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Responsible to whom? Responsible to what? Some ethical issues in community intervention
Abstract
Conclusion
Each ethical decision is a blend of general principles and contextual features. Many require compromises between competing values, must be made in the absence of perfect information, and require the courage to confront mistakes.
In community intervention, we have seen that adopting a collaborative paradigm imposes the freedom to determine to whom we are responsible for our actions. A rationale was offered for giving priority to the most vulnerable group, even though this strategy leaves us with an accountability gap in which the group to whom we owe primary loyality is least likely to be able to call us to account.
When we reject the professional‐client paradigm in community psychology, we lose the formal contract as a device for setting the terms and limiting the scope of our responsibility. We do the best reconnaissance we can, but even with careful data‐gathering we are condemned to act on the basis of imperfect information. We must follow through on unforseen consequences even when we have no formal role to mandate our perseverence.
The community as a setting for psychological intervention faces us, then, with ethical challenges: we work for the well‐being of groups too broad to give informed consent to our interventions; we act in collaboration with others, but collaborative action does not free us from professional obligation; we reconnoiter, but reconnaissance does not provide us with perfect information; we may advise while others act, but we cannot walk away from the consequences of their actions. Ethical decision making, in the community as elsewhere, is a creative act in which we invent our profession choice by choice.
... En este tipo de interacción, tan significativa como poco estudiada, una dimensión (casi siempre la técnica) funciona a nivel explícito, (es reconocida por el sistema social), mientras que la otra (valorativa) opera a nivel implícito, ya que, no siendo reconocida socialmente, no puede ser abiertamente abordada en el análisis o la intervención. Un buen ejemplo de esta divergencia sería la interventora que a la hora de evaluar la viabilidad de una casa para mujeres maltratadas (O'Neill, 1989) opera bajo la lógica científica de la obtención de datos objetivos (dimensión técnica explícita), mientras que los demás a su alrededor parecen moverse según la lógica -no explicitada-de lucha por el poder y los recursos escasos (dimensión política), en que la información es simplemente un arma política más. ...
... Trataré ahora de resumir los temas éticos señalados como relevantes en la literatura sobre IS: Bermant, Kelman y Warwick (1978), Conner (1990) Davidson (1989), Glidewell (1978), Golann (1969), Gracia (1994), Heller (1989), Kelman (1965), , Laue y Cormick (1978), Levine y Perkins (1987), Lippitt (1983), O'Neill (1989, Pope (1990), Riger (1989), Sánchez Vidal (1991a, 1991b, Shore y Golann (1969), Sieber (1982), Snow y Gersick (1986), , Walton (1978), Warwick (1978) y Williams (1978). En conjunto se incluyen aquí temas significativos que, poseyendo una fuerte carga valorativa, aparecen comúnmente en los análisis éticos, políticos u otros, a diversos niveles de IS. ...
... De forma que, a medida que el terreno de actuación se torna más novel, complejo o cambiante, se multiplica la complejidad ética, siendo las cuestiones morales planteadas más frecuentes y difíciles de encarar. Golann (1969), Kelman (1965), Walton (1978), Keith-Spiegel y Koocher (1985), O'Neill (1989), Shore y Golann (1969), Sieber (1982) y Snow y Gersick (1986) han señalado diversas circunstancias y factores -que se superponen en la práctica-como origen o causa de las cuestiones éticas en la acción social. Las resumimos como sigue: 1. Lealtades distintas, divergentes con frecuencia, hacia varios de los actores sociales implicados. ...
Ethics of social intervention
Context data
Social ethics theory and controversies on the nature of values and ethics
Main themes and issues
Methodology to address ethical dilemmas in social practice
... Community psychologists have elaborated on the application of ethics in terms of community intervention, where information and knowledge change over time and can be incomplete, the needs of multiple stakeholders must be considered, and where there are often multiple choices for how to proceed (O'Neill, 1989). O'Neill (1989) cogently asked "To whom is the psychologist accountable, and for what?" (p.324), and acknowledged the competing values that affect ethical decisions. ...
... Community psychologists have elaborated on the application of ethics in terms of community intervention, where information and knowledge change over time and can be incomplete, the needs of multiple stakeholders must be considered, and where there are often multiple choices for how to proceed (O'Neill, 1989). O'Neill (1989) cogently asked "To whom is the psychologist accountable, and for what?" (p.324), and acknowledged the competing values that affect ethical decisions. Community psychologists have to determine who is the client, and in this case, it could be the school, the community-based organization who provided the program and hired the evaluators, or the children being served. ...
... Community psychologists have to determine who is the client, and in this case, it could be the school, the community-based organization who provided the program and hired the evaluators, or the children being served. Given multiple clients, the strategy often used and recommended is prioritizing the interests of the most vulnerable group (O'Neill, 1989), which in this case would be the youth disclosing abuse. ...
Highlights
Youth may not report dating or sexual abuse if they have concerns about confidentiality.
No procedures exist to support research participants who are adolescent survivors of abuse.
We conducted a structured ethical decision‐making process to solve our ethical dilemma.
Our novel protocol helps balance participant confidentiality with survivor welfare.
... En este tipo de interacción, tan significativa como poco estudiada, una dimensión (casi siempre la técnica) funciona a nivel explícito, (es reconocida por el sistema social), mientras que la otra (valorativa) opera a nivel implícito, ya que, no siendo reconocida socialmente, no puede ser abiertamente abordada en el análisis o la intervención. Un buen ejemplo de esta divergencia sería la interventora que a la hora de evaluar la viabilidad de una casa para mujeres maltratadas (O'Neill, 1989) opera bajo la lógica científica de la obtención de datos objetivos (dimensión técnica explícita), mientras que los demás a su alrededor parecen moverse según la lógica -no explicitada-de lucha por el poder y los recursos escasos (dimensión política), en que la información es simplemente un arma política más. ...
... Trataré ahora de resumir los temas éticos señalados como relevantes en la literatura sobre IS: Bermant, Kelman y Warwick (1978), Conner (1990) Davidson (1989), Glidewell (1978), Golann (1969), Gracia (1994), Heller (1989), Kelman (1965), , Laue y Cormick (1978), Levine y Perkins (1987), Lippitt (1983), O'Neill (1989, Pope (1990), Riger (1989), Sánchez Vidal (1991a, 1991b, Shore y Golann (1969), Sieber (1982), Snow y Gersick (1986), , Walton (1978), Warwick (1978) y Williams (1978). En conjunto se incluyen aquí temas significativos que, poseyendo una fuerte carga valorativa, aparecen comúnmente en los análisis éticos, políticos u otros, a diversos niveles de IS. ...
... De forma que, a medida que el terreno de actuación se torna más novel, complejo o cambiante, se multiplica la complejidad ética, siendo las cuestiones morales planteadas más frecuentes y difíciles de encarar. Golann (1969), Kelman (1965), Walton (1978), Keith-Spiegel y Koocher (1985), O'Neill (1989), Shore y Golann (1969), Sieber (1982) y Snow y Gersick (1986) han señalado diversas circunstancias y factores -que se superponen en la práctica-como origen o causa de las cuestiones éticas en la acción social. Las resumimos como sigue: 1. Lealtades distintas, divergentes con frecuencia, hacia varios de los actores sociales implicados. ...
... How, then, could their expertise be named and valued? We had to think beyond internal validity and seriously consider the potential iatrogenic effects of our research program (Campbell, 2016)-especially those that were un-intentional (O'Neill, 1989). ...
... We also underscore, as others have, that the practice of ethics requires action (Campbell, 2016;Morris, 2015;O'Neill, 1989;Tebes et al., 2014). That is, beyond engaging in reflection and consulting with people and literature, the stickiest ethical situations we encountered demanded that we do some (or many) things differently. ...
In this article, we describe ethical tensions we have faced in the context of our work as intervention scientists, where we aim to promote social justice and change systems that impact girls involved in the juvenile legal system. These ethical tensions are, at their core, about resisting collusion with systems of control while simultaneously collaborating with them. Over the course of designing and implementing a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of an ecological advocacy intervention for girls, called ROSES, ethical paradoxes crystalized and prompted us to engage in critical reflection and action toward the aim of moving away from conducting research on legal-system-involved girls and moving toward a more democratic, participatory process of inquiry with girls. Our experience revealed two intertwined paradoxes that ultimately served generative purposes. First, in collaborating with legal system stakeholders, we observed a single story of girls’ pathology narrated for girls, without girls, and ultimately internalized by girls. Second, in reflecting critically on the ethical implications of our study design, it became clear that the design was grounded in a medical model of inquiry although the intervention we sought to evaluate was based, in part, on resistance to the medical model. We describe emergent ethical tensions and the solutions we sought, which center on creating counternarratives and counterspaces that leverage, extend, and disrupt our existing RCT. We detail these solutions, focusing on how we restructured our research team to enhance structural competence, shifted the subject of inquiry to include the systems in which youth are embedded, and created new opportunities for former research participants to become co-researchers through formal roles on an advisory board.
... Especially for scholarship with and on behalf of marginalized groups, utilizing MMR for initiation can be a critical way to reveal the discrepancies between program design and the needs and lived experiences of the participants these programs are meant to serve but may fail to address. Failed interventions may yield especially negative consequences for the most vulnerable groups, so it is important to learn about any disconnects between hypothesized intervention models and real-world results (O'Neill, 1989). ...
Mixed methods research (MMR) combines multiple traditions, methods, and worldviews to enrich research design and interpretation of data. In this virtual special issue, we highlight the use of MMR within the field of community psychology. The first MMR studies appeared in flagship community psychology journals over 30 years ago (in 1991). To explore the uses of MMR in the field, we first review existing literature by identifying all papers appearing in either Journal of Community Psychology or American Journal of Community Psychology in which the word “mixed” appeared. A total of 88 publications were identified. Many of these papers illustrate the pragmatic use of MMR to evaluate programs and to answer different research questions using different methods. We coded articles based on Green et al.'s classifications of the purpose of the mixing: triangulation, development, complementarity, expansion, and initiation. Complementarity was the most frequently used purpose (46.6% of articles), and nearly a quarter of articles mixed for multiple purposes (23.86%). We also coded for any community psychology values advanced by the use of mixed methods. We outline three themes here with corresponding exemplars. These articles illustrate how MMR can highlight ecological analysis and reconsider dominant, individual‐level paradigms; center participant and community member experiences; and unpack paradoxes to increase the usefulness of research findings.
... This is also done with much care because of the understanding that academic institutions and its faculty, staff, and students always have the potential to do harm. For example, a large body of work exists outlining how researchers and academics frequently prioritize their own needs and agenda at the expense of community stakeholders (Campbell & Morris, 2017;O'Neill, 1989). Additionally, the Steans Center is specifically dedicated to developing strong partnerships with community-based organizations and providing students with experiential, Communitybased Service-Learning (CbSL) in a range of areas. ...
... Este "malestar del bienestar" ha hecho sonar la alarma entre científicos y analistas sociales (por ejemplo Nisbet, 1953;Sarason, 1974) indicando la necesidad de recobrar valores y tramas sociales básicas para la supervivencia y desarrollo humanos que ciertos aspectos del "progreso" (que no puede identificarse con desarrollo social o psicológico) están erosionando seriamente. ...
... Este "malestar del bienestar" ha hecho sonar la alarma entre científicos y analistas sociales (por ejemplo Nisbet, 1953;Sarason, 1974) indicando la necesidad de recobrar valores y tramas sociales básicas para la supervivencia y desarrollo humanos que ciertos aspectos del "progreso" (que no puede identificarse con desarrollo social o psicológico) están erosionando seriamente. ...
... La IS plantea una serie de cues-tiones valorativos complejos que desbordan con mucho este espacio ex-positivo requiriendo un análisis monográfico. Han sido planteadas por O'Neill (1989), Heller (1989) y otros y Sánchez Vidal (1993b; en pren-sa) derivándose de: el mayor número de partes implicadas, las defi-ciencias de información inicial, la infrecuencia de contrato explíci-to, la afectación de terceras partes no implicadas en los procesos de contratación y los efectos secundarios de las actuaciones. ...
Este artículo examina el potencial y limites de un conjunto de formas emergentes de acción social desde la Psicología que se acostumbra a llamar "intervención psicosocial" (IPS). El potencial de la IPS deriva de la relevancia adquirida en las sociedades actuales por los llamados problemas psicosociales y de las extendidas demandas de bienestar y dinamización social. Existe, en cambio, menos conciencia los límites y dificultades que, como acompañantes de la mayor ambición de la IPS, es preciso revisar. Se examinan aquí 13 de esos límites y dificultades básicas, con sus correspondientes soluciones. Las siguientes: distinto nivel de causas y efectos en la IPS; necesidad -no correspondida- del análisis global; limitaciones de la base científica; complejidad de la documentación de resultados; problemas motivacionales y de acceso a la poblacón; cuestiones valorativas; límites técnicos; alto costo; riesgos de instrumentalización política; homogeneización transindi-vidual de las acciones; desgaste del interventor y tendencia a las recetas.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Intervención psicosocial; intervención social; potencial de la intervención psicosocial; limitaciones de la intervención psicosocial; desarrollo humano; dinamización social.
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the potential, limits and shortcomings of several emergent varieties of psychological social interventions all together called "psychosocial intervention" (PSI). PSI's potential derives from today's relevance of so called "psychosocial problems" as well as from extended demands of social wellbeing and dynamization. There is, by contrast, less awareness of PSI's limits and difficulties, that go together with PSI's larger promise and potential in relation to individual action and that is necessary to research. Thirteen of PSI's main difficulties are reviewed together with their solutions: diffe-rent level of causes and psychosocial solutions; the unmet need for global analysis; limits of PSI's scientific basis; complexity of documenting results; motivation and target population's access problems; long time taken by IPS's effects; value questions; technical limitations; high cost; risks of political instrumentalization; cross-individual equalization of treatments; intervenor's burn-out; and excess of recipe-like solutions.
KEYWORDS
Psychosocial intervention; social intervention; psychosocial intervention potential; psychosocial intervention limits; human development; social dynamization.
... Dialogues in our field reveal that there is no consensus that our research should be about seeking knowledge in action for social change (Nelson and Evans, 2014). Furthermore, there are ethical implications of conducting research with the aim of changing the status quo (O'Neil, 1989). Who decides what actions are valid and who should benefit? ...
Introduction: Epistemology and Ontology of Community Psychology
Community psychology has emerged internationally over the past fifty or more years, for varying purposes and in unique social, political, and cultural circumstances. Community psychology may be defined most simply as the applied study of the relationship between social systems and individual wellbeing in the community context1. Like many subdisciplines, community psychology is concerned with understanding and promoting factors that affect health and wellness. It is an applied social science, a vocation, and an analytical perspective (Levine et al., 2005). The common thread in its emergence has been the recognition of inequity and injustice within social systems and the resulting negative impact on individual and community wellbeing (Kloos et al., 2012). Alongside this thread has been the realization that traditional psychology has played a significant role in maintaining
damaging social relations and structures (Prilleltensky, 1994; Kloos et al., 2012). Community psychology has emerged, then, as a psychology seeking to enhance wellbeing via social change and social justice (Levine et al., 2005; Nelson & Prilleltensky, 2010). Where
community psychology becomes distinct from other fields of psychology is in its focus on: adoption of ecological and historical perspectives; recognition of social power differentials; preference for ‘praxis’ over theory, research, or practice alone; and values-based practice (Levine et al., 2005; Nelson & Prilleltensky, 2010). These distinguishing foci represent core tenets of the field, and are expanded upon below.
Ecology and History
This tenet comes from the ‘ecological analogy’, in which the principles of ecology (or environmental biology) are applied to human behavior. The ecological principles of interaction between plant and animal populations and habitat, ecosystem, and biosphere are analogized to the interaction of individuals with their community, environment, society, and world. These spheres of influence or ecological levels are like a Russian nesting doll, organized around the individual (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) and include political, cultural, environmental, institutional, and organizational spheres. An additional component of such a contextual approach is the temporal, or historical realm (Suarez-Balcazar et al., 1992). This ecological understanding informs the understanding that multiple levels of environments influence human behavior (Sarason, 1967; Wandersman & Nation, 1998), and that it is social contexts, rather than psychological or biological deficits, which are the fundamental cause of major social problems (Maton, 2000; Levine et al., 2005).
... Third, and in relation to these points, this everyday practice is embedded in training and supervision systematically. Thus, the structure of training and supervision guide what our team is responsible for, and to whom we are ultimately responsible (O'Neill, 1989). This latter point underscores the call to move beyond academic discourse and acknowledge the broader ethical and social justice agendas of research (Dutta, 2016). ...
In this paper, we detail our praxis of decoloniality in the context of a community‐based study that employs a quantitative experimental methodology to evaluate an intervention for girls involved in the juvenile legal system. We resist the essentializing of methodology that positions quantitative paradigms as impermeable to reflexivity and decoloniality, and describe a model for training and supervising researchers engaged in an experimental randomized controlled trial of an advocacy program for girls, most of whom are girls of color and about half of whom identify as LGBT. In this way, we consider researcher training as a critical teaching context and describe the ways in which our training, community‐based data collection, and supervision structure are anchored in de/anti/post colonial and indigenous scholarships. Specifically, our praxis is centered on conducting research as a site of resistance to hegemony, and practicing a critical compassion rooted in remembering complex personhoods. We further discuss the boundaries and limitations of our own epistemic power in relation to two central questions: how can researchers influence how knowledge is produced? How can researchers influence how knowledge producers are themselves produced?
... Pero cualquiera que sea su mérito intrínseco, ni la regla deontológica ni el gran discurso éticopolítico son apropiados para la práctica comunitaria, lo cual genera respectivamente, abordajes individuales no aptos para la complejidad y el dinamismo de los asuntos comunitarios y las generalidades retóricas interesantes para el debate intelectual pero de escasa utilidad como guía de análisis y práctica concretos. Es justo sin embargo, señalar algunas excepciones a la desatención general de los valores y la ética en el campo comunitario y psicosocial: Bermant, Kelman, & Warwick, 1978;Heller, 1989;Jeger & Slotnick, 1982;Kofkin, 2003;Laue & Cormick, 1978;Montero 2004;Nelson & Prilleltensky, 2005;O'Neill, 1989;Prilleltensky, 1997;2001;Sánchez, 1999;2007;en prensa;Serrano, 1994;Snow, Grady, & Goyette-Ewing, 2000;Winkler Alvear, Olivares, & Pasmanik, 2012. No estoy negando la vocación ética inherente a la empresa comunitaria en sus distintas versiones, sino el esfuerzo sostenido, visible y específico por concretar y hacer explícita esa vocación mediante la discusión pública de las distintas posturas valorativas y prácticas que con frecuencia se dan por 'conocidas' y acordadas. ...
Values are conceptions of good which enlighten and guide human analysis and action. Discounting noteworthy exceptions, community psychology has neglected making explicit and openly discussing its ethical and value dimensions. My aim in this paper to partially remedy such neglect by posing new sustantive values and approaches suitable for community practice. I suggest first changes in the deontological values to adapt them to the complexity and dynamism of community work. So I put forward shared or collective autonomy, that extends self-direction to the whole community, to substitue for individual disolving autonomy. I also introduce self-care (legitimate self-beneficence) to guarantee psychological and moral integrity of the practitioner as well as long term sustainability of communiy action. I describe, secondly, some core communitarian values. Human development which includes interaction and social bonding besides self-direction. Empowerment, an instrumental value, made of subjective consciousness, communication, and effective social action. Social justice, the main socio-communitarian value, consist of three components: a vital universal minimum, fair distribution of material and psychosocial goods and resources produced by society, and igualitarian personal treatment and relationship.
... 244, emphasis added), meaning that the process of our work is as much a defining feature as our content-oriented pursuits. Community psychology is ripe for ethical conflicts given our aims for social justice, population-level primary prevention, and the liberation of oppressed populations (Engelberg, 1981;Levin, Trickett & Hess, 1990;O'Neill, 1989;Pope, 1990;Rappaport, 1977;Serrano-Garcia, 1994;Snow, Grady & Goyette-Ewing, 2000;Trickett, 1998;Walsh, 1987). As we move into our next 50 years of history, developing an ethical framework for the field will help us continue to articulate what makes community psychology distinctive, credible, and valuable (Morris, 2015). ...
In the 50 years since the 1965 Swampscott conference, the field of community psychology has not yet developed a well-articulated ethical framework to guide research and practice. This paper reviews what constitutes an "ethical framework"; considers where the field of community psychology is at in its development of a comprehensive ethical framework; examines sources for ethical guidance (i.e., ethical principles and standards) across multiple disciplines, including psychology, evaluation, sociology, and anthropology; and recommends strategies for developing a rich written discourse on how community psychology researchers and practitioners can address ethical conflicts in our work.
... Pero cualquiera que sea su mérito intrínseco, ni la regla deontológica ni el gran discurso éticopolítico son apropiados para la práctica comunitaria, lo cual genera respectivamente, abordajes individuales no aptos para la complejidad y el dinamismo de los asuntos comunitarios y las generalidades retóricas interesantes para el debate intelectual pero de escasa utilidad como guía de análisis y práctica concretos. Es justo, sin embargo, señalar algunas excepciones a la desatención general de los valores y la ética en el campo comunitario y psicosocial: Bermant, Kelman, & Warwick, 1978;Heller, 1989;Jeger & Slotnick, 1982;Kofkin, 2003;Laue & Cormick, 1978;Montero 2004;Nelson & Prilleltensky, 2005;O'Neill, 1989;Prilleltensky, 1997;2001;Sánchez, 1999;2007;en prensa;Serrano, 1994;Snow, Grady, & Goyette-Ewing, 2000;Winkler Alvear, Olivares, & Pasmanik, 2012. No estoy negando la vocación ética inherente a la empresa comunitaria en sus distintas versiones, sino el esfuerzo sostenido, visible y específico por concretar y hacer explícita esa vocación mediante la discusión pública de las distintas posturas valorativas y prácticas que con frecuencia se dan por 'conocidas' y acordadas. ...
Los valores son concepciones de lo bueno que iluminan analíticamente y guían prácticamente la acción humana. Con meritorias excepciones la Psicología comunitaria ha descuidado explícitar y discutir abiertamente sus dimensiones éticas y valorativas. Con el fin de remediar parcialmente ese descuido propongo en este artículo algunos valores y enfoques valorativos novedosos en la práctica comunitaria. Sugiero primero modificaciones para adecuar los valores deontológicos -pensados para la clínica- a la mayor complejidad y dinamismo del trabajo comunitario. Propongo así sustituir la autonomía individual por una autonomía compartida que extienda la auto-dirección al conjunto de la comunidad. Introduzco también el auto-cuidado (auto-beneficio legítimo) para garantizar la integridad psicológica y moral del practicante y la sostenibilidad del trabajo comunitario. Resalto después tres valores socio-comunitarios. El desarrollo humano, que junto a la auto-dirección incluye la interacción personal y la vinculación social. El empoderamiento, un valor instrumental, fruto de la conciencia subjetiva, la comunicación y la acción social eficaz. Y la justicia social (valor finalista junto al desarrollo humano) compuesto por: un mínimo vital humano (universal), la distribución equitativa de los bienes y recursos materiales y psicosociales producidos por la sociedad y la relación igualitaria con los demás.
... The final issue of working ethically requires more than following a code of conduct; it requires that we examine our motives and scrutinise our actions and our research processes for foreseeable and perhaps unforeseeable consequences that might affect our participants or have even broader repercussions to society (O'Neill, 1989;O'Neill & Trickett, 1982;Robson, 2002). During the data collection phase I was a member of staff in the school of psychology and I was interviewing psychology students about their experience of the school. ...
... The ethics crisis grew out of concern for the physical and psychological safety of the participants in these studies, as well as the potential for distrust of researchers and the discipline as a whole (Rosnow, 1981). Psychological research and practice with an applied focus and/or multiple levels of analysis are not readily addressed by ethical codes (O'Neill, 1989). In addition, codes of ethics have been criticised for being reactive rather than proactive -they are altered only after issues and problems with them are identified -and for serving the interests of researchers rather than the researched (Prilleltensky, 1997). ...
Almost since its inception, the dominant narrative of modern psychology has embraced positivism through its insistence that psychological science is objective, generalisable, and value free (or neutral). Consequently, quantitative research and in particular, experimental designs, are privileged over other forms of enquiry and other epistemologies, methodologies, and methods remain marginalised within the discipline. Alternative epistemologies and methodologies remain predominantly at the margins within psychological research yet have resulted from the growing dissatisfaction with the dominance of positivism. We argue that the enduring hegemony of positivism needs to be opposed to enable psychology to genuinely understand the antecedents of, and provides meaningful sustainable solutions for, complex human issues without being constrained by a narrow focus on method. We discuss how psychology in Australia can move towards embracing methodological and epistemological pluralism and provide a number of suggestions for change across the interrelated areas of accreditation, curriculum, the Australian Psychological Society, and research.
... Ethical frameworks can be classified as duty-based, rightsbased, or goal-based (O'Neill, 1989). Codes that bind professionals are necessarily duty-based, because they set forth professional obligations. ...
A decade ago the three major granting agencies produced a policy statement that governs research ethics in most venues in Canada; they have recently (2010) circulated a revised statement: The Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans. 2nd Edition (TCPS-2). There are both major and minor revisions, including changes to the guiding principles, that will have an impact on psychological research. This paper outlines some of the changes and compares them with the Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists (3rd Ed.), which is also about to undergo a revision process.
... Some ethical frameworks emphasize the importance of professionals identifying the most vulnerable group and holding themselves accountable to that group (Mertens, 1999;O'Neill, 1989). In a similar vein, evaluators operate under the principle of responsibilities for general and public welfare, including: "Evaluators should consider not only the immediate operations and outcomes of whatever is being evaluated, but also its broad assumptions, implications and potential side effects" (AEA, 2004). ...
The client of a student evaluation team has requested that the evaluators provide confidential identifying information gathered in the course of the evaluation. Here, the authors consider their response to the client's request. Specifically, they draw from professional principles developed to guide ethical decision making for evaluators and educators to consider the advantages and disadvantages of denying or meeting this request from a variety of stakeholder perspectives. The authors then use this stakeholder analysis to engage in imaginative thinking about the possible responses from which the student evaluation team can select. They conclude with a review of lessons learned from this challenging situation.
... Y se hace especialmente punzante en las AS por dos razones generales. Una, por la complejidad de los sistemas sociales y la interdependencia de sus partes: efectos positivos para unos grupos resultan negativos para otros, consecuencias positivas a corto plazo generan problemas a largo plazo, la acción tiene a la vez efectos positivos y negativos para los mismos grupos o se ven afectadas terceras partes en principio excluidas del proceso interventivo (O'Neill, 1989;Heller, 1989). Dos, por las limitaciones de la propia AS (Sánchez Vidal, 1995 y 1997): debilidad de la base científica, ausencia de contrato explícito o de costumbres aceptadas que indiquen los derechos y deberes de las distintas partes e inadecuación de los códigos éticos existentes pensados para situaciones clínicas nucleadas por una relación profesional al estilo de la Medicina. ...
La búsqueda de prestigio científico ha llevado la acción social (AS) a ignorar o menospreciar sus dimensiones valorativas. Esas dimensiones son particularmente importantes y complejas en una forma de acción globalizada y plural dirigida al cambio social y personal a través de la influencia externa. Núcleo temático central es la responsabilidad, cuya orientación (ante quién es responsable el psicólogo) se plantea y discute brevemente en este artículo. Comunidad, grupo más vulnerable, gobierno y cliente nominal, son los destinatarios posibles según los campos y preferencias valorativas (elegir destinatario es cuestión esencial de justicia social). Es erróneo designar un destinatario único para todos los contextos y procesos interventivos: como escenario complejo en términos de actores, intereses y contextos, en la AS existen siempre varios destinatarios. Elegir un destinatario primario ni excluye responsabilidades hacia el resto ni exime de evaluar las particularidades de cada caso. Sí exige clarificar los valores implicados para poder jerarquizar los destinatarios posibles optimizando los criterios de vulnerabilidad (o injusticia relativa) y alcance o impacto social. The quest for scientific prestige has led social action (SA) to overlook or disregard its value dimensions. Those dimensions are especially relevant and complex in a plural and global way of action aiming at the social and personal change through external influence. A central value theme is that of responsability, whose orientation (to whom is the psychologist responsible in SA) is posed and briefly discussed in this paper. The community, the most vulnerable, the government and the designated client are the potential «targets» mentioned depending on the field and value preferences-the choice of «target» has relevant bearings on social justice. Since SA is a complex stage implying multiple actors, interests and fields, there always are several targets: it seems wrong to designate a single one across intervention contexts and processes. The option of a primary «client» neither removes duties toward the others nor dispense with evaluating each particular situation. It does demand, though, a clarification of the values implied by optimizing the criteria of vulnerability (or relative injustice) and social impact.
... But the psychologist's responsibility does not end with that action, no matter how well thought out. The concept of moral residue implies that any action to resolve a dilemma may have undesirable consequences, ranging from loose ends to complete disaster (see Heller, 1989;O'Neill, 1989). The CPA model requires that the decision maker make a commitment to assume responsibility for the consequences of the decision. ...
Teaching professional ethics can take 2 very different forms, reflecting different fundamental assumptions about ethical rules, and leading to different problem-solving strategies in professional life. In this article, the author outlines and contrasts the 2 approaches, which he calls the
overriding principle approach and the
moral dilemma approach. The first reifies ethical principles and underpins them with rationales drawn from moral philosophy. The second sees principles as templates of default options, which may or may not fit the facts of the case and the context in which a decision must be made. In the moral dilemma approach, for instance, there is always some circumstance in which following a particular moral rule would produce the wrong result. The Canadian Psychological Association Code of Ethics has different advantages and disadvantages for teaching professional ethics depending on one's fundamental approach. The author concludes that although he believes its rhetoric and its ordering of rules seems to reflect the overriding principle approach, the Code is actually more relevant to the moral dilemma approach. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
... For example, the steps could be used to help think through situations that might occur in a new clinical program or research project, with the intent of ensuring that the program or project is designed to respect the four ethical principles. The inclusion of a decision-making model has been received as helpful both to the teaching of ethical decision making and to the resolution of real-life dilemmas (e.g., Catano, 1994;Eberlein, 1987Eberlein, , 1988Eberlein, , 1990Eberlein, , 1993Gawthrop, 1991;Harvey, 1994;Minnes, 1987;O'Neill, 1989O'Neill, , 1990O'Neill, , 1991Pettifor, 1988Pettifor, , 1989Pettifor, , 1991Pettifor, , 1994Tymchuk, 1986;Weinberger, 1989). ...
Explores 9 features of the
Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists that are somewhat unique and may explain, at least in part, the interest of the international community in the
Code: (a) setting objectives based on a critical analysis of the international and interdisciplinary literature on codes of ethics; (b) inclusion of an over-riding ethic of a contract with society, (c) use of an empirical methodology in developing the
Code, (d) organization of the
Code around 4 ethical principles; (e) differential weighting of the 4 ethical principles; (f) inclusion of a model for ethical decision making; (g) inclusion of a role for personal conscience; (h) inclusion of both minimum and idealized standards; and (i) presentation of the
Code as an umbrella document. The thinking behind each feature is presented, including reasons for some changes to the 1991 version of the
Code. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Objective:
Toward the overall goal of interrogating systems that contribute to racial inequity in child and adolescent psychology, we examine the role and function of Residential Treatment Centers (RTCs) in creating or exacerbating race and gender inequities using the language of mental health and the logic that treatment intentions justify children's confinement.
Methods:
In Study 1, we conduct a scoping review to investigate the legal consequences of RTC placement, attending to race and gender in 18 peer-reviewed articles, encompassing data for 27,947 youth. In Study 2, we use a multimethod design focusing on RTCs in one large mixed-geographic county to examine which youth are formally charged with a crime while in RTCs, and the circumstances under which these charges occur, attending to race and gender (N = 318, 95% Black, Latine, Indigenous youth, mean age = 14, range = 8-16).
Results:
Across studies, we find evidence for a potential treatment-to-prison pipeline through which youth in RTCs incur new arrests and are charged with crimes during and following treatment. This pattern is pronounced for Black and Latine youth and especially girls, for whom use of physical restraint and boundary violations are recurring challenges.
Conclusions:
We argue that the role and function of RTCs via the alliance between mental health and juvenile legal systems, however passive or unintentional, provides a critical exemplar of structural racism; and thus invite a different approach that implicates our field to publicly advocate to end violent policies and practices and recommend actions to address these inequities.
This paper presents a feminist and community psychology analysis of ethical concerns that can arise throughout the process of doing research with women who are homeless. The unique contexts of the lives of women who are homeless demand that researchers redefine traditional ethical constructs such as consent, privacy, harm, and bias. Research that fails to do this may perpetuate the stereotyping, marginalization, stigmatization, and victimization homeless women face. Feminist and community research ethics must go beyond the avoidance of harm to an active investment in the well‐being of marginalized individuals and communities. Using feminist and community psychology ethics, this paper addresses some common problems in research with women who are homeless, and argues for the transformation of research from a tool for the advancement of science into a strategy for the empowerment of homeless women and their communities.
The concept of collaboration in community research and intervention, although not new, has grown tremendously in importance in the past 20 years. Yet, it is both a contested concept in terms of its intent and a still evolving idea in terms of its meaning and implications. The purpose of this monograph is to begin to “unpack” the collaboration construct in terms of its many meanings, rationales, goals, models, dynamics, and accomplishments. Although models of collaboration are often well articulated there is “partial paradigm acquisition” (E. J. Trickett, 1984) in terms of understanding their behavioral and ethical implications. There is more theology than conclusion. The promise of collaboration, although considerable, is still in need of multiple and varied empirical examples of how collaboration contributes to both the process and goals of community research and intervention, however defined. The monograph closes with a brief overview of what we have learned from reviewing this literature, an articulation of the kinds of questions that need to be addressed, and a series of recommendations for how to increase our understanding of the collaboration construct in community research and intervention.
How do you reconcile tensions between ethical research practice, personal values, and disciplinary values? This article focuses on an ethical challenge involving the engagement of rural Indigenous community members that emerged during my PhD fieldwork. The narrative illustrates the necessity to engage in critical reflexive research practice, a process which saw me respond to my own feelings of “wrong” and “right,” contemplate a distinction between procedural ethics and virtue ethics in community-based research, explore colonizing research practices, and endeavor to reconcile an instance where the values of community psychology appeared in contest. The “voice” in this narrative is that of the first author; the dual authorship reflects the ongoing collaboration between both authors. When this ethical issue came about, our relationship was one of “student” and “supervisor”; we are now colleagues and friends.
Highlights
This paper describes the complexities of ethical decision‐making in community psychology.
We discuss the challenges and opportunities associated with scholar‐activism in community psychology.
We highlight principles of obligation, disclosure, consent, commitment, and professionalism.
Reflexivity is an important tool for navigating ethically important moments in fieldwork. It may be particularly useful in situations where the researcher has the potential to undermine the conduct of the study and/or the well-being-enhancing role of counterspaces. In this article, I explore my use of reflexivity to traverse ethically important moments I encountered while investigating a counterspace for African-American youth who had been incarcerated. The ethical challenge concerned whether and how to continue this study in light of realizing that I held implicit biases toward the research participants. I describe my process for arriving at a decision and propose key considerations for the use of reflexivity in supporting ethical fieldwork within counterspaces.
Highlights
Highlights the complexities of working with a social group you are a member of.
Calls attention to ethical questions that are often ignored in graduate programs.
Narrates the difficulty of negotiating the alternate needs of powerful and low‐power stakeholders.
This Special Issue examines ethical challenges in community psychology research and practice. The literature on ethics in community psychology has remained largely abstract and aspirational, with few concrete examples and case studies, so the goal of this Special Issue was to expand our written discourse about ethical dilemmas in our field. In these articles, researchers and practitioners share stories of specific ethical challenges they faced and how they sought to resolve them. These first-person narratives examine how ethical challenges come about, how community psychology values inform ethical decision making, and how lessons learned from these experiences can inform an ethical framework for community psychology.
As this introductory chapter and those that follow illustrate, qualitative methods provide a rich and robust approach to enhancing community-based research and action. It is incumbent upon researchers to not only choose the methods that fit their research question and theoretical paradigm but also to be well trained in the pros, cons, and appropriate application of the methods they choose. Appropriate ethical and cultural considerations are also key to producing research and action that provides the necessary protection and respect to participating and nonparticipating members of a community. With these caveats in mind, we believe that qualitative methods can contribute immensely to the creation of contextually based, culturally relevant understandings and knowledge, enhanced well-being, and positive community change that are the ultimate hallmarks and goals of community-based research and action.
Nobel prize winner Jacques Monod was fascinated by the impact of ideas on the fate of human groups. He believed that the power of an idea was independent of its truth. “The performance value of an idea,” he said, “depends upon the change it brings to the behavior of the person or the group that adopts it.” (1972, p. 166). Ideas, whether they be true or false, are agents and products of the evolutionary struggle for survival. “The human group upon which a given idea confers greater cohesiveness, greater ambition, and greater self-confidence thereby receives from it an added power to expand which will insure the promotion of the idea itself.” If Monod is right, the study of ideas is indispensable for the adequate analysis of topics in community psychology. The way people think about a social problem may encourage them to confront it, and will affect the form and outcome of that confrontation
Early analyses identified community psychology (Golann, 1969) and the related field of community psychiatry (McNeil, Llewellyn, & McCollough, 1970) as emerging areas of ethical concern. As community psychology developed in areas of research and practice, these concerns continued. Rappaport (1977), for example, wrote that community psychology is fraught with inherent complexities because it lies at the juncture between society and the individual, suggesting that the field faced special ethical problems. And Weithorn (1987) asserts that special issues that may characterize prevention research with children create “ethical dilemmas” —situations when what is ethically correct is not clear, and any of several ethically defensible solutions may be arrived at, depending on one’s analysis of the issues“ (p. 230). Despite these ongoing concerns, consideration of ethical issues within community psychology has received limited attention
As David Stenmark prepared his Presidential address to what was then the Division of Community Psychology* of the American Psychological Association, he was approached by his daughter, Marci, and asked what he was writing and why. Carefully he explained his leadership role in the Division and that the talk provided an opportunity to review the discipline’s commitment to identifying and responding to oppression; to avoiding disorder rather than waiting for its appearance; and to empower the disadvantaged rather than merely come to their assistance. After a few moments reflection, Marci looked at her father and asked: “Did those people ask you to do that for them?” The question is insightful and, in our view, as yet unanswered.
Preface to the Third Edition 9780195144178
This new edition represents not only an update of the past eight years in the field of
community psychology, but also a substantial expansion in focus from the first two
editions. Each chapter reviews the recent literature, updates the references, and presents
the latest empirical work, the current issues and events, and some of the relevant policy
debates surrounding them.
The Introduction has been substantially expanded by adding some definitional
grounding in what community psychology is and is not, and some of the fundamental
principles and values in the field, along with the overview of the organization of chapters.
The population parameters in the first full chapter, “Life Is a Soap Opera,” were updated
based on the 2000 Census and other currently available social indicators and national
surveys. Many new illustrative “sidebar” boxes replace more dated ones. An example in
Chapter One is a review of “Psychosocial Adaptation to Health Problems: The Case of
Genital Herpes.” Chapter Two on the history of community psychology has been
expanded to include not only the field’s origins in the Community Mental Health
movement but also the “Influence of Applied Social Psychology and the War on Poverty”
and a new box on issues and research on homelessness. Chapter Three presents the
guiding conceptual orientation of the book based on Dohrenwend’s contextualized model
of stress and includes updated references. Chapter Four includes a new box on behaviorenvironment
congruence in Geel, Belgium, based on material that was scattered and not
highlighted in the last edition as well as some new material. It is used to illustrate the
ecological principles of adaptation and niche.
Chapter Five has been substantially expanded and reorganized from three
psychological conceptions of the environment—perceived social climates, behavior
settings, and social roles— toward a delineation of both social and physical
environmental influences on behavior and wellbeing, as well as behavior settings
representing a melding of social and physical contexts. The social environment includes
not only social climates and roles but also key community “social capital” concepts such as citizen participation and empowerment, sense of community, and neighboring, which have been studied extensively in community psychology but received less attention in previous editions. All of these concepts are illustrated in a revised box on the classic Fairweather lodge social experiment.
Chapter Six on labeling theory and the sociology of deviance has been updated
and a new section on the use of law to reduce stigma added. In Chapter Seven, we have
included new research findings on adaptation, crisis, coping, and social support, and
added a box on “Pollyanna and the Glad Game” as an apt but largely forgotten historical
antecedent to the literature on coping.
In Chapter Eight, we have updated the section on HIV/AIDS prevention and the
boxes on Project Head Start (and now early Head Start) and on preventing child
maltreatment as an illustration of the problem of false positives. We have also added a
box on a successful school change effort as well as new sections on schools as a locus of
prevention and on communitybased health promotion. Chapter Nine on self-help/mutual
assistance groups has been revised and updated.
Chapter 10 includes two new sections. One is on organizational change,
development, and learning and the other is on problems in planned change on a statewide
level, which focuses on the so-called “Texas miracle” of educational reform. Chapter 11
on school desegregation as a societal-level intervention has been updated and includes
two new sections on political and legal events since desegregation and on future
problems in this arena. In Chapter 12, on communitylevel change, we have greatly
revised and expanded the section on community development and created an up-to-date
box discussing the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice and the Environmental
Justice Movement.
Finally, Chapter 13 still focuses on science, ethics, and the future of community
psychology, but it has been greatly expanded. In addition to updating the sections on
ecology and science and the ethics of community intervention, we have added two new
sections on making community psychology more interdisciplinary and recognizing
developments in community psychology outside the United States and the need to
increase international communication and collaboration in the field. We also added a box
that presents a new ecological-psychopolitical model as one direction for future work in
the field.
In sum, while no single text can provide all things to all readers, we think that,
compared to previous editions, this book is more reflective of the entire breadth of
community psychology, from its origins to the latest trends to a future that is bright with
new ideas and an expanding vista of issues to address.
This article critically reflects on the ethical issues that emerged from an intergenerational project in post-Apartheid South Africa. An international organization from outside the South African borders utilized Time Travel (TT) as an educational method to implement Historic Environment Education (HEE), by proposing to reenact historical events during the Apartheid struggle in 1986. The project was conducted in an informal settlement in the North West Province in South Africa. In preparation for the project, learners (between ages 15 and 19 years) had to interview older people (60+ years) on their experiences during Apartheid. The data obtained were to be used to reenact experiences on the basis of experiential learning principles. On completion of the TT project, researchers unrelated to the initial initiative were requested to critically reflect on the past project. In this subsequent follow-up evaluative exploration, additional reflections (on which this critical discussion is based) were obtained from the participants in the initial project by means of interviews, a questionnaire, and reports as they appeared in a local newspaper. Drawing on these perceptions, the aims of this article are to critically reflect on the ethical issues that emerged in this intergenerational project in post-Apartheid South Africa, to demonstrate the importance of an ethical approach to intergenerational interventions in vulnerable societies in transition, and to make suggestions for future research on intergenerational programming.
Se expone una síntesis de los resultados del proyecto de investigación FONDECYT N° 1080528, en el que se indagó la dimensión ética en la práctica, formación e investigación en psicología comunitaria (PC) en Chile. Se utilizó una muestra opinática e intencionada de fuentes primarias (93 participantes —usuarios/as, estudiantes y psicólogos/as—) y fuentes secundarias de información (194 documentos —programas de asignaturas, tesis y códigos—). Del empleo de diversas técnicas de recolección de datos y estrategias cualitativas de análisis emerge como resultado relevante el principio de respeto por el otro y la participación de la comunidad para la identificación y enfrentamiento de problemas éticos. Asimismo, se hallaron divergencias respecto del concepto de PC y de los deberes éticos en este campo. Finalmente, se sugieren orientaciones éticas para la práctica, formación e investigación en PC. Palabras clave: ética, práctica, formación, investigación, psicología comunitaria The article presents a summary of the results of the research project FONDECYT Nº 1080528, which explores the ethical dimension in practice, training, and research in community psychology (CP) in Chile. An intentional opinatic sample of primary (93 participants—users, students, and psychologists—) and secondary information sources (194 documents—programs, courses, theses and codes—) was used. The use of various data collection techniques and qualitative analysis strategies led to the identification of two relevant results: the principle of respect for the other and community participation in identifying and addressing ethical issues. Divergences in the concept of CP and ethical duties in this field were also found. Finally, ethical guidelines for practice, training, and research in CP are suggested.
Community psychology recognizes the need for research methods that illuminate context, culture, diversity, and process. One such method, ethnography, has crossed into multiple disciplines from anthropology, and indeed, community psychologists are becoming community ethnographers. Ethnographic work stands at the intersection of bridging universal questions with the particularities of people and groups bounded in time, geographic location, and social location. Ethnography is thus historical and deeply contextual, enabling a rich, in-depth understanding of communities that is aligned with the values and goals of community psychology. The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the potential of ethnography for community psychology and to encourage its use within the field as a method to capture culture and context, to document process, and to reveal how social change and action occur within and through communities. We discuss the method of ethnography, draw connections to community psychology values and goals, and identify tensions from our experiences doing ethnography. Overall, we assert that ethnography is a method that resonates with community psychology and present this paper as a resource for those interested in using this method in their research or community activism.
Program evaluations can be methodologically correct, comply with stated ethical principles, and yet be morally wrong because they violate concepts of social justice. Literature is reviewed on values in evaluation and relevant professional codes of ethics and standards. Issues of changing attitudes in society, who is the primary client, power differentials, vested interests, vulnerabilities, and ethical dilemmas are discussed. A Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists and A Code of Ethics for the Canadian Association of School Psychologists are seen as strong supports for psychologist evaluators in making ethical decisions that respect the rights and welfare of vulnerable populations as well as contributing to a better society. It is important for values affecting program evaluators and program evaluation to be openly recognized and for evaluators to have guidelines for negotiating the ethical dilemmas that arise.
Cependant même si l'évaluateur prend en considération l'ensemble des aspects stratégiques et methodologiques, la démarche évaluative peut quand même aboutir a une injustice sociale au regard du programme évalue. (Hurteau, 1993, p. 382).
The concept of public psychology has been mooted for some time as a vehicle by which psychologists may involve themselves in creating or managing social change. Nevertheless there has been disappointment expressed by several authors that the discipline has been ineffective in dealing with matters of public policy. This paper suggests that Australian psychology can benefit by studying the philosophical, ethical and professional role issues which have been evident in the development of other professions involved in public policy. Comparisons of the history and activities of the planning profession and psychology are made by highlighting some philosophical and professional issues. It is suggested that there is a case for greater involvement by psychologists in policy formulation or public psychology. Nevertheless it is concluded that the development of public psychology has been limited by the tendency of psychologists to rely too much on our positivistic methodological background. Opportunities do exist in the study of, and involvement in the dynamics of, the planning process itself. These dynamics include both the behaviour and ethical judgements of the psychologist and planner during policy formulation and an assessment of the criteria against which the community will determine issues such as equity and ethics. Some specific avenues of action and research are suggested in this context.
This commentary addresses how the psychologists observe and deal with pressures to provide excessively favorable accounts of information, what behavior professionals can show when they find their integrity potentially compromised by client requests, and what part gender dynamics played in the content and presentation of the two cases in O'Neill (1989). The argument is that responsibility to onself and to the profession are relevent considerations in both cases in addition to the several stakeholders identified by O'Neill. From the perspective of embedded intergroup relations theory, gender dynamics were present and unexamined within the cases and in the relationship between the author and the case presentations.
This paper describes a survey research project that was designed to assist local United Way volunteers in making decisions about the extent to which contributor input should influence United Way allocation decisions. This paper reviews ethical issues inherent in projects with implications for the community at large, and articulates ethical standards that might be used as guidelines for planning and implementing community interventions. These ethical standards are applied to issues raised by the United Way project. Finally, the paper discusses the value of the ethical standards defined in this article as guides to planning and implementing community interventions.
Community Psychology (CP) is a relatively young and marginalized discipline in Canada, with only four graduate programs, concentrated in two provinces–Ontario and Québec. Recognising the need to develop cohesion and an identity as a field, several senior Canadian community psychologists proposed hosting a biennial conference, which began in 2002 at the University of Ottawa. Starting in 2006, the conference became a forum for CP faculty, students, and community partners to collaboratively develop a vision for the future of CP in Canada. Diverse teams of conference participants were engaged in facilitated discussions, culminating in a plenary session in which delegates shared their perspectives with the larger group. Eight themes emerged from the visioning exercises in 2006, which led to the development of special interest groups in the following areas: developing a sense of identity; clarifying and defining the field of CP; raising the profile of CP in Canada; promoting a CP education across Canada; enhancing recognition, credibility, and accreditation; establishing links within the field of psychology; building interdisciplinary bridges; international and diverse perspectives; and promoting healthy communities through grassroots social action. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Argues that if the concept of empowerment is to expand beyond the field of community psychology into more traditional areas of psychology (e.g., social, personality, clinical, and school psychology), its moral and psychological foundations should be more clearly articulated. To advance this proposition, an integrative conceptual model of empowerment is presented. Within this framework, ethical and therapeutic legitimacy of empowering practices, obstacles for their inclusion in mainstream psychology, and possibilities for their future development are explored. Some of the benefits to be derived from the adoption of the concept of empowerment in academic and applied psychology are outlined. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In an effort to define the functional goals of mental health consultants, the following basic principles are presented and discussed: responsibility, autonomy, client and consultee welfare, misrepresentation, renumeration, consultant-consultee relationship, and confidentiality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Members of the Committee on Privacy and Confidentiality of the California State Psychological Association collaborated on this article, which addresses the subject of personal and informational privacy in relation to psychotherapy. Among the topics discussed are procedures for obtaining informed consent; federal requirements for breaching, and provisions for guarding, confidentiality; the vulnerability of records kept in Medicaid and other third-party insurance cases; some implications of the
Tarasoff decision; and the status of trust as an element of the therapeutic relationship. Findings of the committee with respect to these topics are reviewed and summarized, and recommendations for professional conduct are advanced. (11 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The proposed change in the American Psychological Association Ethical Principle 5 on Confidentiality and recent court decisions underscore potential legal liability of psychologists for malpractice or negligent behavior. While psychologists usually understand that they have ethical responsibilities for clients, they often do not realize that psychologists also have "legal duties" as statutory professionals. The basis of negligence action against a psychologist is explained. The nature of the duty a psychologist owes to clients and the responsibility of other members of the public for a client's dangerous behavior are explored. Issues of breach of confidentiality, prediction of dangerous behavior, the objective nature of legal standards expected of psychologists, and their responsibility for wrongful death and suicide are discussed. Suggestions are made for the psychologist who desires to be protected when facing these dilemmas. (French abstract) (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Outlined the main catalysts to the recent increased interest in accountability. Four different reactions ("Nice Guy," "Bad Guy," "Necessary Evil," and "Balanced View") to the demand for accountability are discussed. It is proposed that standards that emphasize the process dimension of treatment can and should be a part of any system of accountability for services delivered in the mental health field. Procedures for assuring quality in the treatment process are suggested. (French abstract) (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Traces the rapid emergence of community psychology and stresses the need for the generation of new knowledge on communities. The competent community is defined as one that is involved in the development and utilization of resources by community members and one in which there is increased sophistication in coping with problems and issues. The suggested role for community psychology in such a setting is (a) to foster growth and be prepared for the consequences of increased growth of hope and power (e.g., the rejection of the helpers); and (b) to facilitate dialog between those in power and those seeking it thus eliminating failures in community growth programs that may be brought on by a lack of built-in feedback mechanisms and a philosophy of those in power that fosters anticompetence and dependency. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Rather than treat ethics as an ethereal, abstract, philosophical body of knowledge, the present authors focus on the practical aspects of ethics. Guidelines for exploring consultation situations and examples of some of the more common ethical dilemmas faced by school-based consultants are presented. These include matters of confidentiality, contract clarity, evaluation, client welfare, values vs techniques, and acknowledgement of personal limitations. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Reviews the development of the ethical standards of psychologists (see American Psychological Association 38:2), and considers whether "there is a significant gap between the requirements of practitioners and the guidelines" provided in this code of ethics. 3 questionnaire surveys of the 1969 membership of the American Psychological Association concerning (1) community psychology, (2) psychotherapy, and (3) research with human Ss are examined. Regarding ethics education, it is suggested that ethics be included as part of a more general course in professional problems. (16 ref.)
Over the past five years, the Canadian Psychological Association has been in the process of developing a new code of ethics for Canadian psychologists. Reasons for this effort are outlined, and the previously used American Psychological Association code is examined from the point of view of four main purposes of ethics codes: to help establish a group as a profession; to act as a support and guide to individual professionals; to help meet the responsibilities of being a profession; and to provide a statement of moral principle that helps the individual professional resolve ethical dilemmas. The objectives, methodology, and an outline of the new Canadian code are presented.
Members of the Committee on Privacy and Confidentiality of the California State Psychological Association collaborated on this article, which addresses the subject of personal and informational privacy in relation to psychotherapy. Among the topics discussed are procedures for obtaining informed consent; federal requirements for breaching, and provisions for guarding, confidentiality; the vulnerability of records kept in Medicaid and other third-party insurance cases; some implications of the Tarasoff decision; and the status of trust as an element of the therapeutic relationship. Findings of the committee with respect to these topics are reviewed and summarized, and recommendations for professional conduct are advanced. (11 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).
Reviews the book, The Theory and Practice of Mental Health Consultation by Gerald Caplan (1970). The author discusses the steps in his own professional development that led him to an interest in mental health consultation. All the defects of Dr. Caplan's earlier writings have been amply corrected in the current volume. The six years of preparation show in the clarity of exposition, the thoroughness of coverage, and the smoothness of literary style. Profound and persuasive; exhaustive yet readable-it is rare for a book to combine these attributes as the present volume does. This is a book that should be read by all active community mental health practitioners, and will undoubtedly serve as a key textbook in the training of the next generation of community mental health workers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)
Presents a general descriptive theory of decision making under stress, which includes a typology of 5 distinctive patterns of coping behavior, including vigilance, hypervigilance, and defensive avoidance. The theory is illustrated with discussions of laboratory experiments, field studies, autobiographical and biographical material, and analyses of managerial and foreign policy decisions. Two analytical models, a schema for decision-making stages and a decisional "balance sheet," are also presented to clarify the theory. (28 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
typical ethical dilemmas that arise in the provision of mental health consultation / consultation agreement / values conflict and clarity / confidentiality / competence and resources / outcomes of consultation
conceptual framework / characteristics of the consultant / characteristics of the consultee / characteristics of the relationship between consultant and consultee systems / characteristics of the consultant and consultee systems' relationships to the community
professional standards in relation to the ethics of consultation / ethics code / enforcement of standards / training (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Sarason is concerned with the underlying logic of settings, their origins and social contexts. He provides a conceptual framework for what happens when "two or more people come together in new and sustained relationships to attain stated objectives." Consider the many familiar settings: marriages, clinics, families, schools, youth centers, conventions, and plays. Sarason offers a detailed analysis of the social process of creating a setting, with examples drawn from education, mental health, architecture, history, political science, government, and other fields. In identifying settings that succeed, he asks such questions as: What kinds of leadership do they require? This neglected problem provides endless fascination for a critical set of issues. Social scientists, psychologists, and researchers in related fields will find this a challenging study. Leaders in any field who are engaged in enterprises involving new settings will find that it has immediate practical value. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Our primary purpose is to present the full range of contemporary ethical issues in psychology as not only relevant and intriguing, but also as integral and unavoidable aspects of the professional role of a psychologist. . . . By providing an awareness of the ethical standards of the profession, and by revealing how they apply to specific situations, we hope to achieve a useful and practical guide.
Consequently, this book sensitizes readers to the monitoring and redress mechanisms available when ethical violations occur, and it also provides information and decision-making strategies that will assist in avoiding or preventing ethical misconduct.
This book is developed around the most recent version of the ethics code of the American Psychological Association, "Ethical Principles of Psychologists" (1981). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Community psychologists" attempts to integrate the subdiscipline's core values of community participation and professional accountability with traditional scientific practices have led historically to methodological, ethical, and political problems with the research relationship. In the present action-oriented investigation content analyses of research reports published in the American Journal of Community Psychology, the Journal of Community Psychology, and the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology showed that authors" descriptions typically have minimized human subjects'participation. Interviews of 22 influential community psychologists revealed that the depersonalized report-writing style habitually employed accurately reflects the history o factual research practice. The informants explained the discrepancy between the subdiscipline's ideology and its behavior in terms of the social historical context of community psychology research. In addition, they identified specific action steps designed to more fully actualize the subdiscipline's ideals by reshaping journal practices and the research relationship itself.
Contenido: Orígenes de la Psicología Comunitaria; Contexto Social e Histórico; Concepciones desde la Salud Mental Comunitaria; La Psicología Individual y de la Intervención Social; Estrategias y Tácticas de la Intervención Social; La Intervención en el Sistema Educativo; Inteligencia, Lenguaje, Relativismo Cultural; Intervenciones en el Sistema de Salud Mental y en el Sistema Penal; Entrenamiento.
The thesis of this paper is that the most important and interesting aspects of community life are by their very nature paradoxical; and that our task as researchers, scholars, and professionals should be to “unpack” and influence contemporary resolutions of paradox. Within this general theme I will argue that in order to do so we will need to be more a social movement than a profession, regain our sense of urgency, and avoid the tendency to become “one-sided.” I will suggest that the paradoxical issue which demands our attention in the foreseeable future is a conflict between “rights” and “needs” models for viewing people in trouble.
Social workers encounter a wide variety of ethical dilemmas in practice. This article provides a classification of such dilemmas and presents a series of guidelines for assessing cases in which standard social work values come into conflict.
The aim of this article is to present a model for resolving value dilemmas that has proven useful in my own applied social scientific activities and in teaching graduate students to recognize and resolve ethical problems. The model was developed to fill a void in my own training, and is probably best understood against that background.
A matter of principle Legal duty and confidentiality of psychologists
- R Dworkin
Dworkin, R. (1985). A matter of principle. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Eberlein L. (1980). Legal duty and confidentiality of psychologists. Canadian Psychology, 21, 49-58.
Community psychology and the competent community American Psycholo-gist Decision-making: A psychological analysis of conflict, choice, and commitment Ethics in psychology: Professional standards and cases
- I Iscoe
- I L Janis
- L Mann
- N Hillsdale
Iscoe, I. (1974). Community psychology and the competent community. American Psycholo-gist, 29, 607-613, Janis, I. L., & Mann, L. (1977). Decision-making: A psychological analysis of conflict, choice, and commitment. New York: Free Press. Keith-Spiegel, P., & Koocher, G. P. (1985). Ethics in psychology: Professional standards and cases. Hillsdale, N J: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Community consultation
- O Neill
- P Trickett
O'Neill, P., & Trickett, E. J. (1982). Community consultation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
L'Existentialisme est un humanisme. Paris: Les Editions Nagel Preface to The Doctor's Dilemma Standards as a vehicle of accountability
- J P Sartre
- G B Shaw
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Ethics in the practice of psychology
- M A Carroll
- H G Schneider
- G R Wesley
Carroll, M. A., & Schneider, H. G., & Wesley, G. R. (1985). Ethics in the practice of psychology. Englewood Cliffs, N J: Prentice Hall.
Ethics in medicine: Historicalperspectives and contemporary concerns
- S J Reisser
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Reisser, S. J., Dyck, A. J., & Curran, W. J. (1977). Ethics in medicine: Historicalperspectives and contemporary concerns. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press.
Rules for radicals New York: Random House Hospitals, 47, 41 American Psychological Association Guidelines for conditions of employment of psycholo-gists Standards for providers of psychological services Ethical principles of psychologists Some ethical problems in group and organizational consulation
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R E F E R E N C E S Alinsky, S. (1971). Rules for radicals. New York: Random House. American Hospital Association. (1973). Hospitals, 47, 41. American Psychological Association. (1972). Guidelines for conditions of employment of psycholo-gists. Washington, DC: Author. American Psychological Association. (1977). Standards for providers of psychological services. Washington, DC: Author. American Psychological Association. (1981). Ethical principles of psychologists, Washington, DC: Author. Benne, K. D. (1959). Some ethical problems in group and organizational consulation. Journal of Social Issues, 15, 60-67.
A current statement on some theoretical issues
- L Kohlberg
Kohlberg, L. (1986). A current statement on some theoretical issues. In S. Modgil & C. Modgil (Eds.), Lawrence Kohlberg: Consensus and controversy, (pp. 485-546). Philadelphia: Farmer Press.
Privacy vs. the goals of the researcher Privacy: A vanishing value
- W J Mcguire
McGuire, W. J. (1980). Privacy vs. the goals of the researcher. In W. J. Bier (Ed.), Privacy: A vanishing value. New York: Fordham.
Preface to The Doctor's Dilemma
- G. B. Shaw
Social and psychological research in natural settings
- J. Rappaport
- E. Seidman
- W. S. Davidson