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Consent and Adult Mental Health Therapy

By Sarah Earles, MS, LPC, NCC | February 28, 2025

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You need therapy. Your mom needs therapy. Your brother/sister/cousin/friend needs therapy. Can your family force you, an adult, to go to counseling? Can you force your mom to attend family counseling sessions? Can you drag any of the other named adult people in with you? No, and no. Informed consent is an important part of mental health therapy, and as such, each adult must consent to participation in the therapeutic process.
What is informed consent? Informed consent is the process by which therapists share information with clients about counseling (Barnett, 2015). Informed consent covers topics like counselor credentials, technology, and limits of confidentiality (Jotform Editorial Team, 2024). It is imperative that each person participating in counseling understand these topics, hence the requirement for each participant to sign an informed consent.
Who requires that therapists get informed consent from clients? The ethical codes by which counselors must abide require informed consent. The American Counseling Association (2014) asserts that “clients have the freedom to choose” (A2a). The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (2015) asserts that therapists must “use language that is reasonably understandable to clients” (1.2). What are the consequences of not getting informed consent? The states that license professional therapists may sanction and our revoke licensure for such an ethical violation. This is not good for clients or the therapists who serve them.

So what do you do if you want someone else to participate in therapy with you? Talk to your therapist. Share with that person the potential benefits of engaging in a service like family therapy together. Model participation in informed consent. No one can force another adult to do something they do not want to do. You can help present opportunities, however, and with the opportunities, present invitations for participation.

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References

American Counseling Association. (2014). ACA code of ethics. Retrieved from http://www.counseling.org/docs/ethics/2014-aca-code-of-ethics.pdf

American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. (2015). Code of Ethics. Retrieved from https://www.aamft.org/Legal_Ethics/Code_of_Ethics.aspx

Barnett, J. (2015, March 29). Informed consent in clinical practice. Society for Psychotherapy. https://societyforpsychotherapy.org/informed-consent-in-clinical-practice-the-basics-and-beyond/

Jotform Editorial Team. (2024, June 26). What is informed consent in counseling? Jotform. https://www.jotform.com/blog/what-is-informed-consent-in-counseling/