COUN5238: Counselor and Client Safety

Research on Counselor and Client Safety Preventing unsafe situations is the best way to keep others and yourself safe. Safety is an important topic within the field of mental heath that is why professional associations address it within the code of ethics; agencies have safety policies and procedures in place and continuous trainings on safety as apart of continuing education. In the counseling profession one must always be concerned about the safety of their client and they also must be concerned about their own safety.

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When people think about safety most of the time people think about the physical wellbeing of an individual but when addressing safety it also includes the mental well being of an individual. This paper will review research on counselor and client safety and the risk factors thatis involved in the process.

Research on Counselor SafetyCounselor safety is addressed in many ways and this involves the counselor being self-aware of their own values, their own physical and emotional status, their own limitations and their own ability to handle the client and the crisis at hand (James & Gilliland, 2013, p. 90), While researching articles addressing counselor safety I found that the emotional wellbeing of the counselor was the safety issue addressed. The two research articles chosen was “The Counselor’s trauma as counseling motivation: Vulnerability or stress inoculation?” and “The unbearable fatigue of compassion: Notes from a substance abuse counselor who dreams of working at Starbuck’s”.

Counselor safety is researched in both articles and each will be summarized and analyzed to increase the understanding and the importance of counselor safety.

In the article “The Counselor’s trauma as counseling motivation: Vulnerability or stress inoculation?” researched counselors that have a history of interpersonal trauma and how working
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SAFETY IN COUNSELING4with clients with similar trauma may affect the counselor directly. There are three constructs validated and relevant to the effects of trauma work with counselors.

The first construct is secondary traumatic stress, which reviews the negative effects close contact with trauma survivors. The secondary traumatic stress c