You will prepare and submit a term paper on Confidentiality in Marital and Family Counseling. Your paper should be a minimum of 1500 words in length.
You will prepare and submit a term paper on Confidentiality in Marital and Family Counseling. Your paper should be a minimum of 1500 words in length. Confidentiality in Marital and Family Counseling/Psychotherapy
Confidentiality is often prescribed in many articles on marital and family counseling and psychotherapy, research, and how professional counselors and psychotherapists should deal with couples and families. What do some of the current literature say about confidentiality?
 . . . . . . . . . . . Butler et al. (2009, p. 125) pointed out that one challenge facing marital and family therapists is whether to facilitate partner disclosure or accommodate nondisclosure after the revelation of marital infidelity by one of the couple to the therapist. According to Butler et al., many therapists housed the infidelity secret because doing so is both “efficient” and “compassionate” given the possible repercussions of a revelation on the couple’s relationship (p. 125). In assessing the appropriateness of the accommodation, Butler et al. considered the ethical, pragmatic, consequential, and implications of the total. They concluded that facilitating voluntary disclosure of infidelity is the most honest response to the revelation done confidentially (2009, p. 125).  .The 2009 study of Butler et al. cited Brock & Courfal (1994), who reported that a large majority or 94% of marriage therapists had kept secret a confidentially disclosed infidelity.
According to Butler et al. (2009, p. 127), the nondisclosure of infidelity can be defended based on the principle of nonmaleficence or the direction of doing no harm. On whether the damage was done to the other party in a relationship in a nondisclosure, Butler et al. (2009, p. 127) pointed out that many marriage and family therapists defend nondisclosure non-maleficent because the marriage or couple relationship benefits the couple. However, Butler et al. (2007, p. 127) contradicted this view because “accommodating a secret has a strong potential to harm the relationship and the potential for benefits is doubtful.”  .In other words, Butler et al. argument are that nondisclosure has doubtful beneficence in addition to being a maleficent. Butler et al. (2009, p. 127) also argued that justice and equality ethics imply that each in a partnership or relationship should be fairly treated by both the partner and the therapist.
