Current and Developing Ethical Problems in Psyhological Counseling Field

The aim of this study is to examine the current ethical problems and the ethical problems that may occur in the future in the counseling field form psychological counselors’ perspective. Delphi method was used to collect data. Starting from the first round, the evaluations were made after each round and as a result of these evaluations, the questions of the next round were formed and data were collected in three rounds in total. Announcements were made to the psychological counseling and guidance groups via social media. The links of the questionnaires to the volunteers were sent via e-mail, and the questionnaires were implemented via the Google form. The total number of participants was 52, and 62% of the participants stated their gender as female and 38% male. When the results were examined, it was seen that psychological counselors considered the most problematic problems currently are giving permission to non-counselors to work as counselors, title problems related to short-term training, multicultural counseling, competency, and confidentiality. Among the ethical problem themes that the psychological counselors think they may encounter in the future are title problems related to short-term training, giving permission to non-counselors to work as counselors, multicultural counseling, competency, the lack of the branch of the psychological counseling profession, and confusion of ethical codes. In the light of the results, giving permission to work as counselors to non-counselors and using different titles after completing short-term training issues, competence problems, multicultural counseling competencies become one of the important needs in the field, the importance of the psychological counseling profession description and the mental health law, and the ethical codes waiting to be revised for a long time are discussed. In addition, this study has also taken place as the subject of confidentiality continues to be an important ethical dilemma in psychological counseling