Final Paper Ethics Assignment

Ethics are moral concepts that control a person’s behavior. Ethics are very important in the profession of psychology. All Entities that governs professions of psychology, like American Psychological Association, has it code of ethics that govern its members. . The American Psychological Association’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (APA, 2002) is the standard to which all members and student afÏliates agree to comply with. The 2002 Ethics Code consists of the Introduction and Applicability Section, Preamble, General Principles, and Enforceable Standards. Many of these enforceable standards address the area of competence. Breach of any code of conduct comes with severe consequences. One might even loss his or her psychological license and might be incarcerated. Due to these reasons, psychological professionals adhere to codes of ethics. In all professions of Psychology, ethics protect, clients, the public and it members. At times, ethics contradicts. This sometimes, puts psychologist in ethical dilemma. When this situation happens a critical decision has to be made. The Governing bodies of Psychologist, like the American Psychological Association, have spelt out Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. These include reasonable actions to be taken by psychology professionals that will minimize and avoid undue harm to clients. The ethics code is multi-dimensional and the psychologist must adhere to the code of conduct in order to keep their license as mentioned above. Many of these enforceable standards address the area of competence. These standards includes Boundaries of Competence, which includes statement like “0In those emerging areas in which generally recognized standards for preparatory training do not yet exist, psychologists nevertheless take reasonable steps to ensure the competence of their work and to protect clients/patients, students, supervisees, research participants, organizational clients, and others from harm”. Psychologists must follow ethical principles that prevent them from deceiving their clients, meaning the psychologist cannot lie to a patient for the good of the psychologist. However, deception among psychologists may fall into different codes when conducting research. For example, ethics codes for psychologist and research participants during a research would include codes of conduct such as deception of the participants is justified only when the prospective educational, scientific and applied value are achieved when non-deceptive alternatives are not viable. The participant cannot be deceived about conditions of the research that may induce pain or emotional distress and every participant must be debriefed at the end of their participation in the research. Psychologists also have certain rules and codes they must follow in regards to the their public safety. For example if a psychologist is presented with a client who is making bodily harm threats to another individual or group, if the psychologist feels the threats are warranted, he/she is required to report the threats to the proper authorizes and in many cases, to the person or persons the threat is being aimed at. Although it may seem like a breach of confidentially to report what was said in confidence, the psychologist is required and authorized to make the report without fear of breaking the code of ethics. The code of ethics was created to protect the public and the psychologist from any abuses that are the result of mishandling a situation. Physical, financial and emotional situations are all protected with the code of ethics. There are numerous subcategories that are explained and included in the ethics code ranging from the misappropriation of funds and/or billing procedures to the events that must occur during the termination of therapy. The code of ethics has specific rules regarding conflict of interest for both the psychologist and the client. Conflict of interest can be applied to a variety of situations such as the psychologist should not treat a family member or close friend due to the possibility of favoritism or being nonobjective which would interfere with the treatment being given and received. The psychological ethical codes clearly prohibit the interaction of a personal relationship between the psychologist and the client. Kitchener cited ethical dilemma in Shiles (2009) as when0“there are good but contradictory ethical reasons to take conflicting and incompatible0courses of action” (1984, p. 43 A0professional dilemma0is an ethical problem that requires an individual to choose a particular course of action. For instance, on July 15 th, 2019, a client who was appreciative of my work presented a gift in the form of money. I politely refused, but the client was unhappy of my refusal. She threatened to leave our organization because that was not the first time I had refused a gift from her. I was torn between receiving the gift and retaining the client or refusing the gift and allowing the client to leave to another organization. Our organization ethics prohibits accepting gifts from clients and also encourages client’s consultation with satisfaction. my colleague, Upon and a little supervisor, deliberation, I promoted and my organizational foundation for the elderly, and encourage the client to donate to the foundation. Client was happy and donated to the foundation. Since then, the client has been one of the donors to the foundation and still a client in my organization. Ethics plays important role in the field of psychology Professions. Ethics are put in place to ensure that anyone receiving services from a psychologist, the public, as well as the psychologist providing the services is protected against any breach of conduct that may cause physical or emotional harm to those involved in the services. At times, ethics contradicts. This sometimes, puts psychologist in ethical dilemma. When this situation happens a critical decision has to be made. Consulting colleagues and other professions at times assist psychology professions to make the best decisions. .