Duty to Warn

Course overview

Course Description: The duty to warn is one of the most consequential and legally complex obligations facing behavioral health professionals. Rooted in the landmark California Supreme Court decision Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California, the duty to warn requires clinicians to balance patient confidentiality against the obligation to protect identifiable third parties from foreseeable harm. This course provides a brief review of the legal and ethical foundations of the duty to warn and duty to protect. It will also review the key court cases that have shaped and expanded these obligations, as well as the significant variability in how these duties are defined and applied across U.S. jurisdictions. Lastly, the practical clinical steps clinicians must take when a patient poses a credible threat to an identifiable victim are described. Psychologists, social workers, mental health counselors, drug and alcohol counselors, marriage and family therapists, and other licensed or certified behavioral health professionals can benefit from this course. This course is appropriate for intermediate and advanced-level practitioners who require continuing education for license renewal. Authors: Gorshkalova & Munakomi Learning Objectives: This course will provide professionals with detailed information about the duty to warn, its legal foundations, jurisdictional variability, and the practical clinical steps clinicians must take when a patient poses a credible threat to an identifiable victim. Specifically, after completing this course the practitioner will: 1. Describe the legal history of the duty to warn from the Tarasoff decisions through subsequent case law, and distinguish between the duty to warn established in Tarasoff I (1974) and the broader duty to protect established in Tarasoff II (1976). 2. Identify the key criteria that must be met before the duty to warn is triggered and describe the exceptions to the psychotherapist-patient privilege that permit disclosure. 3. Apply the clinical guidelines established by the APA, and the practical decision-making frameworks discussed in the article, to determine appropriate courses of action when a patient makes a credible threat against an identifiable victim. Citation: Gorshkalova, O., & Munakomi, S. (2025, February 15). Duty to warn. Retrieved 4/2026 from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/book/NBK542236/