Case+of+a+Dual+Relationship

Case -- Literature Review -- Legal Considerations -- Ethical Considerations -- Ethical Decision Making Model -- LPC Interview



= A Dual Relationship = media type="youtube" key="yu3hAjTRiQQ" width="560" height="315" Music in video: "The Dueling Club" from Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets  A thirty-year-old, recently divorced woman, Vanessa, enters counseling because she is thinking about relinquishing physical custody of her two-year-old son and three-year-old daughter to her former husband. Vanessa and her ex-husband maintain a relationship only around visitation arrangements for the children. Both parents live in a large northeastern city in the United States. The children’s father has not remarried, though he has a serious relationship with another woman.

 Vanessa was just accepted at a prestigious law school and does not think that she can adequately care for her children while she attends graduate classes. She feels that after she completed law school and established herself in a career, she will be in a better position to care for the children both financially and emotionally. She hopes to be able to regain custody of her children in about five years. Vanessa’s mother is opposed to this idea and told her daughter that she is an uncaring mother. Her sister and several female friends also voiced similar concerns about the plan. After a heated conversation with her mother and sister, Vanessa realized that she will face a great deal of social pressure if she “abandons her children.” She wants to consider the custody matter carefully. She specifically sought a female counselor whom she felt would better understand her perspective than a male counselor.

 Vanessa’s case is assigned to Phyllis, a middle-aged woman who received her counseling degree three years ago. At their first meeting, Vanessa recognized the counselor as a woman whom she sometimes sees at an early morning aerobics class at the local gym, although the counselor did not recognized Vanessa during the intake interview. The counselor is unsettled by the idea that Vanessa would seriously consider “giving up” her children. She does not fully explore Vanessa’s feelings of guilt about neglecting her children’s care while attending law school or her conflicts about relinquishing custody to work on her career.

 During the course of counseling, both women continue attending the aerobics class and exchanged friendly greetings when they see each other. On one or two occasions, Vanessa asked Phyllis for information and recommendations about various community services, such as reputable day-care facilities for her children. During the aerobics class, several women suggest a weekly breakfast get-together, and both Vanessa and Phyllis was asked about her background. Phyllis reported to the breakfast group that she was not employed outside of the home while raising her two children. She explained that she put off her career plans because young children need a stable mother figure at that critical period in their development and she did not want to regret lost time with her children. Phyllis stated that she returned to graduate school at the age of fifty when her children were no longer dependent upon her and were living on their own. Two women in the group voiced their approval of Phyllis’s decision about choosing full-time motherhood over career. Phyllis noticed that Vanessa seemed visibly upset and teary-eyed after hearing her life story.