Ethics in Relational Practice

Ethical practice becomes more complex when counseling involves multiple participants. Earn 2 CE hours while learning to establish clear therapeutic expectations and recognize when consultation or additional legal guidance may be necessary.

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100% Online | On-demand | 2.0 CE Hours | Only $15.95

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Why Take This Course

When more than one person participates in therapy, ethical responsibilities become more complex, opening questions such as: Who is the client? How should confidentiality be handled when multiple people are involved? What happens when one participant shares information privately? And, when should clinicians seek consultation or legal guidance before proceeding? In this course you will:

Understand how ethics considerations differ when working with individuals as opposed to working with multi-person systems.
Strengthen your ability to identify and document the client or unit of treatment, participant roles, and informed consent expectations.
Explore considerations surrounding privacy, individual disclosures, and information sharing in relational therapy.
Learn to identify situations that require reviewing state laws, licensing regulations, professional guidance, or consultation with legal counsel.
Develop greater awareness of challenges involved in relational and systemic clinical practice.

What You'll Learn

By the end of this course, you will be better able to:

differentiate individual therapy ethics from systemic ethical responsibilities when multiple people participate in therapy;
define and document the client/unit of treatment, participant roles, consent expectations, confidentiality boundaries, and policies for individual disclosures in systems therapy;
identify when state law, licensing rules, consultation, or legal counsel must be checked before acting in a multi-person clinical situation.

Who Developed This Course

Senior Instructor Teresa McDowell

Teresa McDowell, EdD, LMFT is professor emerita at Lewis & Clark, where she served as department chair and co-founded the college’s Problem Gambling Services. With over 40 years of experience as a clinician, educator, administrator, and consultant, Teresa focuses on workforce development, equity-based clinical practice, integrated treatment for problem gambling, and clinical supervision. She is a social researcher, program evaluator, and consultant with Partners in Social Research and Senior Instructor for ACORN. Dr. McDowell has authored more than 50 scholarly publications and is lead author of Socioculturally Attuned Family Therapy: Applying Third Order Thinking to Theory and Practice (3rd Ed., 2026).

Who This Course Is For

Counselors, therapists, psychologists, social workers, addiction treatment professionals, peer support specialists, clinical supervisors, and other behavioral health professionals, including:

mental health counselors (MHC / LPC), marriage and family therapists (MFT / LMFT), art therapists (AT / LAT), social workers (SW / LSW / LCSW), psychologists;
Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselors (CADCs) and Certified Gambling Addiction Counselors (CGACs);
Qualified Mental Health Associates (QMHAs) and Qualified Mental Health Professionals (QMHPs);
peers and behavioral health supervisors.

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at your pace, 100% online

$15.95

2.0 CE Hours

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What About CE Hours

A certificate of completion will be available on the Student Dashboard after you complete all required course activities and the course evaluation survey.

ACORN is approved by the Mental Health & Addiction Certification Board of Oregon (MHACBO), Provider ID: 26-0044, to provide continuing education courses. Additionally, ACORN is approved by the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7274. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. ACORN is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.

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Important Disclaimer

The information provided in this course is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.

Laws, rules, regulations, and professional codes may change, and information presented in this course may not reflect the most current requirements at the time it is reviewed. You should not act, or refrain from acting, based solely on information provided in this course without reviewing current laws, administrative rules, professional codes, and board guidance, and seeking legal advice from qualified counsel in the relevant jurisdiction when appropriate.