth.
Corey, G., Corey, M., & Callanan, P. (2003). Issues and ethics in the helping professions. 6th Edition. Brooks/Cole. | |
Supplementary Readings:
| Selected readings to augment the issues raised in the textbooks are available in the Course Content section within the Webtycho classroom. In addition, all graduate students should be prepared to utilize the UMUC online library at http://www.umuc.edu/library/ to prepare their group and individual projects. | |
Recommended Journals:
• Journal of Counseling and Development
• Journal of Counseling Psychology
• Law and Contemporary Problems
• Law and Human Behavior
• Law and Psychology Review
• Psychiatry, Psychology, and Law
• Psychology, Public Policy, and Law
A variety of full-text, online, free-of-charge and pay-per-view academic journals are listed on the Counseling Webboard at http://www.ed.umuc.edu/graduate/webboards/ | |
Course Description:
| This course is designed to provide the helping professional with the knowledge of the major ethical and legal issues in counseling and psychotherapy today. Students will be exposed to such topics as ethical theory, laws and court decisions, incompetence, malpractice, licensure and certification, privileged communications, DSM IV and Family Therapy, legal liabilities affecting psychologists, and legal obligations of psychotherapists. Ethical standards for individual practitioners will be examined in detail. Participants will be involved in case research, group discussions, group reports, and individual presentations of ethical and legal issues in the field of counseling and psychotherapy. | |
Course Goals:
| As a profession, counseling is both sanctioned and censured by aspects of the individual practitioner, the professional community, and the broader American society. The overall goal of this course is to acquaint students with moral, ethical, and legal issues that affect the practice of counseling. Such issues include individual moral development, ethical decision-making models, the ethical guidelines for professional practice of counseling described by the American Counseling Association and the American Psychological Association, the roles played by counseling experts within the American legal system, family protection laws, legal issues pertaining to regulating mental health treatment, professional licensure and practice issues. | |
Course Objectives:
To become familiar with the distinctions between moral, ethical, and legal behavior, as applied to the practice of counseling.
To acquire experience using ethical reasoning skills to apply professional ethics within case scenarios to resolve potential counseling problems.
To discuss some of the major professional activities faced by mental health professionals working within the legal system, including their potential ethical conflicts.
To become familiar with statutory and case law as it impacts the mental health practitioner. | |
Grading Information:
Students' performance will be graded based upon a percentage of total possible points obtained during the course. In general, it will be necessary to obtain a minimum of 90% of the course points to achieve an A, at least 80% of the points for a B, at least 70% of total possible points for a C. Anything below 70% is an F.
Please note that Bowie State University does not use "D" for graduate students. The grade F(a) is used to designate academic failure. F(n) is used to designate failure for non-completion. Grades of Incomplete or Withdrawal are governed by UMUC-Europe policies. For further details, please refer to the UMUC-Europe Graduate Catalog, available in your local Education Center or online at http://www.ed.umuc.edu/general_info/publications/catalogs. | |
Course Requirements:
The required assignments for this course with their distribution of points are as follows:
1. Midterm Exam – 15 points
2. Individual Paper – 30 points
3. Two (2) Student Presentations – 20 points each, 40 points total
4. Class Participation – 15 points | |
Description of Course Requirements:
1. Midterm Exam (1). There will be one take-home essay exam to explore student’s ability to apply professional ethics to specific case scenarios illustrating potential ethical and/or legal problems.
2. Paper (1). Students will explore a particular topic of personal interest. The paper must be 10 pages in length, if it were presented in a double-spaced, typed manuscript with one-inch margins. If sources other than the textbook are cited in your paper, you must cite the reference in the text and at the end of the paper, using the current APA writing style. Since this is a "review of the literature" paper (as opposed to a scientific research project paper), I am mostly interested that you know where to place the margins and page numbering and how to cite references properly.
3. Student Group Presentations (2 total). Beginning the second and seventh week of class, students will be placed into teams of 4-5 persons. Each team will be provided information about a case or topic that raises issues for counseling ethics or legal issues, which will be described in detail in Study Group section. Students will prepare a collaborative document that will require a review of class readings to identify the relevant issues for counselors and law as they pertain specifically to the case at hand. A good response would acknowledge the potential conflicts within or between the individual, professional, and societal levels of regulating counseling while acknowledging the historical realities that they share. The group will also provide an opinion of how the issues raised by the case or topic could be reconciled.
4. Participation (Weekly assignments): Participation is essential for benefiting from an online class. Your regular participation will be recorded by your input into our weekly assignments within the Conference areas. The grade for the participation will be determined by both your amount of student in the class and the quality of your participation. Late assignments will not be accepted without a proper excuse, as noted in the class policy section. | |
Course Schedule:
The tentative weekly topics for the class include:
1. Introduction to regulating the profession of counseling: Differences between moral, ethical, and legal action.
2. Moral development theory
3. Professional codes of ethics for counselors: Introduction to the ethical guidelines of the American Counseling Association and the American Psychological Association
4. Ethical Decision-Making Models
5. Applied Ethical Decision-Making I
6. Applied Ethical Decision-Making II
7. Overview of the American legal process. Roles played by social scientists and mental health practitioners within the American legal system. Paradigm differences between the legal system and the helping professions.
8. Expert testimony. Assessment issues: Risk assessment, malingering, and competency.
9. Family protection services, child custody, and guardianship
10. Right to refuse treatment. Civil commitment and involuntary treatment;
11. Duty to warn.
12. Professional licensure; diagnosis
13. Malpractice.
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Academic Policies:
Please refer to the UMUC – Europe Graduate Catalog, available online at http://www.ed.umuc.edu/general_info/publications/catalogs/ or from your local Education Center, for information on the following:
Academic Integrity
Course Load
Exception to Policy
Grade Appeal Process
Make-up Examinations
Nondiscrimination
Students with Disabilities | |
Faculty Bio:
For those of you curious about my professional background, I am a Collegiate Professor, teaching both undergraduate psychology and graduate counseling classes for Maryland. I grew up in the Ozarks of Missouri and have all my degrees from Midwestern institutions (Central Missouri State, University of Kansas, and Iowa State University). This is my fourth year teaching for UMUC in the overseas division, having first taught in Okinawa, then transferring to England where I was the Resident Graduate Professor (a.k.a. faculty advisor) for the Counseling Program until moving to France. Prior to joining Maryland, I was a licensed psychologist providing outpatient counseling and supervising a community mental health services’ program within a medium-sized detention center. My two major professional interests include the interface between mental health policy and law and cross-cultural issues in counseling and psychology. I consider my most significant early adulthood experience being a two-year service in the Peace Corps in the Central African Republic, where I opened the gates to my wanderlust that has not yet retreated.
One Other Caveat for the Class:
I would like to point out that there is nothing indicated within these objectives cited here, or anywhere else in the course materials, that should be construed as either the presentation of legal advice or the preparation of students to enter litigation. This is not a law course and your instructor is a counseling psychologist, not a legal scholar. Hopefully, you will gain an appreciation of the legal world and some of its underpinnings, but I suggest to you to seek a qualified legal professional should you ever need to get particular legal advice or opinion. | |