| BackgroundThe psychological consulting industry in China is in rapid development, psychological counselors group is developing and growing, and the legal issues involved in the industry also is increasingly prominent.The psychological counselling and pyschotherapy is brought into the field of mental health law for the first time, especially strict rules, responsibilities and obligations are made for the psychological consulting industry, which is a baptism for psychological counselors group. Therefore, psychological counselors law currently cognitive status, the cause of the situation and how to improve the awareness and understanding of psychological counselors law have become problems need to study and solve in the development of the psychological consultation industry.In western developed countries, the research on legal issues for psychological counseling industry are extensive and profound, and usually a mature and perfect psychological consulting legal norm system is established. For example, the researches on focus legal inssues in psychological counseling and psychotherapy in Britain involve:establishment and performance of contracts; legal reponsibilities and immunities of confidentiality to clients; record preservation of psychological counseling and psychotherapy; inappropriate exploitation of relationship in psychological counseling and psychotherapy; legal inssues in memory recovery. The law provide necessary social background for psychological consulting industry in order to guarantee the normal functioning.Studies of legal cognition mainly focused on the medical and health field both at home and abroad and the objects of study are mainly doctors and nurses. Studies of legal cognition of the psychological counselors, however, are very limited abroad and not found in domestic so far. What’s more, quantitative researches are the majority and qualitative researches are few. The combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods also have not been found yet.In conclusion, the current studies of legal cognition of psychological counselors are rare and the research method is monotonous and circumscribed. The exclusive use of quantitative research method can explore the surface of the objects but can’t analyze the underlying causes. And the exclusive use of qualitative research method is lack of data support. Therefore, in exploring the legal cognition of psychological counselors, quantitative research method should be combined with qualitative research method to complement each other. In view of this, the study intends to use these two methods to explore the status and reasons of legal cognition of psychological counselors. Some legal and institutional suggestions are also put forward.ObjectivesUsing the qualitative research method to explore the status of Chinese counselors’legal cognition through the self-made legal cognition questionnaire, which include counselors’cognitive attitude of legal knowledge, acquirement level of legal knowledge and occurrence frequency of legal risk events. On the basis of the results of the qualitative research, quantitative research method is also used to explore the status and reasons of legal cognition of psychological counselors. Some legal and institutional suggestions are also put forward.Subjects and methodsI The qualitative researchTotally 100 counselors from Guangdong Province were assessed with self-made legal cognition questionnaire, dimensionalities of which include counselors’cognitive attitude of legal knowledge, acquirement level of legal knowledge and occurrence frequency of legal risk events.100 valid questionnaires were taken back. Using the SPSS 18.0 to dispose and analyze the data, the methods include statistical description, independent-samples Ttest, analysis of variance and so on.II The quantitative researchAccording to the inclusion and exclusion criteria,10 counselors were selected to be the subjects of quantitative research through the 100 subjects of the former qualitative research. Using the semi-structural interview syllabus, counselors were interviewed. The interview content would be recorded, transcribed, classified and analyzed.ResultsI The qualitative research80.0% of interviewees attached importance to the acquirement of legal knowledge, while only 35.0% had participated related courses and the Internet found to be the major way for acquirement. In the matter of the acquirement level of legal knowledge, the average score is 63.7 ±11.6 (while the full mark is 100) and counselors who had less working years of counseling (≤10 years) scored higher than those had more(> 10 years) (P<0.05), while those who had participated legal knowledge courses (35.0%) scored higher than those had not (65.0%) (P< 0.05). Counselors showed ignorance in prohibitions of psychotherapy and diagnosis of metal disorder, psychological crisis intervention involves clients’ privacy, establishment of counseling contracts and the consequence of illegal practice of medicine. In the matter of the occurrence frequency of legal risk events, psychological crisis intervention and report, diagnosis of metal disorder and counselling for suspected depression patient seem to be the events of high frequency.Ⅱ The quantitative research1) Psychological counselors are lack of systematization and globality on learning related legal knowledge. Network as the main way of learning legal knowledge, have many shortcomings and hidden dangers, especially its authenticity and accuracy.2) Psychological counselors’ low legal consciousness, the indifference of the country and the administrative department as well as the immaturity of the industry lead to the poor condition of psychological counselors accepting legal knowledge training.3) Psychological counselors generally believed that the boundaries between psychological counseling and psychotherapy are fuzzy and couldn’t distinguish simply and absolutely. But in practice they are still relatively cautious and would give preference to referral.4) Psychological counselors generally believed there are essential differences between the "diagnosis" in the Mental Heath Law and "psychological diagnosis". But in practice they would still pay attention to the language expression in order to avoid unnecessary legal risks.5) Psychological counselors generally accepted that consulting contract is quite important, but in practice, such as network psychological consultation,which usually without signing a consulting contract are still exist.6) Case report for psychological crisis may be related to privacy infringement for clients. Psychological counselors generally believed that life is the highest and case report is still preferred. But judging problem of clients, especially in identifying the nature of the "suicide" is also indispensable.Conclusion1) Psychological counselors consider learning legal knowledge is important, but the chance and ways to learn are scarce. The status of the legal knowledge training leaves much to be desired. The legal knowledge training in vocational qualification or pre-service training and unified assessment and evaluation as well as the strengthening of attention by the industry and the working units might help to improve the condition of psychological counselors in learning legal knowledge.2) The acquirement level of legal knowledge of psychological counselors need to be improved, especially the parts of lower accuracy, such as prohibitions of psychotherapy and diagnosis of metal disorder, psychological crisis intervention involves clients’privacy, establishment of counseling contracts and the consequence of illegal practice of medicine, etc, which should be paid attention to in the legal knowledge training and related materials.3) The country should publish relevant laws and rules as soon as possible, such as the detailed rules of the difference between the psychological counseling and psychotherapy, definition of diagnosis, standards of contracts, psychological crisis case report involving privacy infringement for clients, etc. All these above should be authoritative, specific and legible. |
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