Managing Professional Boundaries and Group Counseling Strategies
Part 1: Clients and Social Media
In this scenario, I would not maintain Mike as a Facebook/other social media friend or accept the other group members’ friend requests. Understanding that self-disclosure is a heated ethical debate, Freud suggested that a psychologist/therapist needs to carry themselves as a blank slate, showing clients nothing (Baier, 2019). However, in this error, it is almost impossible to be anonymous, whether intentionally or not. Our assignment writing help is at affordable prices to students of all academic levels and academic disciplines.
The guidelines for working with future clients are based on Freud’s concept. First, I would consider privacy alternatives in the online platforms and evaluate if they meet my ethical and personal needs of discretion. If it compromises my professional image, I would not use that social media platform (Demers & Sullivan, 2016). I would use pseudonyms and blockage of personal data from public view, including friends and family. I would be selective in creating my social networks, especially with acquaintances. I would also hide my profile for search engines like Yahoo, Bing, and Google and review my profile to ensure sensitive data is unavailable. I would explain to clients that it is a professional code to interact with them professionally only.
The main benefit of using social media in work is that it enhances the visibility of the organization. It also attracts clients and can improve the organization’s reputation. However, social media can be a source of loss of trust between a psychologist and clients and ruin that trust. According to Baier (2019), it can create doors of breach of contract and harassment, threats, and stalking against psychologists.
Regarding ethical concerns, APA does not particularly talk about social media in the code of conduct. However, researchers have found that combining professional and personal relationships risks impairment of objectivity and judgment. This can interfere with therapy/treatment/supervision, thus exploiting or harming patients or vice versa, especially in small communities (Demers & Sullivan, 2016).
I would determine when boundary crossings may be culturally and therapeutically appropriate for working with some clients but not others by considering the client’s welfare and treatment effectiveness. I would also consider the conflict of interest and clinical judgment impairment as concerns before deciding on the appropriateness of boundary closing (Baier, 2019).
Part 2: Group Counseling Strategies
In the initial stage, I would set expectations for the group, including goals, roles, and trust. Any conflict and confidentiality matters would be addressed from this stage, as well as cultural concerns. I would explain to the group members how to handle conflict and confrontation and how we would solve any issues arising during the sessions. For instance, I would set the expectations that one person would share their problems, and the rest of the team members expected to pay attention and listen. According to Yusop et al. (2020), this stage determines whether members will continue their sessions or go back to their addictions. To attain maximum involvement and help Rubin, I would use motivational techniques like attendance prompts, experiential pre-training, role induction, and psychoeducation to engage him and others.
In the transition stage, if the foundations of the sessions are well-laid in the initial stage, this stage would not be as difficult as it ought to be. However, this is the stage where everyone is nervous and anxious about expressing themselves to a group of strangers (Yusop et al., 2020). I would, therefore, coordinate the group’s activity to focus not only on the content alone but also on the process. Therefore, I would help Rubin and other members by allocating time to address the issues that arise, paying keen attention to the group members’ relations, and creating an ambiance of compassion and honesty.
In the working stage, I would read every member’s non-verbal and verbal language and encourage group members to be candid about their feelings and to speak their minds confidently. I would facilitate non-judgmental agreement in the group to allow people to speak freely.
Lastly, I would use counseling strategies such as psychoeducational groups. In this strategy, groups are educated regarding addictive behaviors like substance use and their consequences (Legendre & Bégin, 2023). I would structure the lessons as group-specific and use various materials, including lectures, videotapes, and testimonials. I could also use cognitive-behavioral groups, which conceptualize the art of dependency as behavior that is learned and is molded to modification via certain interventions such as response-desensitization, contingency approaches, and identifying conditioned stimuli (Legendre & Bégin, 2023).
References
Baier, A. L. (2019). The ethical implications of social media: Issues and recommendations for clinical practice. Ethics & Behavior, 29(5), 341-351.
Demers, J. A., & Sullivan, A. L. (2016). Confronting the ubiquity of electronic communication and social media: Ethical and legal considerations for psychoeducational practice. Psychology in the Schools, 53(5), 517-532.
Legendre, M., & Bégin, C. (2023). Group therapy to reduce maladaptive eating behaviors in people with overweight or obesity: Does food addiction impact the treatment response?. Eating Behaviors, 49, 101720.
Yusop, Y. M., Zainudin, Z. N., Jaafar, W. M. W., Othman, W. N. W., & Baharudin, D. F. (2020). The effects of group counseling. Journal of Critical Reviews.
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Question 
Part 1: Clients and Social Media
You receive a request from Mike, who is “friends” with at least twenty of your existing friends on Facebook (or another social media platform). You have not met him, so you ask some of your shared friends who you do know well about him. You receive all positive reports about Mike. You notice he shares many of your interests, and the information he posts is appropriate and generally positive, so you accept his friend request. Over about a two-year period, he makes positive comments about your posts and you do the same for his posts. Eventually, you two also become connected on other social media sites, but there has never been any communication about connecting outside of the social media platforms. You never meet him personally until he becomes a client in a counseling group that you facilitate. He has a common last name and introduced himself as Michael in the group. He has grown a beard, which he did not have in the photos he posted online, so you do not recognize him as your Facebook friend. After your third session, he tags you on his post about how much he is learning in his group counseling session with his “wonderful counselor”—you. After he tags you, three other members of your counseling group reply to Mike’s post about how much they enjoy you as a counselor, and they send you friend requests. For Part 1 of your post, address each of the following:
Managing Professional Boundaries and Group Counseling Strategies
Decision: Clearly state whether you will maintain Mike as a Facebook/other social media “friend” and how you would respond to the friend requests of the other group members.
Guidelines: Formulate a list of guidelines for setting boundaries that you can apply to working with future clients. Specify how you will communicate these guidelines to your clients. If appropriate, identify any exceptions you would make to these guidelines and explain your rationale, citing your textbook and additional scholarly sources.
Pros and Cons: Identify the pros and cons of using social media in your work as a helping professional.
Ethical Concerns: Summarize the ethical aspects of combining professional and personal relationships. Then, explain the ethical challenges in managing multiple relationships in small communities.
Culture and Boundaries: Explain how you would determine when boundary crossings may be culturally and therapeutically appropriate for working with some clients but not others.
Part 2: Group Counseling Strategies
Rubin signed up for a 12-week men’s counseling group for men who experienced physical or sexual abuse as children and who have difficulty maintaining healthy relationships as adults. Many of the men have also struggled with addictive behaviors intermittently in their lives (e.g., alcohol, tobacco, other drugs, sex, food).
During the first month, Rubin realizes that he has a hard time opening up to others. He eventually begins to feel that his own personal concerns are irrelevant to others. Rubin feels increasingly frustrated by times when what he wants to talk about gets sidelined to make space for issues the other participants want to discuss. He was raised to not show much emotion, and, thus, keeps a straight face throughout the sessions. Even when he identifies with one of the men, he chooses to be a detached observer. As a result, he is assumed to be disinterested in the struggles of the other members.
The group’s therapist meets Rubin privately and advises him to become more of a participant and disclose his struggles, pointing out that this will help him develop connections with others and make the group more receptive to hearing his concerns. Rubin’s behavior shifts to the other extreme, and he begins to monopolize the discussion, sharing his experiences and feelings. When other members try to share their challenges, Rubin responds by sharing more about himself.
By the middle of the second month, Rubin is confronted by several members for not listening and not caring and for being self-absorbed. Rubin changes his behavior again. He now finds himself giving advice, sometimes categorizing and labeling others. This behavior is also not well received by the group members as he is seen as being judgmental—a description that Rubin responds to by becoming defensive. Rubin misses the next two group sessions. When the therapist calls to check on him, Rubin says he is dropping out of the group. The therapist convinces him to try at least two more sessions before making a final decision.
For Part 2 of your post, take the role of the therapist and address each of the following items:
Group Stages and Leader Tasks: Based on your assigned reading, discuss specific actions you would take to help Rubin acclimate to the group for each of the following stages:
Initial Stage
Transition Stage
Working Stage
Counseling Strategies: Select at least two counseling strategies for use with a counseling group of this type. Discuss research from at least one peer-reviewed journal article or chapter from a scholarly book published in the last 15 years to justify your counseling strategy choices.