Dr. Grosso Now Serves As Consultant With Consumers and Attorneys Regarding The California Standard of Care For Mental Health Therapy and Drug and Alcohol Counseling.

Dr. Grosso now offers consultation to attorneys and consumers on the clinical strengths and weaknesses of legal cases involving the standard of care for California marriage and family therapists, clinical social workers, and drug and alcohol counselors. - He indicates the strenghts and weaknesses of cases based on his successful experience as an expert witness in mental health cases, clinical experience, lectures, and authorship of academic textbooks on the applications of law and ethics for California mental health clinicians.

Santa Barbara, CA (PRWEB) November 6, 2004 -- Federico C. Grosso, DDS, PhD, MFT, BCFE announces the enhancement of consultation service to attorneys and consumers regarding the California standard of care for psychotherapy and counseling involving marriage and family therapists, clinical social workers, and drug & alcohol counselors. Dr. Grosso does not provide legal advice. Rather, he focuses exclusively on helping attorneys explore the strengths and weaknesses of their malpractice cases involving the above mental health clinicians. These consultations help attorneys deflect attacks by opposing attorneys and at the same time strengthen their attack against the opposing attorneys case, in many cases helping defense attorneys obtain a Summary Judgment early in the case, or a satisfactory settlement for plaintiffs attorneys.

Dr. Grosso bases his experience on numerous cases where he has served as a successful expert witness, many of them involving million dollar demands. In addition to his court experience, Dr. Grosso is also an author of widely used academic textbooks regarding the applications of law and ethics to clinical practice for California marriage and family therapists, clinical social workers, and drug and alcohol counselors; lectures throughout California on the legal and ethical standard of care for these clinicians, and conducts a psychotherapy practice in Santa Barbara, California as a licensed marriage and family therapist.

In his lectures, consultations, and textbooks, Dr. Grosso addresses the common mistakes made by mental health clinicians. These mistakes are either errors of omission or commission. The former are errors based on actions the clinician was required to take and did not take. The latter are errors based on actions taken by the clinician. Even if the clinician did not intend to harm the client, causative injuries can still lead to malpractice actions. The most egregious clinical actions that harm clients involve the failure to assess, diagnose, and provide treatment throughout the duration of therapy that meet the standard of care and the client ends up severely injured: for example a suicide attempt. To make matters worse, many clinicians make an additional mistake: not documenting their therapeutic or counseling duties appropriately, thus providing greater ammunition to attorneys suing them.

In California, mental health clinicians, licensed or unlicensed, must provide informed consent to clients prior to initiating mental health services. This means that marriage and family therapists, clinical social workers, drug and alcohol counselors, and other counselors who provide mental health treatment, must provide clients in advance adequate information regarding the risks and benefits of the proposed treatment and reasonable alternative treatment methods. Not doing so immediately indicates that the clinician has violated California law: Rains v. Superior Court (1984). In addition to this law, mental health clinicians must abide by ethical standards established by their professional organizations.

Other common clinical actions that may injure clients are: a) making child abuse and elder abuse reports that do not meet the legal guidelines; b) breaching confidentiality to manage potential suicide without establishing that the client indeed presents an imminent danger to self or others; c) breaching client confidentiality through the improper use of written release of information forms, not establishing confidentiality requirements when more than one person is involved in mental health treatment, avoiding the safeguard of confidentiality when conducting group therapy, and violating confidentiality by discussing client confidential information in public places; d) failure to recognize risk factors that may lead a client to attempt possible suicide or harm others; e) personal or sexual involvement with clients or their immediate relatives, f) committing insurance fraud on behalf of the client; g) and importantly, not keeping appropriate mental health records that document the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment throughout the duration of therapy that meet the standard of care; h) and other similar clinical actions. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the mental health clinician to take reasonable and prudent clinical actions when providing mental health treatment.

Background on FGrosso.com. FGrosso.com provides mental health clinicians with practical and easy-to-use clinical resources including practice enhancement workbooks, online and self-study continuing education, software, consultation as an expert witness, lectures, and academic publications. Dr. Grosso also provides expert witness services in malpractice actions involving marriage and family therapists, clinical social workers, alcohol and drug abuse counselors, certified addictions treatment specialists, and dentists accused of child abuse when providing treatment in the dental office. He also lectures for and consults with mental health organizations. He is an official lecturer on law and ethics and other subjects for the California Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.

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