Maintaining Ethical Standards

When working with couples and families’ counselors work with the regular ethical standards and also a certain set of standards for families and couples. As family counselors they also have other rules and regulations to go by. If the couples and members of the family are seen separately the counselor can go by the regular ethical standards and rules. If they are seen together than things are seen differently and done differently. This is because you have other people in the room and so confidentiality and other things are different. The ethical standards that they use are called AAMFT standards. AAMFT stands for American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy.

I chose to look at the case study about Emily and Lois. This couple is a same sex lesbian couple who was married in San Francisco when it was legal for same sex couples to get married. They have sense moved to a state where it is illegal for same sex couples to get married. Therefore, their marriage in the states eyes is not a valid marriage. They have also had a child through in vitro fertilization. Emily carried their child. Emily’s parents do not agree with their lifestyle by being a same sex couple and neither do their neighbors. Emily and Lois deal with a lot of negativity and people judging them in everyday life. Emily’s parents are taking them to court to try to get custody of their child, by claiming because they are a same sex couple that they are unfit to be parents. They need someone to support them and help them through this. The have come to counseling for someone to talk to and that can see them for humans and not these awful people others are making them out to be.

As a counselor or human service professional there could be many ethical issues that one could run into with this couple. One could be that a same sex couple is something that is against most religions and seen as something that is not ok to do. Some see it as gross and that only a woman and man should be