Duty to Warn and to Protect Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Duty to Warn and to Protect - Essay Example Some individuals may cause harm to themselves while other may be dangerous to other people. In any case, it is the job of a therapist to make sure that a person copes with the personal crisis and carries on happy and productive life. For the purposes of this paper, one should imagine the following scenario. The author will be a therapist that has a patient. The latter tends to be distressed. He is a white male in his mid-twenties, experiencing a personal crisis: he wants to find a girl who will ultimately become his wife, but he simply can not, not matter how hard he tries. His inability to cope with this problem causes him to experience severe stress. There are two ways that he deals with it: on the one hand, he spends much time in the bed, waiting for the feelings that tear his soul to go away; on the other hand, he recently started thinking about hurting other people. The latter thoughts are very rare and the subject clearly acknowledges that they are wrong. However, he admits that there are times when he looses control over his actions. To begin with, it may be important to identify the legal issues that this case holds. Thus, the therapist is made aware of the violent intentions of his client. The latter said several times that hurting others will allow him to release the stress. The subject is well educated person with a stable income with no legal history. Other than during the session he acts cheerfully and assertive. It is highly likely that he will be able to buy a gun if he wants to. With all this in mind, the therapist is faced with a possibility that his client might start a shooting spree. That is why it is the legal obligation of the former to inform law enforcing agencies that there is a subject in the area that experiences a personal crisis and made a clear statement of possible intentions of hurting others because of that. There is also an