Moreover, society and individuals to seek and rely on the findings, comments, and discussions of psychologists because they respect the education and training that is required to become a psychologist; and they have grown to believe that psychologists, as a profession, are worthy of their trust and dedicated to improving society in the public’s interest. Since one of a psychologist’s primary responsibility of one’s practice is to interact, analyze and comment on the personal, private, and intimate issues of a client or focus of research; there is a higher duty of care to members of the community that society has grown to expect from psychologists. Nonetheless, unlike many other professions however, psychologists have been able achieve such a trusted status in the community without outside regulation. That is to say, society’s faith in psychologist is largely based on its trust that the profession can effectively self-regulate itself. One of the ways that self-regulation is achieved is through the requirement that all licensed psychologists abide by a comprehensive set of codes of conduct and rules of professional conduct. These codes and rules have been developed and applied to ensure all members of the profession act ethically in conducting the practices with society. Despite this requirement, not all the codes and rules are alike to individual practitioners. In short, compliance to some codes is easier or more difficult to comply with depending on the individual practitioner.
For instance, under the general principles of the American Psychologist Association’s (APA) Ethical Principles and Code of Conduct, a psychologist is required to “respect the dignity and worth of all people” especially as it relates to their “privacy, confidentiality and self-determination” while also “seeking to safeguard the welfare and rights of those with whom they interact professionally” (APA, 2013). While there is little anyone can argue about the benefits of having or following such a principle or that it is not unreasonable; I personally feel it I will have difficulties abiding with it at times. The reason for this is that, I have a deep belief in the importance of empathy or putting myself in another’s shoes to help me understand why they think or act as they do. As a potential psychologist, I think that having empathy will be particularly useful when I meet, interact, or engage with people or clients that are from wholly different backgrounds from myself. In essence, I hope that it will decrease the potential for me to pre-judge others. This will better allow me to be open to what a person is saying and absorb the essence of what they are trying to express. Unfortunately, I think that my belief in empathy will, at time run counter to the psychologist’s to respect the people’s rights and dignity, and duty of beneficence and nonmaleficence as described above. For example, in counseling a person who is considering suicide, the psychologist has a legal and ethical duty to report the circumstances to law enforcement if they feel that the individual is activing planning to harm themselves. In essence, it will be difficult for me to at once have empathy and understanding for a client, respect their right to confidentiality and self-determination but yet inform on them to law enforcement if there is the possibility that they may harm themselves.
On the other hand, one APA ethical principle and code of conduct that I believe I will not be an issue for me to uphold is the integrity requirement. According to the principle, a psychologist should at all times seek to promote accuracy, honesty and truthfulness including “keeping promises”, “avoid deception” and be attempt at all times to be trustworthy”. Firstly, I believe that these values are necessary in order to develop a relationship with clients. To be sure, any relationship that is not based on honesty, truthfulness, and being trustworthy is sure to fail, especially, as is almost always the case in psychology, when the meeting of the client and psychologist generally occurs as the result of a problem or adverse issues rather than from a happy event. Moreover, I these I traits that I have had all my life. I was raised to be honest and fair. As a result, being striving for truthfulness and trustworthiness are goals that I normally attempt to achieve outside of my interest in psychology. Consequently, it will not or should not be difficult to incorporate these same acts and decisions to fulfilling my duty to have and promote integrity.
Lastly, one APA ethical principle and code of conduct that I foresee as being a high-risk for me is the duty to recognize that fairness and justice entitle all people to access the benefits and contributions of the services being provided for by the psychologist. As mentioned above, this will particular be an issues in the case where a client informs me of an issue said in confidence that suggests that they may harm themselves. As a psychologist, I might believe that I can help them resolve the issue in a manner that is most suitable than any other alternative. On the other hand, I also have a duty to inform law enforcement of the situation. Law enforcement’s involvement may do more harm than help. How then is that a fulfilment of my duty to allow the client full access to those services that may best help them resolve their issues? In my mind that would be taking away from the goal of providing them the access that they need.
References
American Psychologist Association (APA) (2013). Ethical Principles and Code of Conduct. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/
Pope, & Bajt (1988). Ethics in Counseling &Psychotherapy, 5th ed. New York, NY: Cengage.
