Ethical Pitfalls for Psychology Professionals

Prior to beginning work on this discussion, read the Grenyer & Lewis (2012) “Prevalence, Prediction, and Prevention of Psychologist Misconduct” article and the APA Practice Central’s Professional Health and Well-being for Psychologists , Tips from Practitioners on Finding Work-Life Balance , and Tips for Self-Care online articles.

Select two complaints presented in the Grenyer & Lewis article (see Table 1) and explain the ramifications of these violations applying the APA’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct to each situation.

Assess the role of the APA in assisting psychology professionals in the identification of potential areas of misconduct. Describe and recommend a course of action to avoid these areas. Evaluate the contemporary role of psychology professionals and elaborate on the relationship between self-care and the issue of maintaining ethical principles and professional standards. Identify one or two self-care tips, tools, or suggested courses of action provided on the APA’s Self-care resources for psychologists website that might address the issues which lead to the chosen complaints.

The challenges of multiple role management are especially keen for psychologists working in small communities or with special sub-groups within a community. Because of overlapping social networks and “everybody knowing everybody else” in such contexts, the psychologist may find himself or herself in multiple roles such as that of “ordinary” citizen, professional psychologist, parent, and so forth. The ethics code makes it clear that we are not to avoid such multiple roles at all costs, but instead, to manage them in a way that we and others are aware of the “awkward” moments that we may face as we interact in these multiple roles.