Podcasting Ethics in Counseling

Camille McDaniel (03:10.058)
Welcome back for another episode. I am so glad to have you joining me for this episode. I just wrapped up the Faith Healing and Transformation Virtual Summit, and that was an awesome experience. I can still feel the excitement within me about that. my goodness. I’m so thankful to the Lord.

for helping bring all of this together for every speaker, every session. If you attended, thank you for being part of something awesome and special. And I can still feel the excitement about it. It was just a wonderful experience, really was. Today’s episode is going to be something that’s becoming, I think, more and more relevant for us as clinicians.

It really was something that I felt I needed to talk about. The catalyst for it is still kind of hanging in my mind, which was something that I was listening to online. And we’re going to be looking at ethical podcasting and video podcasting, even throw in there like blogging and social media, really. But the focus is about

being ethical in podcasting and video podcasting. And I’m talking about both the podcast or the audio because it’s all very impactful. mean, podcasting, you listen to it, whether it’s in your car or on your phone and with a video, some people actually will just listen to the video as well. But you can actually see what’s going on in the video because of

the visual platform that it’s usually held on. So whether you are recording just audio or putting a face to a video, the ethical stakes, they’re still the same. They’re still high. And sometimes it can be even a little higher with video. We’ll kind of talk about that, but let’s unpack what it means all of this to be ethical. It sounds maybe straightforward, but

Camille McDaniel (05:33.806)
It’s not always so much. And all of this got started because of, like I said, something that I saw online. So let me just get started by sharing what the catalyst was, and then we’ll kind of get into the ethics about it. So I’m up way past my bedtime one day, and I am online looking at YouTube. actually enjoy…

looking at just a number of different things that come up on YouTube, whether it’s documentaries, whether it happens to be things that are news related, education, like a lot of things, things that just kind of helped me stay in the know. And I was listening to a person who I actually had seen many years ago on YouTube. This person was not necessarily a professional in our field or anything, they just happened to create content. And I think at the time,

I was watching it was like maybe food related and recipes or something along those lines but one thing I did notice about this person was the way that they edited their videos, that they actually presented their content, they were really good at what they did and fast forward obviously they had done well many years has passed since I had first seen that person. They have like close to 250,000 followers so the way that this came about was apparently they

that I’m going to for keeping things straight and without actually saying the name because I just don’t want to feed into I guess all of the kind of the chaos that that is kind of surrounding it. Although the chaos doesn’t seem to be coming from this YouTuber, they happen to be sharing something in a very well put together way. I just

feel like it’s just such an unfortunate story, I don’t even want to add fuel to the fire. So for the sake of me sharing with you, I’m going to call the person who has a lot of followers, I’m going to call them the YouTuber, because that is who I was watching, I was watching their YouTube channel. And they have a friend, and I’m going to call them the YouTuber’s friend, or the client. And then there was a mental health professional involved as well. So.

Camille McDaniel (07:52.332)
This YouTuber was presenting their friend’s story. Their friend has a mental health diagnosis and was seeking out some support and some help. They did find somebody and they started to do some work with that person. And along the way, that person being the mental health professional and the client or the YouTuber’s friend, the client who was this YouTuber’s friend

and the mental health professional had a falling out and eventually termination ensued. But this seemed to have gone on over the course of over a year or so. Along the way, there was police involvement, there were court involvement, there was some other things that ensued and it was pretty serious. At the end of the day, there was some really

according to, again, according to the YouTuber and according to the YouTuber friend, there were some things that were very unethical that took place. So after the relationship with the client terminated, the mental health professional went on a podcast and this podcast was hosted by two other mental health professionals. And the podcast name

was, I don’t know, something that maybe sparked some questions for people. At least this YouTuber had a lot of comments under their video that would say it’s very interesting name for a podcast title, especially when you’re supposed to be mental health professionals who are supposed to keep confidentiality.

So you can, the name of the podcast, think kind of misrepresented what they were trying to do either way. This mental health professional went on a podcast with two other mental health professionals who were the hosts. Unfortunately, at the very beginning of the podcast episode, the two hosts joked about the population that this mental health professional worked with.

Camille McDaniel (10:15.212)
in a way that was disparaging and belittling. And even said, not in these exact words, but said, it’s the population no one really wants to work with. Well, this mental health professional proceeded with that podcast episode and shared some of the difficulty that they experienced with this client to the point

that the client could identify themselves. This mental health professional also created a training around their experience with this client. Now, I hope at this point, some of you are listening and red flags are popping up in your mind. Ethical red flags are popping up in your mind. I hope they are. And if they’re not, they should be. Now,

This person went onto the podcast after they had terminated with the client. This was not an active client. Let me be clear about that. So this was after a termination. So again, the former, and maybe I should have said that, the former client was able to identify themselves based on this podcast. how?

did the former client even know that this podcast was taking place? Well, because of the nature of events that had ensued between this former client and the mental health professional and court involvement and police involvement and some other things, they were looking themselves up online and looking up the former therapist online. And while looking up themselves and looking up the former therapist, this podcast episode came.

up in their search results. And so they took a listen.

Camille McDaniel (12:16.536)
There were a number of other things that occurred for this former client and with this particular therapist and some of the things that the therapist shared within session that were unethical because they were personal to the therapist and serve no therapeutic value to the client at the time, which is now the former client. Anyway, a long story, short, real.

Well, that former client felt that they really didn’t have anywhere else to turn to to be heard. They had already gone to the licensing board in their state and reported several things that occurred within sessions with that mental health professional. But it didn’t result in much. And I think at the time that the YouTuber had shared their video, I don’t think there had been any major

actions from the licensing board quite yet. So this former client just felt as though, hey, my past therapist is going on podcasts talking about my situation. They’re creating trainings and workshops for a fee, and they’re capitalizing off of my situation. And I feel as though it’s only their side that is being

shared and I don’t have any voice and that’s what led the former client to turn to their friend, their friend the YouTuber, the YouTuber with almost 250,000 followers and they were sharing their story. Now according to this YouTuber and me listening to the video it seemed honestly like you know they seem to share I will say both positives and negatives of even the client.

wasn’t very one-sided, it wasn’t like one person did all the wrong and one person did all the right things, it was more like the former client who’s the friend of the YouTuber talked about the things that she did all wrong and talked about the things she did right and talked about the things that the mental health professional did. And again in listening to the details, I felt really bad, I felt really bad.

Camille McDaniel (14:39.234)
That is not how people should walk away from therapy. Thankfully, the YouTuber’s friend, the former client, decided to give therapy a try again, did find a mental health professional that they felt really good about and that had not broken any, you know, ethical codes or anything like that. And it seems as though they are continuing to see that professional to this day. The reason why the video was made by the YouTuber was to

share their friends story and ask others what else can they do because they were concerned, they were so upset, there had been a lot of damage done to this particular person and I think some of it had to do with their past and their current mental health diagnoses. And so that’s how the video came to be and they even had as much as like a form of

people to fill out, if people had any suggestions on other steps they could take for this person to be heard or any other steps that they need to take and because something else that came up was that they they did not know that certain things that were happening in their counseling sessions were not supposed to be happening. So for example, the friend of the YouTuber asked the YouTuber, hey does your counselor do x, y and z or share x, y and z? And the YouTuber was like

know, I don’t, I don’t even know any of that stuff about my therapist. I don’t. I know she helps me, you know, I don’t even know her like that. You know, so in comparing, like, you know, are these things normal? Is it, you know, normal for your therapist to tell all of these details about themselves or all these details about their family or all these, you know, like, is that something that they should be telling me?

they really actually were trying to get clarity because they’re not in the mental health field, but they said something just didn’t, you know, didn’t feel right. And that all really kind of led me to say, I got to talk about this because that disturbed me to the core so bad because of the details that they were talking about as far as the the clients like mental health history and just some things that had occurred for them. I was just like, gosh, that that’s a sad story.

Camille McDaniel (17:01.294)
And it’s unfortunate that this person went on the podcast. Now I actually tried to do my due diligence before even bringing it up. Like, okay, is this accurate? Is this true? it? Yeah. Interestingly enough, the podcast still ex- well, no, there are podcasts that are up. They removed that segment. And apparently they initially tried to edit out certain details because of, I’m guessing because of

the former client’s friend, the YouTuber, kind of bringing light to the situation. So initially they tried to edit the podcast and take out some of the details but so much attention was you know gone their way that they just removed that podcast episode altogether. Yeah so but the YouTuber still had a copy because their their friend downloaded.

a copy of the original unedited podcast episode. So there’s that. And so whether or not the mental health professional meant any harm, it’s still serious. And we need to be very mindful of what our code of ethics say about confidentiality of someone’s

private health information even when there has been termination of services. So please take a look because even if your code of ethics does not specifically talk to how to move forward after termination, although many do, your code of ethics absolutely talks about how we are to do things as mental health professionals

in ways that don’t disparage our license or the organizations that we represent at large. So one of the things that we have to just be careful of is that in all of our excitement to share good news and share about experiences that we are doing it in a way that lifts people up, that doesn’t disparage people.

Camille McDaniel (19:25.24)
that doesn’t disparage our profession or drive people away from our profession. We wanna make sure we’re not tearing things down. We also wanna be really careful that when we are guests on someone else’s video podcasts, audio podcasts, that we are guests for anything else that is someone else’s platform, if we notice that they start out their

podcast episode with disparaging remarks that you do not want to be associated with, that you do not want your business or your license to be associated with, that you make sure to speak up. Now I realize that sometimes people will record separately intros to their podcasts or their video podcasts and you can’t control that but you absolutely can make a note

to have something go out to say I was on this podcast episode and it was out of my control that this intro was created, I do not condone this, this is not what I’m about. And then you can request that they remove your segment because you do not want to be associated with it. Now, that’s assuming that you can recognize when things are not ethical or professional. So that’s why I’m just bringing this to you today.

So when we have audio or visual, especially when you add visual to the mix, because with visual now you can see people’s facial expressions and body language and and all of it is permanent. It’s permanent just how they they deleted their podcast on their platform. But guess what? It’s evergreen on someone else’s computer because it was downloaded.

So we need to make sure that we are mindful of things that we cannot take back. All right. People can download it, share it, remix it. We just want to be careful. From an ethics perspective, we just want to be mindful of our code of ethics, like I said, and just be clear on your code because we want to protect our clients.

Camille McDaniel (21:49.294)
current and past, we want to protect our license, our profession. You know, even if you think that you have changed some details of what you are about to share, the risk of a client recognizing themselves is real. So if you’re on video or you’re on audio and like the context of what you’re saying, someone else can easily connect the dots, then you should not be saying it. Nope.

There’s also the issue of exploitation. Like we don’t want to do anything that’s going to exploit someone else, especially for monetary gain. If we are profiting off of a client’s pain now by like building content or a product around them, again, I’m not talking recognize what I, you know, I just said profiting off of their pain in a way that’s negative.

not the same way as we may actually recognize a pain point and then create something that can be helpful to that client and anyone else struggling with those same life circumstances. No, this would be more like, and you get where I’m going with this, but this would be more like creating something that is not actually for the client. This is for everyone else who wants to know about

being warned against a particular person or a particular set of people who might have a certain diagnosis. And that’s very damaging, especially if you are in the mental health field. If you want to create something that is going to be helpful, so if you want to maybe make someone aware of something on an ethical level, maybe you experience something similar to this former client and what they went through with their former therapist,

And now the former therapist says, my goodness, there are so many ethical red flags here. I have definitely learned from this. Let me create something to help other professionals not go down the path that I went down by being more ethical, like have some insight. But it seemed as though, and let me also say the course that this mental health professional was offering has now been taken down. So it seemed as though

Camille McDaniel (24:12.608)
according to what their former client felt that that course was kind of profiting off of their pain and off of their behaviors when they were in a spiral. So we want to make sure that we’re not profiting off of pain, we’re not building any kind of content or products around a client in that would cause a client to feel disparaged because that crosses that crosses a line for sure. And as

professionals who carry their faith with them, we need to ask ourselves questions in the context of serving for the Lord, serving for the kingdom and ask are we serving the Lord by doing this? Are we serving the kingdom by doing this or are we serving ourselves? You know, is this something that is going to uplift people and be essentially our gifts and talents acting as a light in the world?

Or is this going to be just self-gratifying, self-centered profit? And that profit isn’t always monetary. Maybe it could be popularity. Maybe it could be likes. Maybe it could be shares. know, it could also be monetary, but either way, is it just profiting ourselves? And we want to think about it through the lens of integrity. So when we put ourselves out there on public stage, whether through a podcast or a video podcast,

The world is watching. And how we handle stories, how we present ourselves professionally, how we connect it with our faith, this all reflects on not just us, it reflects on our faith in Christ. It reflects on what our profession is about. And we have to be careful because whether we want to be or not, recognize, hey, we’re representatives of the kingdom.

just as we are representatives of our license. And there’s big responsibility in that. And so we wanna take it seriously. So as believers, we know that the bar isn’t just about professionalism. We know that the bar is set at integrity and faith in the Father and walking according to His will and His way. There’s a scripture in the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 23 says that,

Camille McDaniel (26:36.242)
all things are lawful for me but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me but not all things edify. And in this, John was talking to the Corinthians about something that was going on within their time frame in society where there were certain things that were allowed in society but as followers of Christ they were not things that needed to be participated in. And so

He was talking to them basically saying like, you know, there are a lot of things that are, they’re allowed, they’re lawful. You’re not like breaking a law per se. Now in this particular case, you’re breaking code of ethics, but it’s not unlawful to go on somebody’s podcast, right? It’s not unlawful to talk about your experiences, but it is unethical to talk about them in such detail that a client can identify themselves. And it causes that client harm.

That’s unethical. And it’s definitely unethical to profit off of somebody’s pain. So even if we are doing something that we feel is pretty light and informative, again, the scriptures even inform us that things, everything that might be all right in society is not all right when you are walking in your faith.

So be careful. Everything that is all right to do in society is not helpful if you are walking in your faith. Everything that is all right to do in society is not always going to lift people up or edify the kingdom. So just because podcasting or video podcasting gives us the freedom to speak, you know, it doesn’t mean that we should be saying everything because saying everything is not going to be beneficial.

So again, should I be saying it? Is this helpful, right? Is this protecting the people that the Lord has entrusted me to help? And so let’s take a look at a few things that I have here that are going to be best practices when it comes to being ethical and professional with regards to podcasts, video podcasting, even like…

Camille McDaniel (28:56.77)
blogging or social media, I guess, could get thrown in there. Like I said earlier, it can all get thrown in there. Number one, never share identifiable client stories. That’s really with a period at the end. Like there’s really, there’s really not more that, that we really have to say. But don’t. I even, I even checked myself to say like, could I have said that differently? Like in a…

in a prior podcast episode, I was not sharing details about somebody, but I said, you know, there was a client who had some challenges that were impacting them in some of their spiritual practices and then X, Y, and Z. And I kept it vague, like, and then it impacted their sleep. But you know what? Even that, even though it sounds vague, it could be identifiable by a client.

that was the client right and so for me in that situation I took it into a different space. I was really actually talking about how we can still work with clients who have different beliefs than us and do it in ways that don’t disparage the client. So I did not take it into any kind of negative way but still you have to be careful, you still need to be careful. So instead I would probably say I have worked with other

clients in my private practice who had different beliefs than me, and sometimes we had to look at those beliefs to see how they might be impacting their overall mental health and wellness. That would be definitely more appropriate. Keep it vague. You should definitely not be sharing identifiable client stories. And then decide your boundaries before you even record. How far can you go?

according to your license. And if you don’t have a license, how far will you go according to your professionalism? Okay, so decide all of this and know what you will not share and whether those details about a former session, a former client, current sessions, current clients, certain topics, all of that, things that could blur professional lines. Let’s just make sure you’re clear on what should be shared and what should not be shared.

Camille McDaniel (31:18.348)
Number three, let’s teach concepts, not specific cases. So, you you can teach about like certain strategies for handling certain issues or research surrounding for certain challenges, principles, ethical principles that you might want to uphold, professional principles that you might want to uphold, how to integrate that with your faith. But we’re not going to do like a play by play story. So again,

like I just shared when I was saying I was reflecting on myself instead of saying like you know I had a client one time who instead of that it’s I’ve worked with many individuals in my in my counseling practice where this may have been an issue. Again, it’s not not identifiable. next we want to take a look at this one. Number four is being mindful of the visuals that happen to be in your recording if you’re doing video recording.

This can happen to anyone in a lot of different professions, but please just be careful that whatever you happen to be displaying on the video that like your your area is clear. So you’re not showing any materials that don’t need to be shown in the video. No documents that don’t documents that don’t need to be shown in the video. Making sure that if you happen to be sharing your screen, there is nothing on your background that does not need to be viewed.

by anybody else but yourself. So just make sure that everything is locked down and that everything is clear and pretty neutral and professional. Just be careful of that because these things do happen. If you have any questions, number five is the thing to always do, go ahead and consult before you release the podcast episode, the video.

podcasting the blog before you release it on social media and so much detail that it is like you should have brought that to consultation or clinical supervision. Yeah.

Camille McDaniel (33:25.164)
Number six, remember your witness. Because podcasting is not just about growing an audience. Yes, you want to have more individuals hear whatever good news you are sharing, but it is also about representing your faith in Christ and protecting the integrity.

your integrity and protecting the dignity of those who we serve. We should never be disparaging anybody’s mental health challenges. Are there days where you probably had a really long week or are there days where you happen to help a client or not just a client, you work with clients who have certain challenges and let’s say you have like multiple clients all erupt in a crisis.

around that similar challenge, you might feel really heavy that week. But that is nothing to then disparage people about. And let me tell you, I’ve actually heard this or seen this on more than just this podcast or this YouTubers video. I’ve been in online spaces where I have seen that people are sharing how they heard from a clinical supervisor or a colleague or, you know, something disparaging about certain

certain mental health professional, excuse me, certain mental health challenges, and that needs to be corrected. We don’t need to be doing that, because why are we here if we’re doing that? Get a private space to talk through that. Get a person that you can confide in that can be someone that you consult with or you do clinical supervision with to share those things. I mean, because you’re human, but there’s a space and there’s a time.

you know, for everything and we need to be making sure that we are right in an order with how we are doing things. So, you know, it’s just as we’re thinking about this all, it’s like, you know, as Christian counselors, we live in like this dual accountability space. We have our ethics and our professional world and then we have the Lord and what God has called us to do and we have to answer to him.

Camille McDaniel (35:51.314)
shuts you know I understand we want to definitely keep our license but we definitely want for him to see what we are doing and approve of it. So you know other other podcasters may have different feelings about it you know it’s like well if it’s if it’s not a HIPAA violation well then you know it’s not that big of a deal but we know better for us it’s it’s not just about legal you know it’s about integrity.

So the question is really not so much just am I allowed to share this? The question really is does this honor Christ? Does this honor the gifts and talents that he trusted me with as he trusted me to help his children? And so we want to shift that in our mind and when we make that shift, everything changes. It really does keep us from being careless about things.

that involve our clients, whether they are past clients or current clients, it really reminds us that our platform is both professional and spiritual. So let’s just kind of wrap up, like, you know, as we come to like a close of our time together, that podcasting, video podcasting, they’re all very powerful tools, but confidentiality must never be compromised, must never…

be a point of profit where exploitation absolutely can damage trust but it also can damage someone’s mental health. It can cause someone to step back several steps and and at the end of the day integrity it matters more than download numbers, it matters more than how many people you get to follow your channel.

follow your podcast, right? And we wanna continue to remember 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and 23, when Paul is speaking to the Corinthians and saying, again, hey, there are a lot of things that might be lawful, they’re not all helpful, and they are not all edifying to the kingdom that you serve. So if you’re stepping into podcasting or video podcasting as a,

Camille McDaniel (38:08.302)
Christian, mental health professional, then approach it with prayer. Approach it with great wisdom and approach it with care. Because it’s a big responsibility. It is. Next week, I want to share with you before we really close it up, next week, we’ll be starting something that I’m going to start integrating that’s a little bit new. It’s going to be kind of a mini series. It’s not going to happen back to back, but it’ll happen throughout the months.

and it’s going to be called medical mimics. So it’s going to be something that I’ve been working on and we’re going to be just unpacking what it looks like to really take mental health and make sure that we are clear that there are some physiological issues that actually mimic mental health issues. I know that we’ve, I’ve heard at least in my research and looking, I’ve definitely heard about like certain things like caffeine, know, can like an over

overabundance of caffeine can mimic anxiety or like low iron can mimic depression but let me tell you there is so much more for us to consider as mental health professionals so that we can make sure to rule things out so that we can make sure that we are giving a proper referrals for our clients to talk with their their doctors. So this is an area that can really I believe

I believe can revolutionize the way we do healthcare and really change it up. So I’m super excited to share more with you and yeah, I’m super excited. So that’s gonna come up. So I just wanted to let you know about that before we end. So if today’s episode, if it resonated with you, please go ahead and subscribe and like and share it with somebody who had not.

you know, heard this perspective. Share it with somebody that you know is either already doing podcasting or video podcasting or they’re thinking about it or they post on social media or you know they are doing their blogs, you know, just kind of share it and make sure that we’re just staying on top of things, you know, as professionals. Always staying on top of things. So either way, as always, I’m really thankful for you.

Camille McDaniel (40:32.962)
being part of the Christ in Private Practice community. I really am. Before I did this podcast, like in HitRecord, this song was like playing in my mind over and over. I’m not gonna sing it. But the words were saying, may his peace be with you until we meet again. May his peace be with you until we meet again.

till we reach that distant shore and we shed a tear no more. May he give you strength to endure till we meet again. And so until we meet again, God bless.