...Interoffice Memo BSHS 305/ Historical Development of Human Services: An Introduction interoffice memorandum to: | human services organization | from: | subject: | case ruling of tarasoff v. Regents of the univesity of california | date: | March 27, 1976 | | | As everyone knows there is a new ruling for the Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California. The ruling two years ago caused a debate on the ruling of professionals getting charged and those that weren’t, so changes have now taken affect. As professionals in the human service field it is important for us to know that now if a client expresses they have a plan to kill someone, it is our obligation to break confidentiality and inform the potential victim and or the police of the thoughts of your client. This may be a tough thing for some of us to do because of the ethical responsibilities we have with our clients but now this is a part of our legal responsibilities to protect the welfare of the society by having the duty to protect individuals who are bing threatened with bodily harm by a client naming it “duty to warn and duty to protect” (in the previous ruling it was only known as “duty to warn”. This is also known as a “Tarasoff warning” in place, meaning where a mental health professional is required to warn of a credible danger to a reasonably identifiable victim. Duty to protect includes clients that may be suicidal. Human services code of ethics entitles us as professionals to let the client...
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...Dissenting Tarasoff In the tragic case of Tarasoff versus the Regents of the University of California the majority ruled towards making the psychiatrist liable for not detaining the patient Poddar who had expressed intentions to harm Tatiana Tarasoff during counseling. The majority ruling makes the therapist liable for the death of Tarasoff for he knew that her life was in danger, thus creating a new “duty to warn” for all therapists. The dissenting argument expresses that due to the duty to warn clause violence will increase, because patients will no longer feel comfortable seeking treatment and revealing their issues to the therapist. In order to analyze the dissenting opinion the following questions must be answered: are therapists able and equipped to determine whether a patient is dangerous? Are therapists potentially sacrificing effective treatment by violating confidentiality under duty to warn? Are therapists better off without the duty to warn clause? During the next paragraphs the duty to warn clause will be shown to be a burden not only on both patients and therapists, but on society as a whole. In examining the case of Tarasoff, Judge Mosk presses that psychiatric predictions of violence are inherently unreliable. Psychiatrists already experience a lot of difficulty accurately diagnosing mental illness, and with this uncertainty the difficulty of determining whether a patient is a danger to society becomes even harder. The majority opinion assigned a responsibility...
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...cornerstone to our practices (University of Phoenix, 1994). This paper will help you to understand how the things you say during the counseling sessions may have legal implications against you; by first explaining the decision of Tarasoff v. the board of Regents of the University of California, followed by how it relates to the therapist-client relationship in regards to confidentiality; then finally explaining the process of informed consent and refusal. Tarasoff v. Board of Regents of the University of California Decision According to University of Phoenix Confidentiality after Tarasoff (1994), the Tarasoff v. board of regents of the University of California case was heard before the California Supreme court, when Tatiana Tarasoff, a student at The University of California was killed by a fellow student. Her parents sued the University of California, the Police and the Therapist (University of Phoenix, 1994). The parents claim was that neither the School, Police or the Therapist warned them of the intentions of this fellow school mate to kill their daughter, Tatiana Tarasoff, as the fellow student had confided in the clinical psychologist to whom he was assigned to after seeking treatment at the school’s health facility, that he wanted to kill Tatiana Tarasoff (University of Phoenix, 1994). This fellow student after divulging his intention was detained but released a short time later stating that it was just all talk. The Supreme Court ruling was on behalf of the family, as...
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...University of Phoenix Material Questionnaire Complete the questionnaire form by creating 10 questions you think will determine the competencies of caseworkers applying for a position with your family counseling practice. Address the following in your questions: The caseworker’s method for handling ethical issues. The caseworker’s plan for staying current in his or her area of expertise and for receiving continuing education. The caseworker’s procedure for maintaining accurate and complete client records. Write the final question so it involves a scenario that requires the caseworker to determine whether to abide by the duty to warn or the duty to protect. Complete the questionnaire as if you were one of the caseworkers applying for the position. |Question |Your answer | |How would you handle a client that you know is not telling the truth |I would explain to that client that if they are not accurately sharing| |in your sessions? |their story I would be unable to help them. | |If a client wanted you to go have coffee after a session to continue |As a professional I would have to explain that we would have to | |talking would you go? |continue our conversation our next session. Since I know as a ...
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...Criminal Case Case: R v Gittany Facts: Lisa Cecilia Harnum’s body fell from her shared high-rise apartment in the Sydney CBD minutes after trying to leave her abusive fiancé Simon Gittany. Gittany has had a dark past being associated with violence, drugs, having an uncontrollable temper and committing several criminal offences which included biting off parts of a policemen’s ear and selling cocaine. Gittany claims Harnum either slipped or deliberately fell to her death. Gittany had ‘bugged’ Harnum’s cell phone reading all her text messages and emails as well as listening to all her calls. When he discovered his fiancé was seeing a councillor he physically threatened her that if she saw his fiancé again he will “harm [her].” The day of Harnum’s...
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...The Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California case involves the family of Tatiana Tarasoff and the team of professionals who was taking care of Prosenijit Poddar’s mental health. Tarasoff and Poddar were just friends but Poddar wanted more than that. Tarasoff let Poddar know she was not interested in him. Poddar did not like that and started to stalk Tarasoff. Poddar had made threats about hurting Tarasoff but the professionals taking care of him did not alert the right authorities, Tarasoff, or her family. From withholding that information Poddar did act on his threat and murdered Tarasoff. Poddar was convicted on second degree murder but that trial was overturned. Poddar was released and was expedited out the country and went back to live in India. Tarasoff family went after the four psychiatrists who were taking care of Poddar for failure to protect their daughter. The Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California case has made huge impact in the human service field. As human service professionals we have to protect our clients as well as others. With this ruling we now have to take in the consideration of our clients as well as people who are close to client and the general public. Human service providers have always been taught to protect and help our clients. Now with the Tarasoff ruling human service professionals need to make sure that those closes with the client are not any danger and if they are they need to be alerted. As human services...
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...The decision of Tarasoff v. the Board of Regents of the University of California was that, for the first time imposed a liability on a therapist for failing to protect a potential victim, when therapist Dr. Moore had a client, Prosenjit Poddar that confided in him that he intended to kill a woman, he did not name the woman, but none the less he claimed he was going to kill her when she got back from her vacation, even though Dr. Moore called his supervisor and the campus police, he was still sued by The Tarasoff family when Poddar did indeed end up killing her after campus police let him go two months prior because he appeared to be rational and promised he would not harm her (Kagle J, Kopels S. P.1 1994). The therapist – client relationship is that of a confidential manner. The therapist is to keep anything the client says under strict confidentiality however; this article argues that this is not the case because social workers have never really been able to offer their clients unlimited confidentiality because in recent years the demand for accountability has increased as well as greater access to information in records, mandated child abuse reporting and expanding court involvement in professional decision making (Kagle J, Kopels S. P.1 1994). Now more than ever therapists are faced with their obligation to protect their client’s privacy as well as the duty to protect third parties from harm. Especially when dealing with potentially violent clients who are court ordered...
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