Professional support and guidance in cyberspace counselling : an ethical critique.
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Date
2016
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Abstract
This study investigated the ethical issues of using cyberspace counselling. Specifically, the
study focused on ethical issues arising from migration from face-to-face contact to cyberspace
counselling using telephone, email, Skype, Facebook and Twitter. It has been realised that since
cyberspace counselling is still a new phenomenon, it is important to consider the ethical issues
that surround it and how counsellors can adapt to this kind of counselling. The study was
underpinned by two theoretical frameworks: consequentialism theory which considers the
consequences of counsellors’ actions, and deontology theory which considers the duty that
cyberspace counsellors have towards their clients. The study used the interpretivist paradigm
and adopted a qualitative approach. Snowball sampling was used to select ten cyber
counsellors. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with ten cyberspace counsellors
in and around Pietermaritzburg. Content and narrative analysis were the main processes that
were used to bring order, structure and meaning to data that had been collected. The study
established various ethical issues associated with cyberspace counselling. These include: loss
of urgency due to time delays, narrative and communication misunderstandings, and the
limitations of cyberspace counselling in crisis intervention. The study revealed that cyber
hacking may further expose a client to a breach of confidentiality. Insufficient contextual
background information of clients may affect the quality of support provided. Where a client’s
demographic information is unavailable, cultural understandings may not be considered
thereby increasing the likelihood of putting the client at risk. An additional ethical concern is
that counsellors’ skills and limitations may have an effect on the provision of best practice
treatment. The anonymity of cyberspace counselling, while beneficial, may increase abusive
contact and the opportunity to create a fictional character on behalf of the client. Ethics could
be violated in situations where the counsellor does not know how to handle the anonymity of
the client. The study recommended that ethical guidelines be created to guide cyberspace
counsellors in South Africa and that cyberspace counsellors should inform their clients of the
limited security of their correspondence. Clients can then make a choice about whether or not
to continue with cyberspace counselling despite its limitations. Counsellors must receive
adequate training on using cyberspace counselling and they should make use of an encrypted
code for security purposes.
Description
Master of Arts in Ethics. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg 2016.