Concise Guide to Ethics in Mental Health Care, by Laura (original) (raw)

Ethics for psychotherapists and counselors: A proactive approach

2009

Anderson and Handelsman have written a truly unique ethics book; one that will be of value to every new as well as seasoned psychotherapist in professions from social work to psychiatry. They write about professional ethics as a process of acculturation that requires the reader to consider themselves, their motivations, and their feelings about the ethical requirements of the professions. In order to facilitate the process of self-awareness, they provide a series of activities like journaling to help the professional continue to expand their awareness as they encounter topics like confidentiality or multiple relationships. Whether or not instructor chooses this book as a primary text, it should be a supplement to every course that is taught." Karen Strohm Kitchener, Professor Emeritus, University of Denver "This book is unique in my experience in that it encourages readers to reflect on their own ethical predispositions as they think about psychotherapy ethics. The book also helps students understand differences between being an ethical person and an ethical psychotherapist-a distinction that is difficult for most students, and many professionals, to appreciate. The authors' emphasis on helping readers know themselves as well as the professional ethical guidelines is an important advance over other ethics texts. The discussion of 'positive ethics' is also unique and helpful for professionals."

Ethics Commentary: Ethical Issues in Psychosomatic Medicine (Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry)

FOCUS, 2013

Psychiatrists who practice in medical settings are often called on to provide their recommendations in medical situations with challenging ethical dilemmas. Although not necessarily trained ethicists, psychiatric consultants are often expected to be expertly versed in the field of medical ethics. It is thus imperative for psychiatrists working in medical hospitals to be familiar with important ethical concepts and questions and have a framework within which they can conceptualize their cases. In this paper, we review the "Four Topics Method," which provides a framework to help with ethical decision-making strategies for patients in a medical setting. We then discuss three cases using this framework, outlining the ethical dilemmas in question and highlighting important themes.

Ethics in psychosocial interventions

from varied backgrounds, the term therapist will be used to denote the health professional. The term patient will be used, rather than client, as that better captures the nuances of the fiduciary nature of the therapist patient relationship (one in which the patient places trust in the therapist), and the intrinsic power imbalance in this relationship. And while addictions occur in all genders, for ease of reference 'he' will be used to denote the patient. Along the same line, the therapist will be denoted as 'she'. Fundamental principles of medical ethics The four principles which have been the bedrock of ethical decision making are listed below. 1 1. Non maleficence-do no harm While therapists may be alert to the risks or side effects of pharmacological interventions, it may be hard to imagine that psychosocial interventions could harm. An example of this would be if an untrained therapist tries to deal with domestic violence in a person with alcohol use. It needs training and great sensitivity to deal with this issue safely-while protecting the spouse from further violence, This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as the author is credited and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.

Psychiatric Ethics Chapter Manuscript

Chapter Manuscript, 2017

An overview of the historical sources of ethical reasoning, giving clinical practitioners a structured method for analysis of ethical dilemmas and moral pluralism typically encountered in the practice of psychiatry. This review will appeal to the psychiatric practitioner who is faced with ethical decisions about which reasonable practitioners may and do disagree, while providing tools and sample cases that facilitate the process of analysis and justification of decision-making.

Ethical psychiatry in an uncertain world

Psychiatric practice is often faced with complex situations that seem to pose serious moral dilemmas for practitioners. Methods for solving these dilemmas have included the development of more objective rules to guide the practitioner such as utilitarianism and deontology. A more modern variant on this objective model has been 'Principlism' where 4 mid level rules are used to help solve these complex problems. In opposition to this, there has recently been a focus on more subjective criteria for resolving complex moral dilemmas. In particular, virtue ethics has been posited as a more sensitive method for helping doctors to reason their way through difficult ethical issues. Here the focus is on the character traits of the practitioner. Bloch and Green advocated another way whereby more objective methods such as Principlism and virtue ethics are combined to produce what they considered sound moral reasoning in psychiatrists. This paper points out some difficulties with this approach and instead suggests that a better model of ethical judgment could be developed through the use of narratives or stories. This idea puts equal prima facie value on the patient's and the psychiatrist's version of the dilemma they are faced with. It has the potential to lead to a more genuine empathy and reflective decision-making.

Ethical dilemmas in psychotherapy: comparison between patients, therapists and laypersons

The Israel journal of psychiatry and related sciences, 2005

The attitudes of patients towards ethical dilemmas in psychotherapy have been reported in only a few studies. We investigated whether the attitudes of patients undergoing psychotherapy to confidentiality and boundaries are different from those of therapists and laypersons. Clinical vignettes describing ethical dilemmas of confidentiality and boundaries were presented to 103 patients undergoing psychotherapy (patient group), 93 psychotherapists of different professional backgrounds (professional group), and 55 staff and students from the fields of law and the humanities (lay group). Patients were asked how they think therapists should act in the situations presented and therapists were asked how they should behave in such situations. In general, the patient group showed a greater tendency to view their therapists as breaching confidentiality than the professional and lay groups. Regarding boundaries, the majority of psychotherapists were against initiating any sexual relationship wit...