Law and Ethics Vignette Paper#1. Psychology Essay.

Law and Ethics
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Law and ethics
Mark, the licensed therapist in California on matters relating to marriage and family, is in the ethical dilemma in regards to professionalism. His wife and children are gone, and he is left in devastation. He is entirely depressed and does not know what to do; he has a clinic with patients in need of his attention, and on the other hand, seems to need the help even more. An ethical dilemma arises in regards to his decision, r to attend to clients who are also on a suicidal mission or focus on his problems first and let it go, regardless of the outcome.
As the California Marriage and Family Therapist Code of Ethics, CAMFT (2011) notes, marriage, and family therapists have a responsibility, and they should never discriminate their patients. They must respect them and ensure the services sought are accomplished. By this, they should not refuse any professional duty in regards to their religion, disability, gender identity, socioeconomic status, marital status, or gender expression (CAMFT, 2011). Marriage and family therapists like Mark should make all efforts to accommodate everyone, without neglecting their professional duty, but here is the case of Mark. He neglects duty based on his psychological health.
The Code of Ethics describes a provision on treatment disruption, which requires all marriage and family therapists to be professional in their duties, to maintain consistent attention to their patients without any interruption. The consistency covers cases of emergency and providing contact information (CAMFT, 2011). Concerning this provision, Mark is not consistent in his career due to the circumstances he faces. He is to attend to the patient on a suicide mission, this case being an emergency but still fails to do so as the code of ethics demands.
On the other hand, Mark is at risk of conviction from the professional body should he fail to adhere to the ethical demands. California Marriage and Family Therapists Code of ethics require members to practice integrity and professionalism, failure to which they risk termination of membership, and other painful consequences as conviction, expulsion from the professional body, suspending, revoking, and lapsing their licenses. Should the punished therapists continue the practice, then they are considered non-competent. Besides that, the CAMFT Code of ethics requires their members to seek professional assistance when they face personal challenges that are likely to impair their judgment (CAMFT, 2011). In this case, Mark did not find any support when he was depressed a...