Legal and statutory regulations.

Abstract

The practice of professional psychology is governed by numerous legal and statutory regulations beyond the licensing act that recognize psychology as a regulated profession (see Chapter 7, this volume). In the arena of regulatory law, a licensing act creates a board of psychology and bestows on that board the authority to grant licenses to qualified individuals, to adjudicate complaints against licensed psychologists, and to adopt other rules that will protect the health, welfare, and safety of the general public related to the practice of psychology. The psychology regulatory board then creates and adopts rules that are designed to implement the responsibilities authorized by the law. In addition, legislatures may pass other laws or statutes (e.g., duty to warn) that create responsibilities for licensed psychologists that the psychology board must monitor.In this chapter, we focus on several important rules, regulations, and related statutes as well as five legal concepts related to mental health and clinical psychology, namely, informed consent, confidentiality, privacy, duty to warn, and privileged communication. Most licensed psychologists are familiar with, or recognize, these terms; however and unfortunately, some practitioners may not grasp the underlying legal principles or clinical applications. This dearth of understanding can result in an unintentional violation of these rules and standards of care in professional practice. BRIEF HISTORYChapter 7 of this volume describes the creation of the early licensing laws recognizing the independent