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Ethics in Practice: Mandated Reporting, Boundaries, and Decision-making
1. John D. Gavazzi, PsyD ABPP
Baltimore County Department of Health
June 2014
Ethics in Practice:
Mandated Reporting, Professional
Boundaries, and Ethical Decision-
making
2. List the differences between ethical, legal,
and risk management concerns
Outline a model for integrating professional
ethics with personal values
Use one decision-making model to work
through an ethical vignette
4. 1. Move away from the “ethical” versus
“unethical” decision.
2. In some ethical decisions, there is not
“right” or “correct” answer for everyone.
3. Most clinicians make ethical decisions on a
daily basis
5. Having an ethics code or attending
lectures on ethics codes are among
the least effective ways to ensure
ethical behavior.
6. People should not act on principle
(standing on principle can be an unprincipled stand)
7. Rational Social Worker: Know the Code!!
Social
Worker
Patient
Learn the rules
Apply the rules
Outcomes will follow
8. PatientSocial Worker
Learn the rules
Apply the rules
Outcomes will follow
Understand patient
dynamics
Understand the
relationship
Know the Code + Know your patient
9. Clinical Decision-making
Risk management
Legal Decision-making
Ethical Decision-making
◦ Professional Ethics
◦ Personal Ethics, Values, or Morality
10.
11. What is the best clinical intervention for this
patient in this situation?
Am I conceptualizing this patient correctly?
My patient continues to struggle after eight
sessions. What should I do?
12. How do I work with a patient to minimize risk
or liability?
Avoid types of work that have high liability
risks, such as custody evaluations or clinical
complex patients.
Do I have essential paperwork signed?
Informed Consent or practice policies current
13. Always have a suicidal patient sign a “no
suicide” contract
Never touch a patient
Always remain at a professional distance
emotionally and socially
Boundary crossings vs. boundary violations
14. Am I compliant with state laws and
regulations?
Is my practice HIPAA compliant?
Am I aware of relevant case law in my state?
Questions are usually asked of an attorney
15. Professional Ethics
Do I follow the NASW’s Code of Conduct?
Am I performing at the minimum or reaching
for the aspirational ceiling?
Is my behavior linked to a foundational
principle?
16. Personal values, ethics, and morality
Is what I am doing consistent with my values?
What is my emotional response to the patient,
lifestyle, or behavioral issue?
17. 1. Religion/Family of Origin
2. Education: College and CE
3. Personal Education: Reading and Experience
4. Honest self-reflection
18. How did it develop?
How often do you use it to reflect on
professional life?
How often do you use it to reflect on personal
life?
How do you integrate morals into ethics?
19. Do you use it “before the fact”?
Is it intuitive and unconscious?
Is it more cognitive?
Is it written down?
20. Is it acceptance of another person’s code in
full?
If yes, why?
If not, why?
21. Do you use it “after the fact”?
Fundamental Attribution Error
Actor-Observer Bias
Motivated Moral Reasoning
22. Looking at how well a social worker
integrates his/her values and behaviors into
the ethical culture of social workers
Social Work has a set of normative principles
and behaviors related to ethical behavior and
appropriate conduct
23. One way of remaining a life-long
learner
Provides another way to discuss
ethical behaviors and decisions
24. A process to change the cultural behavior of an
individual through contact with another
culture.
The process of acculturation occurs when there
is an adaptation into an organization or
society.
25. An outgrowth of positive ethics that
integrates personal ethics and professional
obligations.
Social Work has a system of shared and
distinctive norms, beliefs, and traditions.
This set of beliefs is reflected in the ethics
code.
26. Can be a complex process
Some parts of a social worker’s practice
and lifestyle may be easily acculturated
while others not
Process that will likely continue throughout
the education or career as a social worker
27. Identification with personal value system
(higher vs. lower)
Identification with value system of psychology
(higher vs. lower)
28. Acculturation Model of ethical
development
Integration Separation
Assimilation Marginalization
Higher on
Professional Ethics
Higher on Personal
Ethics
Lower on Personal
Ethics
Lower on
Professional Ethics
29. Matrix: Lower on professional ethics
Lower on personal ethics
Risks: *Greatest risk of harm
*Lack appreciation for ethics
*Motivated by self-interest
*Less concern for patients
30. Matrix: Higher on professional ethics
Lower on personal ethics
Risks: Developing an overly legalistic
stance
Rigidly conforming to certain rules
while missing broader issues
31. Matrix: Lower on professional ethics
Higher on personal ethics
Risks: Compassion overrides good
professional judgment
Fail to recognize the unique
role of social workers
32. Matrix: Higher on professional ethics
Higher on personal ethics
Reward: Implement values in context
of professional roles
Reaching for the ethical ceiling
Aspirational ethics
34. Ethical Culture of Social Workers
Service
Social Justice
Dignity and worth
of the person
Importance of
Human
Relationships
Integrity
Competence
35. Social workers elevate service to others above self
interest.
Social workers draw on their knowledge, values,
and skills to help people in need and to address
social problems.
Social workers are encouraged to volunteer some
portion of their professional skills with no
expectation of significant financial return (pro bono
service).
36. Social workers pursue social change,
particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable
and oppressed individuals and groups of
people.
Social workers’ social change efforts are
focused primarily on issues of poverty,
unemployment, discrimination, and other
forms of social injustice.
37. These activities seek to promote sensitivity to
and knowledge about oppression and cultural
and ethnic diversity.
Social workers strive to ensure access to
needed information, services, and resources;
equality of opportunity; and meaningful
participation in decision making for all
people.
38. Social workers treat each person in a caring
and respectful fashion, mindful of individual
differences and cultural and ethnic diversity.
Social workers promote clients’ socially
responsible self determination.
Social workers seek to enhance clients’
capacity and opportunity to change and to
address their own needs.
39. Social workers are cognizant of their dual
responsibility to clients and to the broader
society.
They seek to resolve conflicts between
clients’ interests and the broader society’s
interests in a socially responsible manner
consistent with the values, ethical principles,
and ethical standards of the profession.
40. Social workers understand that relationships between
and among people are an important vehicle for
change.
Social workers engage people as partners in the
helping process.
Social workers seek to strengthen relationships
among people in a purposeful effort to promote,
restore, maintain, and enhance the wellbeing of
individuals, families, social groups, organizations,
and communities.
41. Social workers are continually aware of the
profession’s mission, values, ethical
principles, and ethical standards and practice
in a manner consistent with them.
Social workers act honestly and responsibly
and promote ethical practices on the part of
the organizations with which they are
affiliated.
42. Social workers continually strive to increase their
professional knowledge and skills and to apply
them in practice.
Social workers should aspire to contribute to the
knowledge base of the profession.
43. The means to comply with a standard may
not always be readily apparent
Two seemingly competing standards may
appear equally appropriate
Application with of a single standard or set of
standards appear consistent with one or more
aspirational principle, but not another
44. The social worker is the expert and has
greater power in the relationship
Patient is vulnerable
The social worker is ultimately responsible for
what happens in treatment
45. Identify the competing ethical principles
Help to determine which principle has
precedence and why
The importance of emotion in ethical
decision-making and moral judgments
Cognitive biases are also important to
consider
46.
47. The NASW Code of Ethics does not include a
model of
ethical decision-making
Other resources may aid with decision-
making, but do not highlight how to work
through dilemmas
49. 1. Goal is to define the problem by identifying
the conflicting ethical principles
2. Generate a wide range of possible solutions
and identify pros and cons
3. Merge or knit the possible solutions
together in a way that maximizes the
benefits and limits the disadvantages
4. Implement
5. Look back or evaluate
50. “integrative framework”
steps two and three generate solutions that
maximize your personal values within the
context of your professional role
51. Avoid dichotomous thinking– either I have to
do x or y.
Duty to Warn example: either I have to warn
the potential victim of a threat or I have to
protect confidentiality.
52. 1. We have to train ourselves to think about
larger ethical principles first
2. We need to have the ability to slow
ourselves down prior to making good,
ethical decisions
Why?
53. Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Blink”
Jonathan Haidt’s book on Moral Intuition
David Pizarro’s work on motivated moral
reasoning
54. Top down approach
Start with ethical principles
Work from those principles to make good
decisions about our work
57. Negative emotions related to
ethical and moral decision-making
Positive emotions related to our
good decision-making skills and
ethical knowledge
Fear
Anxiety
Disgust
Disrespect
Passion
Calmness/Centered
Empathy
Respect/Sympathy
Elevation
58. The Fundamental Attribution Error
Actor Observer Bias
Availability Heuristic
Trait Negativity Bias
Confirmation Bias
Competence Bias
59. This cognitive style places an undue
emphasis on the patient’s behavior in the
therapeutic relationship
Overemphasis on the patient
Psychologist may lack insight into what s/he
is doing to promote those responses
60. This cognitive style places an undue
emphasis on external factors for the
psychologist’s behavior
In an attempt to avoid responsibility, the
psychologist can overemphasize the patient’s
role in the ethical dilemma.
61. This cognitive error leads one to use
information that readily comes to mind or
easiest to access
Easiest to go with that which is most
representative of the patient or scenario
62. When the psychologist more readily recalls
unpleasant characteristics of the patient as
compared with positive characteristics of the
patient
It is common for psychologists to work with
individuals they do not like or enjoy
63. The cognitive style in which psychologists
look for evidence to confirm their beliefs
about the patient or the situation.
Motivated moral reasoning
64. Dunning-Kruger Effect: a cognitive bias in
which unskilled individuals suffer from
illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their
ability as much higher than average.
Poor performers fail to learn from their
mistakes.
And, they fail to internalize direct feedback
from others.
65. Length of time in treatment
Patient complexity
Emotional intensity/therapeutic relationship
Current focus (or lack thereof) in treatment
69. Why study ethics and ethical decision-making
as a part of clinical practice?
70. Fiduciary Responsibility
Providing the highest quality of care possible
Reinforcing doing the best possible for your
patient
Better treatment outcomes
72. Good general basis to contemplate and
discuss ethical issues in psychological
practice
Look at vignettes as training tools
Remain aware of ethical issues in your
practice and work on skill building
73. The need for informed consent
Not just for the beginning of psychotherapy
74. What does the law say?
What do the ethical principles suggest?
Usually a conflict between confidentiality and
(community) beneficence
Child abuse reporting guidelines
75. What is the difference between a boundary
crossing and a boundary violation?