Professional Conduct and Handling Misconduct in Psychotherapy: Ethical Practice between Boundaries, Relationships, and Reality

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina Franke ◽  
Anita Riecher-Rössler
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Reasoning ◽  
Code Of Conduct ◽  
Sexual Misconduct ◽  
Professional Conduct ◽  
Ethical Practice ◽  
Professional Relationship ◽  
Professional Misconduct ◽  
Professional Boundaries ◽  
Boundary Violation ◽  
Person Of The Therapist

The special nature of the professional relationship in psychotherapy requires a code of conduct that protects the patient, but also allows therapeutic flexibility. However, the limits of professional conduct are transgressed when a psychotherapist goes beyond his or her professional boundaries to satisfy his or her own needs. The implications of misconduct are considered to be particularly severe in psychotherapy. Misconduct has various faces and facets. Sexual misconduct is the most drastic form of boundary violation; however, this should not detract attention from other forms of misconduct, especially because they often precede the more severe boundary violations. Any form of misconduct is profoundly connected with the person of the therapist. Nevertheless, research often addresses the question of what professional misconduct is, rather than how ethical professional conduct can be facilitated. This chapter aims to give an overview of the current literature to (1) define professional conduct and outline ethical reasoning, (2) describe different forms of misconduct, (3) discuss options for prevention and intervention, and (4) discuss options for improving training of future psychotherapists.

scholarly journals Responding to the Kerr/Haslam Inquiry

2006 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 207-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona Subotsky
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Hospitals ◽  
Sexual Misconduct ◽  
General Medical Council ◽  
Medical Council ◽  
Professional Conduct ◽  
Professional Misconduct ◽  
The Public

In 2004 I was asked by the College first to respond to the Inquiry's questions and later to attend a ‘stakeholders' meeting’. This was not so much in my capacity as Treasurer but as an officer with an interest in the issue of risk and professional difficulties for psychiatrists. A review of the public reports from the General Medical Council (GMC) of their determinations in the Professional Conduct Committee had made it evident that sexual misconduct was probably the single greatest cause of a finding of serious professional misconduct against a psychiatrist. In addition, I had contributed to an earlier debate on sexual safety for women in psychiatric hospitals (Subotsky, 1991, 1993).

scholarly journals Boundary violation and sexual exploitation in psychiatry and psychotherapy: a review

2004 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 312-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sameer P. Sarkar
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Sexual Exploitation ◽  
Professional Roles ◽  
Professional Boundaries ◽  
Boundary Violation ◽  
Psychotherapeutic Practice ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Sexual Boundary Violations

In psychiatric and psychotherapeutic practice, ‘boundaries' delineate the personal and the professional roles and the differences that should characterise the interpersonal encounters between the patient/client and the professional. Boundaries are essential to keep both parties safe. The author outlines the various types of boundary violation that can arise in clinical practice, their consequences (both clinical and legal), how professionals can avoid them and how health care institutions might respond, should they occur. He concentrates on sexual boundary violations, because these have been the subject of most empirical study.

Legal Issues Involving Educator Sexual Misconduct

2017 ◽  
pp. 91-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Ashley Fields
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Misconduct ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
Professional Boundaries ◽  
Background Checks ◽  
Personal Consequences ◽  
Educator Sexual Misconduct ◽  
Liability Risks ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Reporting Procedures

In addition to the trauma for victims of an educator's sexual misconduct, such conduct can have lasting consequences for the educator, their employer, and the community the educator serves. The educator who crosses professional boundaries and engages in sexual misconduct with students faces the possibility of both professional and personal consequences. In addition to discussing these consequences, this chapter will identify and examine the liability risks for school employers when an educator engages in sexual misconduct. This chapter will also provide insight into how a school employer can to adopt and implement measures to prevent and manage risks posed by sexual misconduct through background checks, training, supervision, reporting procedures, and conducting investigations when appropriate.

Specific Concerns for Teachers, School Counselors, and Administrators

2017 ◽  
pp. 24-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Edward Christopher
Keyword(s):  
School Counselors ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Sexual Misconduct ◽  
Professional Conduct ◽  
Inappropriate Behaviors ◽  
Instructional Settings ◽  
Inappropriate Relationships ◽  
Professional Interactions

This chapter describes the types of sexual misconduct most prevalent in schools and the types of professional conduct needed by educators to counteract these inappropriate behaviors. Teachers, school counselors, and administrators will learn the best ways to organize the physical space in several types of instructional settings as well as maintain professional interactions with students in all settings. Additionally, educators will learn to evaluate their own behaviors and how they may inadvertently be promoting inappropriate relationships between themselves and the students in their schools.

Professional Conduct

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann A. Abbott
Keyword(s):  
Social Workers ◽  
Dispute Resolution ◽  
Review Process ◽  
Code Of Ethics ◽  
Professional Behavior ◽  
Professional Conduct ◽  
Professional Misconduct ◽  
Alternate Dispute Resolution ◽  
Professional Review ◽  
Over Time

The professional review process delineates procedures for hearing complaints of alleged professional misconduct by members of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW). It provides mechanisms for conducting hearings and alternate dispute resolution via mediation, monitoring professional behavior, and sanctioning and developing corrective actions for NASW members who are in violation of the NASW’s Code of Ethics. The process, originally developed in 1967, has been modified over time to reflect the best identified means for conducting fair hearings and carrying out the most appropriate interventions.

Appropriate Training Should Turn Ethical Reasoning into Ethical Practice

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 373-392
Author(s):  
Alexander T. Jackson ◽  
Mathias J. Simmons ◽  
Bradley J. Brummel ◽  
Aaron C. Entringer ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Reasoning ◽  
Ethical Practice

The Oxford Handbook of Professional Economic Ethics

2014 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Professional Ethics ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Ethical Reasoning ◽  
Code Of Conduct ◽  
Policy Formation ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Economic Ethics ◽  
Economic Practice ◽  
Economics Profession

For more than a century, the economics profession has extended its reach to encompass policy formation and institutional design while largely ignoring the ethical challenges that attend the profession’s influence over the lives of others. Economists have proved to be disinterested in ethics, which, embracing emotivism, they often treat as a matter of preference, and hostile to professional economic ethics, which they incorrectly equate with a code of conduct that would be at best ineffectual and at worst disruptive to good economic practice. But good ethical reasoning is not reducible to mere tastes, and professional ethics is not reducible to a code. Instead, professional economic ethics refers to a new field of investigation—a tradition of sustained inquiry into the irrepressible ethical entailments of academic and applied economic practice. The risks and costs of establishing the field are real, but a profession that purports to enhance social welfare cannot avoid them.

scholarly journals Practical Wisdom: A Review of Foundations of Ethical Practice, Research, and Teaching in Psychology and Counseling

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatima Cotton
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Ethical Reasoning ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Practice Research ◽  
Ethical Practice ◽  
Life Situation ◽  
Ethical Problems ◽  
Research And Teaching ◽  
Real Life Situation

In Karen Strohm Kitchener and Sharon K. Anderson’s Foundations of Ethical Practice, Research, and Teaching in Psychology and Counseling (2011) they use the term practical wisdom or prudence as a way to make right decisions in real life situation. The authors lay the foundation for conceptually dealing with ethical problems for psychologists, counselors, students, and trainees. The book is in two parts. In the first six chapters, the authors focus on the foundations of ethical reasoning. The next part focuses on the ethical issues psychologists and counselors are confronted with in their roles.

Introduction, or Why This Handbook?

2015 ◽  
pp. 2-10
Author(s):  
George F. DeMartino ◽  
Deirdre McCloskey
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Professional Ethics ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Ethical Reasoning ◽  
Code Of Conduct ◽  
Policy Formation ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Economic Ethics ◽  
Economic Practice ◽  
Economics Profession

For more than a century, the economics profession has extended its reach to encompass policy formation and institutional design while largely ignoring the ethical challenges that attend the profession’s influence over the lives of others. Economists have proved to be disinterested in ethics, which, embracing emotivism, they often treat as a matter of preference, and they seem hostile to professional economic ethics, which they incorrectly equate with a code of conduct that would be at best ineffectual and at worst disruptive to good economic practice. But good ethical reasoning is not reducible to mere tastes, and professional ethics is not reducible to a code. Instead, professional economic ethics refers to a new field of investigation—a tradition of sustained inquiry into the irrepressible ethical entailments of academic and applied economic practice. The risks and costs of establishing the field are real, but a profession that purports to enhance social welfare cannot avoid them.

Advancing Sex Positivity while Combating Sexual Misconduct

2017 ◽  
pp. 238-255
Author(s):  
Jayleen Galarza ◽  
Becky Anthony
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Code Of Conduct ◽  
Sexual Misconduct ◽  
Ethical Standards ◽  
Victim Blaming ◽  
Positive Approach ◽  
Limited Communication ◽  
Social Work Practitioners ◽  
Investigative Process ◽  
Sex Positive

Social work professionals are accountable to ethical standards and a code of conduct that were developed to protect clients from harm. As accusations of sexual misconduct by social work practitioners is possible, it is important that agencies and organizations decrease the amount of additional harm that may result from the reporting and investigative process. Unfortunately, some agencies engage in practices that hinder the reporting of sexual misconduct, such as: victim blaming, lack of transparency, and limited communication during the investigation. Within this chapter, the authors propose that social work professionals adopt a sex positive approach to managing and investigating reports of sexual misconduct by practitioners. According to the authors, a sex positive approach seeks to challenge agencies and organizations to treat such cases seriously while respecting the individuals involved and limiting the risk of further violating or isolating the complainant.

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