Professional Ethics and Values
What this domain tests
This domain rewards knowing the ethical decision-making process and the core principles: autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, justice, fidelity, and veracity. Expect questions on informed consent, confidentiality and its limits, dual relationships, boundaries, competence, supervision, documentation, and mandated reporting. Know that client self-determination generally prevails when the client is competent and not at imminent risk.
Concepts to hold
Confidentiality is broad but limited by danger to self or others, abuse reporting, court orders, and valid releases. Informed consent requires capacity, disclosure, voluntariness, and documentation. When values conflict with client needs, the ethical response is referral or consultation, not imposition of personal values. Know the sequence for ethical dilemmas: identify the issue, consult the code and laws, consult colleagues or a board, consider consequences, act, and document.
Traps
Distractors often include breaking confidentiality reflexively, imposing personal values, or acting without consultation. Watch for questions that tempt you to "do what's best for the client" without consent. Mandated reporting questions hinge on reasonable suspicion, not proof.
Rule of thumb
When in doubt: consult, document, and choose the least restrictive option that protects safety and autonomy. Safety trumps confidentiality only when there is credible imminent risk.
Worked example
A client discloses intent, plan, and means to harm an identified person. The ethical response is to act to protect the target (e.g., warn and notify authorities as law allows), documenting the reasoning - not to maintain silence, and not to disclose more than necessary.