Walden University COUN 6723 Multicultural Counseling A Comparison and Contrast of Two Court Rulings

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A Comparison and Contrast of Two Court Rulings Ary’Anah Walker Walden University A Comparison and Contrast of Two Court Rulings The purpose of this paper is to give insight into how two court ... cases, Tarasoff v. Regents of California (1976) and Estates of Morgan v. Fairfield Family Counseling Center (1997) and how they have impacted confidentiality practices in the counseling profession. The first section gives information on both court cases and how they are the same and different. The second section describes how the court rulings of these cases relate to conditionality in counseling. The third section is where we put on a “counselor hat” and discuss how the rulings may clarify or make it more difficult for a counselor. Lastly, we will end with a conclusion of the paper. A Comparison and Contrast of the Court Decisions In the case of Tarasoff v. Regents of California (1976) is best known for its precise holding that once a therapist determines that a patient poses as a dangerous threat to others, it is the counselors duty to warn the correct professionals in order to protect the parties in danger (Edwards, 2013). This case involved a male patient, Prosenjit Poddar, and a university employed psychologist and what he expressed to his counselor. Poddar expressed his intention to kill Ms.Tarasoff to his psychologist, even though Ms.Tarasoff did not know of the treat herself (Edwards, 2013). The psychologist expressed this threat to the appropriate authorities but Poddar was released and neither Ms.Tarasoff nor her family was warned about the threat. The result of this was the death of Ms.Tarasoff at the hands of Poddar. The ruling of this case was that the interest of public safety outweighed the confidentiality between a counselor and client (Edwards, 2013). [Show More]

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