You are a chemical dependency counselor at an intensive treatment facility in your state. In this role, you facilitate group sessions, individual counseling sessions, and family therapy sessions for alcohol and substance abuse clients and their families.
You are invited to be a panelist at a seminar on client rights being hosted by a local chapter of a professional organization whose members are chemical dependency counselors. You are asked the questions listed below, for which you provide an answer at the seminar. You promise the guests of the seminar that you will prepare a more detailed memo regarding the question, which they can obtain from the seminar's hosts via the seminar Web site.
The questions you were asked are the following:
What is informed consent?
How does the client's right to be informed interrelate with the client's right to refuse treatment?
What responsibilities does a chemical dependency counselor have when a client wants to refuse treatment?
Please prepare a memo in which you answer the above questions. In your memo, the above-listed questions should be listed separately as a separate heading, followed by the answer to that question.