Duty to Warn and Duty to Protect in Mental Health

Mental Health professionals may be faced with ethical dilemmas that require the use of one’s best judgement to determine a course of action. Situations involving duty to warn and duty to protect obligations present challenges that mental health professionals are legally obligated to navigate. Struggles exist with understanding lessons gleamed from the Tarasoff decision, oversimplifying current state law, and/or the interplay of varying situations and interpretations of the best course of action in a given situation. This class will help mental health professional’s conceptualize distinctions between their duty to warn and their duty to protect and how to incorporate sound ethical decision making when resolving these dilemmas.