Ethics in Psychology and the Mental Health Professions: Standards and Cases

by Gerald P. Koocher, Patricia Keith-Spiegel

Overview

Most mental health professionals and behavioral scientists enter the field with a strong desire to help others, but clinical practice and research endeavors often involve decision-making in the context of ethical ambiguity. Good intentions are important, but unfortunately, they do not always protect the practitioner and client from breaches in ethical conduct. Academics, researchers, and students also face a range of ethical challenges from the classroom to the laboratory. Now in a new expanded edition, Ethics in Psychology and the Mental Health Professions, the most widely read and cited ethics textbook in psychology, has emerged with a broadened scope extending across the mental health and behavioral science fields. The revised volume considers many of the ethical questions and dilemmas that mental health professionals encounter in their everyday practice, research, and teaching. The book has been completely updated and is now also relevant for counselors, marriage and family therapists, social workers, and psychiatrists, and includes the ethics codes of those groups as appendices. Providing both a critical assessment and elucidation of key topics in the APA's guidelines, this comprehensive volume takes a practical approach to ethics and offers constructive means for both preventing problems, recognizing, approaching, and resolving ethical predicaments. Written in a highly readable and accessible style, this new edition retains the key features which have contributed to its popularity, including hundreds of case studies that provide illustrative guidance on a wide variety of topics, including fee setting, advertising for clients, research ethics, sexual attraction, how to confront observed unethical conduct in others, and confidentiality, among others. Ethics in Psychology and the Mental Health Professions will be important reading for practitioners and students-in training. An instructors manual is available for professors on http://www.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780195149111

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199882052
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/16/2008
Series:	Oxford Textbooks in Clinical Psychology
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Gerald P. Koocher is Professor and Dean of the Graduate School for Health Studies at Simmons College. He has recently finished a term as president of the American Psychological Association (APA). Patricia Keith-Spiegel is Voran Honors Distinguished Professor (Emeritus) of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Ball State University

Table of Contents

Preface

1. On Being Ethical

2. Competence: Personal Fitness, Qualifications, and Training Issues

3. Psychotherapy I: Ethical Obligations of Psychotherapists

4. Psychotherapy II. Ethical Issues in Psychotherapeutic Techniques and Related Controversies

5. Ethical Challenges in Working with Human Diversity

6. Confidentiality, Privacy, and Record Keeping

7. Psychological Assessment: Testing Tribulations

8. Nonsexual Multiple Role Relationships

9. Attraction, Romance, and Sexual Intimacies with Clients and Subordinates

10. Relationships with Colleagues, Supervisees, Students, and Employees

11. Self-Promotion in the Age of Electronic Media

12. The Mental Health Business: Money and Managed Care

13. Mental Health Practitioners in the Legal System: Tort and Retort

14. Mental Health Professionals in Academia

15. Challenging Work Settings: Juggling Porcupines

16. Scholarly Publications and the Responsible Conduct of Research

17. Making Ethical Decisions and Taking Action

18. Ethics Codes, Regulations, and Enforcements

Index

Editorial Reviews

"This premier resource is the finest ethics textbook covering the broad scope of mental health practice, including professions other than psychology. It is chock-full of engaging case examples and valuable guidance. Ethics in Psychology and the Mental Health Professions impresses all and improves with every edition." —John C. Norcross, PhD, ABPP, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, University of Scranton, and Co-author, Psychotherapy Relationships that Work and Self-Help That Works

"From their trailblazing first edition in 1985 to the new fourth edition, Gerry Koocher and Tricia Keith-Spiegel always give us a wonderful resource for expanding our ethical awareness and making better decisions. Their new volume is the best yet-thoughtful, engaging, and up-to-date. This book should be in the hands of every psychologist and mental health professional, from the newest student to the most senior expert." —Kenneth S. Pope, PhD, ABPP, Diplomate in Clinical Psychology and Co-author (with Melba J.T. Vasquez, PhD, ABPP), Ethics in Psychotherapy and Counseling, 5th Edition (January 2016)

"Ethical practice, whether in teaching or clinical work, or as a researcher or an administrator, is far more than memorizing and being able to cite the codes of various professional organizations. The 4th Edition of Ethics in Psychology and the Mental Health Professions by Koocher and Keith-Spiegel is a comprehensive, compelling, and interesting approach outlining the decision-making process required to make complex decisions in many of those grey areas that characterize much of professional practice. Updated to include current advances in technology, practice, and changing ethical codes, this volume is a valuable contribution to improving psychological practices through thoughtful and ethical decision-making." —Thomas L. Sexton, PhD, ABPP, Professor Emeritus, Indiana University, and Editor, Couple and Family Psychology: Research and Practice

From the Publisher