Confidentiality in Question: The Erosion of the Cornerstone of Counseling?

Confidentiality is a fundamental principle of the counseling profession. Recent events and initiatives, however, have led to a variety of efforts to infringe upon this principle by requiring mandated reporting of a number of issues, including domestic violence, infectious disease, animal abuse, professional impairment, and criminal activity, particularly sexual assault. This erosion of confidentiality needs to be examined by the helping professions, and further changes should not be implemented without thorough consideration of the unintended effects they could produce.