Health and Psychology

Ethics is often presented in psychology as a form of risk management, but that does ethics an injustice.  Ethics is about making a determination about the correct course of action after looking at a variety of options.  It's not about religion, or feelings, or laws.  Although hopefully religions proscribe rightness of actions, and feelings guide you to correct choices, and laws uphold the correct course of actions.  But that's not always the case.  Risk management involves actions to take to prevent lawsuits.  It doesn't guide you toward correct and ethical decision making.

The first step in becoming ethical is to understand the ethical issues in a situation.  You do this by talking or consulting with other people.  In some cases this is supervision.  In some cases this is a simple consultation.  You have to start by asking questions:

• What is the right thing to do in a situation?
  
• What obligations are there? 
  
• What are the benefits to society?  
• What is fair?
• What produces the most help to others?
• What produces the least harm to others?
• What protects those that have the least ability to stand up for themselves?
• Is the action I'm thinking of virtuous?
• Is it honest?
• Does this course of action make me a better person?
• If others learned of this action would I feel ashamed?

To behave ethically as a psychologist is to stand up for the best of the profession.  The American Psychological Association produces a code of ethics.  You can access a copy here:  http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/index.aspx