ETHICS IN PSYCHOLOGY- CHAPTER 1: ON BEING
Act benevolently (beneficence) - treat clients
ETHICAL
Universal Human Rights – many cultures agree with
the rights / based on reasoning
1. Expensive gifts should not be accepted
2. Must maintain level of professionalism
“Good”
 What is good for you might not be good for other
people
 Grounded on well-being
 Eudaimonia – self-actualization; maximizing the
possibilities/potential (Socrates)
Victor Frankl
- Looking for the purpose/meaning in life = good
- Logotherapy
Aristotle
- Doing your functional= good
- Not doing = dysfunctional
WHAT IS ETHICAL?
 Ethics - traditionally a branch of philosophy
dealing with moral problems and moral
judgments
 we assign judgments to behavior as “right” or
“wrong” and “good” or “bad” according to some
socially accepted guideline
 Prejudices, overriding personal needs,
rationalizations, and insufficient training and
experience biased conclusions, bad decisions,
and regrettable actions
Core Ethical Principles
1. Do no harm (nonmaleficence) - Mental health
professionals strive to benefit those with whom
we work while taking care to ensure the
minimization or elimination of any potential for
damage
2. Respect autonomy - Individuals have the right
to decide how to live their lives as long as their
actions do not interfere with the rights and
welfare of others
3. Act justly – actions should be fair and equitable
4. Act faithfully - Issues of fidelity, loyalty,
truthfulness, and promise keeping converge to
form the standards required in fiduciary
relationships
5. Accord dignity - We must strive to understand
cultural diversity and ways others differ from
ourselves and endeavor to eliminate biases
influencing the quality of our service.
6.
with caring and compassion while maintaining
appropriate professional roles and boundaries
7. Pursue excellence - Maintaining competence,
doing our best, and taking pride in our work
8. Act accountably - When errors have been
made, mental health professionals consider
possible consequences, accept responsibility for
their actions and inactions
9. Act courageously - Maintaining a steadfast
determination to actively uphold ethical
principles
MANAGING RISK
 Risk management approach - prescribes ways
to avoid ethical problems
Elements of good practice that reduce risks:
 Refraining from sexual contacts or other intense
multiple-role relationships with clients
 Avoiding role changes without documented
consent of those involved
 Keeping careful notes and records, including
billing and fee collections
 Well documenting diagnoses and client risk
behaviors (e.g., suicidal or homicidal ideation),
including actions taken or clinical rationales for
not acting
 Regularly reviewing client treatment plans
 Documenting reasons for termination and the
process followed
 Consulting with colleagues or appropriate others
about difficult clients (with confidentiality
protection) and carefully documenting such
consultations
 Conducting therapy in a professional setting,
ideally an office
 Practicing within one’s sphere of competence
Risky clients:
 borderline personality disorder
- high suicidal tendencies
 narcissistic personality disorder
- grandiosity, sense of entitlement, hard to
please
- risk: complains, easily insulted
 dissociative personality disorder
- malingering, rare, self-fulfilling prophecy, false
memory, psychodynamic approach
- DID problem: power of suggestion from the
therapist (↑false positive)
 impulsive acting out
- Histrionic PD, Bipolar II
 complex post-traumatic stress disorder
- client is hard to predict, common among
 military soldiers, can become aggressive
- risk: opening/reactivating the trauma
 severe depression or suicidality
- catatonic or stupor – refusal to respond to a
stimuli
 substance abuse
 being adult victims of abuse as children
- might give false memory (consc/uncons),
reimagined memories
- hypnotism = not concrete
 being in an abusive relationship
- manipulation
 a history of dangerous or violent behavior
 characterizing people in their life as either hated
or adored
- “boxed-in” characterization
 rapid and intense development of transference
- easily attached, rapport easily built
 lack of sources of social support.
Higher risk types of practice:
 forensic work, such as serving as a witness in
child custody cases;
 working in a correctional setting;
 conducting mental disability evaluations;
 treating celebrities or public figures;
 other practice venues where scrutiny will be
intense
The Perils of Obsessive Risk Management
 scrutinizing every client as a potential land mine
may become insidiously instilled.
 One unfortunate outcome of overanxious risk
management is shutting out those who urgently
require therapy
 maintaining an awareness of client risks, but
balancing these concerns with one’s own
competence and training when making decisions
about accepting a client.
WHO GETS INTO TROUBLE?
Bad Behavior Off the Charts
 Rarely, therapists willfully, even maliciously,
engage in acts they know to violate ethical and
legal standards
 defrauding insurance companies, accepting
kickbacks, using elaborate bait-and-switch
techniques, or making highly misleading claims
about the effectiveness of services offered to the
public.
 communication breakdowns in a marriage can
wreak considerable havoc when an exploitative
therapist is added to the mix
More Common Patterns of Unethical Behavior
Competency Issues: lacking sufficient knowledge
about, an understanding of, or commitment to ethical
principles and standards
 The Uninformed or Misinformed -
A substantial number of violators appear to be
either naive or uneducated about what conduct
is expected of them
 The Insufficiently Prepared – can arise from
incapacity to perform the services being
rendered or to work with certain types of clients.
 The Burned out and Vulnerable - therapists
suffering from their own emotional or physical
challenges, burnout, family crises, and other
stressors also reveal themselves in a substantial
number of cases involving misconduct clients.
Lack of Lapses in maintaining Self-Awareness:
engaging in rationalizations to justify decisions and
behavior
- Self-serving bias: tendency to gather and process
information in a way that advances our self-interest or
supports our pre-existing views
 Therapists who Rationalize - Self-deception
allows one to engage in an “internal con
game”—to act out of self-interest while actually
believing that one has acted morally
 Therapists with Too-Loose Boundaries -
blending the professional role with another form
of interaction or connection resulting in harm
 The Oblivious Exploiters - knowingly take
advantage of clients, students, or research
participants by abusing their positions of trust or
authority.
Insensitivity: revealing patterns of indifference or
disrespect; unreliability; lack of empathy and paying
insufficient attention to the moment or to an issue
 Offensive Dispositions - Such callous
statements violate the dignity and respect due to
clients, but whether anything can be done to rein
in a therapist who is complained about for being
insulting is uncertain.
 The Irresponsible - unreliable execution of
professional duties, shoddy or superficial
professional work when one knows better, and
attempts to blame others or cover up mistakes
or inadequacies
o Abandonment - fail to follow through
with their duties in a way that causes
clients to become vulnerable, to feel
discarded or rejected, or to suffer some
other foreseeable harm
 Momentary slips - displace one’s usual
attentiveness with transitory blindness,
sometimes due to an inconvenient situation or
distraction