Liability Hot Potato: Defensive Therapy practices that give clients inadequate care

Curt and Katie chat about defensive therapy practices. We talk about how therapists avoid liability by practicing defensively, which can harm our clients. We look at common defensive therapy practices, like refusing to see clients with certain types of risk or too quickly hospitalizing someone. We explore the risks to our clients when we practice this way and how we can navigate risk to avoid practicing defensively. This is a continuing education podcourse.

Transcripts for this episode will be available at mtsgpodcast.com!

In this podcast episode we talk about therapists minimizing their own liability without benefitting their clients

Therapists facing difficult decisions in therapeutic treatment are presented with the competing tasks of providing quality care to clients while also trying to minimize their legal risks. This can lead to therapists who may choose courses of action that do not benefit clients while doing things to protect the therapist. This podcourse explores the types of defensive practices that therapists take, how to recognize them, what steps can be done to protect therapists, and how to maximize client outcomes.

What are defensive therapy practices?

·       Actions taken by a therapist that don’t benefit the client, but are done to protect the legal liability of the therapist

·       Avoidant versus Assurant defensive therapy practices

·       Responding to very scary law and ethics classes

·       Avoiding lawyers and subpoenas

What are examples of Defensive Therapy practices?

·       Avoidant: Avoiding talking about anything that is even related to things outside of our scope of practice (e.g., medical or legal advice); refusing to see clients with specific types of risk

·       Assurant: Sending clients to the hospital quickly based on risk rather than on treatment efficacy, over-reporting abuse and engaging clients with systems

·       Therapists are employing defensive therapy practices when making sure to shift liability elsewhere

How do I navigate the risk that often leads to defensive therapy practices?

·       Make clear the limitations on your knowledge, but respond to questions and needs in the best way you can, referring to experts as appropriate

·       Prescriptive Assurant practices (taking action based on laws, rules, and/or ethical decision-making)

·       Documentation of ethical decision-making process and the decision and actions made

·       Documentation of the conversations with the client related to the action or inaction

·       Also, documentation of the ongoing evaluation procedure for the action taken

Receive Continuing Education for this Episode of the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide

You can find this full course (including handouts and resources) here: https://learn.moderntherapistcommunity.com/pages/podcourse

Continuing Education Approvals:

When we are airing this podcast episode, we have the following CE approval. Please check back as we add other approval bodies: Continuing Education Information including grievance and refund policies.

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Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide Creative Credits:

Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/

Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano https://groomsymusic.com/