Health and Psychology

I like cookbooks--for cooking.  I don't care for cookbook approaches to ethical decision making in psychology.  I literally spend hours every week talking with trusted colleagues about what the right thing is to do in various business, professional and social situations.  I consult often.  i search my own conscience and I explore what my options are and what the results of intended actions might be.

"Just tell me what I should do."  a student of mine said.  What a disservice that would be.  It's a thoughtful process this ethics stuff.  It involves balancing competing issues.

So a trusted colleague and I were discussing a couple of requests to release raw data and to change draft reports.  Those issues came up in my classes as well.  So what are the issues that are competing?

• Beneficence--a complex word meaning essentially play nice with others and do the right thing by them.

• Integrity--another complex word meaning being true to yourself, your opinions, and the standards of your profession and the tools of your trade.

• Security--making sure that the tools someone uses are used correctly and will continue to be used correctly.

So here is an issue:

An attorney asks for my raw data from a person I evaluated, and that person has consented to the release of "all data, including raw data" regarding a civil case they are involved in.  My response to the request for raw data will depend on what form the raw data is in.  An answer sheet with a bunch of true and false responses is very likely to be released without a lot of problems.  An answer sheet with the questions of the test and the responses and answers might be more of an issue.  So I might request that I send it to someone who will also be obliged to maintain the integrity of the test and will maintain the security of the test and not be likely to allow the responses to be used out of context.  So in that context I might ask the person to give me the name of their professional expert and I'll send the information. 

If the attorney wants to share my report with the person I evaluated along with the raw data, I have to know that when I write a report the person I write about might see it, but I want to be sure that if this person takes the test again in the future it will need to be valid for the same purpose so I might caution the attorney about using the report, raw data, or information from scoring of the data in this manner.  If the attorney or the client want me to change my report, my decision must reflect my allegiance to the information I've obtained.  If the client says I missed some part of the history they provided or they forgot to mention, then including it now is fine.  I'll make a note that there is new information and I might simply make an addendum or redraft the report.  If an attorney wants me to focus my report on a specific aspect of my findings that's fine.  But if an attorney or client wants me to change my mind about what something means, or if an attorney wants me to ignore some iformation because it doesn't support the position the attorney wants to pursue for court, then that harms the profession and how the data should be used and I won't make the changes.

In these cases I can't simply advise my student to look at section 9.04 of the 2002 APA ethics code on release of raw data because it doesn't address the issue completely, my circumstances, or those of the specific situation I'm dealing with.  The ethics code is a starting point, a framework for decision making.  It's not a clear answer book.