Dual relationships: a continuum ranging from the destructive to the therapeutic.(Practice & Theory)

Ethical decision making is an ongoing process with no easy answers. In order to promote the well-being of clients, counselors must constantly balance their own values and life experiences with professional codes of ethics as they make choices about how to help their clients effectively. Therefore, knowing ethical codes and the consequences of unsanctioned practice can be useful tools to counselors during their attempts to establish therapeutic relationships with clients (Herlihy & Corey, 1997). However, although professional codes of conduct provide guidelines for how counselors should behave with clients, they do not furnish absolute answers for how counselors must act in every situation (Remley, Hermann, & Huey, 2003). Consequently, practitioners must combine their understanding of ethical codes with sound judgment to serve the best interests of their clients.

Some of the most challenging ethical situations result from dual relationships between counselors and others. "A dual relationship is created whenever the role of counselor is combined with another relationship, which could be professional (e.g., professor, supervisor, employer) or personal (e.g., friend, close relative, sexual partner)" (Herlihy & Remley, 2001, p. 80). For example, a counselor who serves as both a therapist and a business partner or friend to a client is engaged in a dual relationship (Maley & Reilly, 1999). Because there are many types of dual relationships and because ethical codes provide only general guidelines for handling these relationships, counselors sometimes have difficulty understanding what dual relationships are and how to handle them. The purpose of this article is to explore this issue and to provide counselors with information about, and suggestions for, managing ethical dilemmas pertaining to personal and professional entanglements between practitioners and their clients. Although other forms of dual relationships have been discussed in the literature (e.g., between supervisor and supervisee, professor and student), this article is focused on dual relationships between counselors and their clients.

In this article, dual relationships are defined and pertinent ethical standards from several professional organizations are cited. Examples of harmful and helpful dual relationships are discussed as well as their impact on the client, counselor, and profession as a whole. Guidelines regarding multiple relationships, developed to protect the client as well as the practitioner, are examined. This article demonstrates that dual relationships fall on a continuum ranging from the destructive to the therapeutic.

What Are Dual Relationships?

A dual or a multiple relationship exists whenever a counselor has other connections with a client in addition or in succession to the counselor-client relationship. "This may involve assuming more than one professional role (such as instructor and therapist) or blending professional and nonprofessional relationships (such as a counselor and friend or counselor and business partner)" (Corey, Corey, & Callanan, 1998, p. 225). According to the American Counseling Association Code of Ethics & Standards of Practice (American Counseling Association [ACA], 1995), "Examples of such relationships include, but are not limited to, familial, social, financial, business, or close personal relationships with clients" (p. 3). Similarly, the most recent revision of the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (American Psychological Association [APA], 2002) provides the following definition:

 
   A multiple relationship occurs when a psychologist is in a 
   professional role with a person and (1) at the same time is in 
   another role with the same person, (2) at the same time is in a 
   relationship with a person closely associated with or related 
   to the person with whom the psychologist has the professional 
   relationship, or (3) promises to enter into another relationship 
   in the future with the person or a person closely 
   associated with or related to the person. ([paragraph] 3.05) 

Typically, dual relationships are classified as either sexual (occurring with either a current or former client) or nonsexual (with a current client). According to Coleman and Schaefer (1986), sexual dual relationships are abusive and can include either overt forms of sexual contact with clients (e.g., passionate kissing, fondling, sexual intercourse, oral or anal sex, and sexual penetration with objects) and/or other less obvious expressions of sexual behavior (e.g., sexual gazes and seductiveness). There are also numerous kinds of nonsexual and nonromantic dual relationships, including the following: personal or friendship relationships, social interactions and events, business or financial relationships, collegial or professional relationships, supervisory or evaluative relationships, religious affiliation relationships, collegial or professional plus social relationships, and workplace relationships (Anderson & Kitchener, 1996).

Dual relationships can come about in two ways: by choice and by chance. When dual relationships are formed as a result of a conscious choice made by the counselor, he or she must examine the potential positive and negative consequences that the secondary relationship might have for the primary counseling relationship. The counselor should choose to enter into the dual relationship only when it is clear that such a relationship is in the client's best interests. However, in some circumstances, the counselor has little choice about engaging in a dual relationship. For example, in sparsely populated rural areas, a dual relationship between a practitioner and a client may be unavoidable because

 
   Their children may have the same teacher, they may both 
   volunteer for the United Way drive, or they may bump into 
   each other waiting at the dentist's office. Since they drive the 
   same streets all the time, they may even be involved ill the 
   same traffic accident at some point! (Welfel, 1998, p. 180) 

In other circumstances, fate can play a role in blurring the boundaries between counselors and their clients. Pope and Vetter (1992) illustrated this point with one counselor's story of some very disruptive neighbors: It was only after filing a formal complaint against the neighbors that the counselor learned that one of his clients was his landlord. Although the circumstances surrounding multiple relationships may vary--sexual or nonsexual, current or former client, and cultivated by the counselor or brought about by circumstance--they all share a common defining element, the potential to either aid or sabotage the counseling relationship.

Relevant Moral Principles

Gladding (2000) described several moral principles that form the basis of making ethical decisions: autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, justice, fidelity, and veracity. From these moral principles flow the ethics and standards of practice of professional mental health associations, their purpose being to establish relatively clear expectations for professional behavior. Particularly significant to the ethical standards regarding dual relationships are autonomy and nonmaleficence. Both play vital roles in determining the impact an additional connection between counselor and client will have on the counseling relationship. Autonomy refers to the client's …