Child Abuse

A therapist had treated a client, an alcoholic single mother of two, for 18 months. The client had remained sober for more than a year and had made sincere efforts to attend effectively to her children, now ages 6 and 8. One day, she appeared for a therapy session intoxicated. She had just learned that she faced a job layoff. She felt embarrassed and depressed that she had broken her sobriety and mentioned that she had lost her temper and beaten her children with a belt before coming to therapy.

Koocher, G. P., & Keith-Spiegel, P. (2008). Ethics in psychology and the mental heal professions: Standards and cases (3rd ed.). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.