Obstacles to addressing professional misconduct

Biaggio, Maryka; Duffy, Rosemary; Staffelbach, Darlene F.

doi:10.1016/s0272-7358(97)00109-8

Cited by 14 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…However, none of these ethical missteps are likely to become known by other professionals or to be reported to a disciplinary body unless the counselors volunteer such information. Data from disciplinary boards demonstrate that few incidents of misconduct are reported and even fewer complaints result in discipline (Biaggio, Duffy, & Staffelbach, 1998;Hubert & Freeman, 2004;Van Horne, 2004). The facts in these cases illustrate why complaints are so rare.…”

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confidence: 99%

Accepting Fallibility: A Model for Personal Responsibility for Nonegregious Ethics Infractions

Welfel

2005

Counseling and Values

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The profession's ethics standards require counselors to self-monitor their professional actions and take responsibility for misconduct. However, the professional literature has focused on preventing misconduct and on response to serious violations and has offered little guidance regarding the minor infractions that all professionals are vulnerable to committing during their careers. The author presents a 4-element model to guide counselors in ethically repairing damage when they recognize they have violated ethics codes or ethical principles in minor ways. The model uses the ethical principles that underlie the American Counseling Association's (1 995) Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice and J. R. Rest's (1 983, 1994) model of moral behavior as a foundation.thical standards require counselors to monitor their professional actions and to take responsibility for those actions, including those that E are considered minor infractions. Consider the behavior and circumstances of the counselors in the following situations.Thomas, a clinical counselor at a mental health agency, is highly regarded by colleagues and clients alike as a skilled, compassionate, and committed professional whose work focuses on adolescents with conduct and substance-abuse problems. Thomas's 15year-old daughter was recently assaulted by a boy she knew from school; she successfully fought off his attempt to rape her but suffered two broken ribs and several other minor injuries. Needless to say, Thomas has been distraught about his daughter's victimization. He has found it difficult to concentrate during counseling sessions and has felt negative emotions toward his clients on many occasions. These emotions have ranged from a loss of empathy (a feeling that his clients were merely whining about trivial issues) to experiences of rage at teenagers who fail to see the harm they cause with illegal and risky behavior. In sessions since the assault, he has been "going through the motions" and has at times been harsh, judgmental, and sarcastic. About 6 weeks after the assault, Thomas realizes that much of his recent work with clients has been mediocre, at best, and substandard, at worst. He recognizes that with at least one adolescent boy he may have acted in ways that deepened that boy's alienation and isolation. So he asks himself, "Now what do I do? I can't simply erase the last 6 weeks."

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confidence: 99%

Accepting Fallibility: A Model for Personal Responsibility for Nonegregious Ethics Infractions

Welfel

2005

Counseling and Values

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“…However, the threshold to take further steps is high and the PTs in our study tend to avoid it. Besides professional loyalty, this may also be explained by wanting to avoid personal costs, fearing negative repercussions or having insufficient information about ethical guidelines [15]. Research shows that professionals are most in danger of misconduct when those around them do not hold them accountable [15,28].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Besides professional loyalty, this may also be explained by wanting to avoid personal costs, fearing negative repercussions or having insufficient information about ethical guidelines [15]. Research shows that professionals are most in danger of misconduct when those around them do not hold them accountable [15,28]. This means that PTs seem to be responsible for policing themselves and thus need a good understanding of ethical standards [15,28].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Research shows that professionals are most in danger of misconduct when those around them do not hold them accountable [15,28]. This means that PTs seem to be responsible for policing themselves and thus need a good understanding of ethical standards [15,28]. Supervision, Balint groups and Morbidity-and-Mortality Conferences (medicine) can be used as model platforms for discussing the topic of errors in psychotherapy; even ethics consultation services could be asked for help, where established.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, they do emphasise the duty to exercise objectivity towards colleagues. Objectivity and collegiality seem to play an important role when handling errors, and psychotherapists are particularly unsure of how to manage such situations [15]. …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How psychotherapists handle treatment errors – an ethical analysis

Medau

Jox²,

Reiter-Theil

2013

BMC Med Ethics

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BackgroundDealing with errors in psychotherapy is challenging, both ethically and practically. There is almost no empirical research on this topic. We aimed (1) to explore psychotherapists’ self-reported ways of dealing with an error made by themselves or by colleagues, and (2) to reconstruct their reasoning according to the two principle-based ethical approaches that are dominant in the ethics discourse of psychotherapy, Beauchamp & Childress (B&C) and Lindsay et al. (L).MethodsWe conducted 30 semi-structured interviews with 30 psychotherapists (physicians and non-physicians) and analysed the transcripts using qualitative content analysis. Answers were deductively categorized according to the two principle-based ethical approaches.ResultsMost psychotherapists reported that they preferred to an disclose error to the patient. They justified this by spontaneous intuitions and common values in psychotherapy, rarely using explicit ethical reasoning. The answers were attributed to the following categories with descending frequency: 1. Respect for patient autonomy (B&C; L), 2. Non-maleficence (B&C) and Responsibility (L), 3. Integrity (L), 4. Competence (L) and Beneficence (B&C).ConclusionsPsychotherapists need specific ethical and communication training to complement and articulate their moral intuitions as a support when disclosing their errors to the patients. Principle-based ethical approaches seem to be useful for clarifying the reasons for disclosure. Further research should help to identify the most effective and acceptable ways of error disclosure in psychotherapy.

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Ethics in Research

Aguinis¹,

Henle²

2004

Handbook of Research Methods in Industrial and Organizational Psychology

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Obstacles to addressing professional misconduct

Cited by 14 publications

References 19 publications

Accepting Fallibility: A Model for Personal Responsibility for Nonegregious Ethics Infractions

Accepting Fallibility: A Model for Personal Responsibility for Nonegregious Ethics Infractions

How psychotherapists handle treatment errors – an ethical analysis

Ethics in Research

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