Competence
1) Boundaries of competence
a. Always remain within the bounds of your competence
b. If the difference between competence and patient needs is requires working with new
population or with new technique’s you can take appropriate courses or consult and
treat patient if it’s too big should refer them
c. If you stuck in a small town with no other provider’s, you could treat patients with
problems that are close to your expertise but not exactly if you show you show you put
reasonable effort to gain knowledge in the area
d. If it’s an emergency, then you gotta provide the services but discontinue when
appropriate help arrives
e. For new techniques, like teletherapy you gotta be upfront with the patient and be like
yo listen this technique doesn’t have a lot of empirical research right now so it’s up to
you to decide if you wanna do it or not. Cuz if not then we got other options.
f. Gotta stick to evidence based treatment
2) Delegating work
a. Person delegating work to should not have multiple relations with patient
b. Person delegating work to should have qualification to do the work either
independently or with supervision
c. Gotta make sure person you delegating work to is competent
d. You can be help vicariously liable if
i. Your delegate caused harm to patient
ii. The hard caused was in task you assigned to delegate
iii. You had authority or control over delegates work
3) Personal problems
a. If you know something about working with a patient is gonna impede your work then ur
ethically obligated to not take them on
b. If you already providing therapy and a personal problem happens and it could affect
your work then you gotta consult and based on consult figure out what you gonna do
(limit, suspend or terminate therapy)
Human Relations
1) Discrimination – You can’t discriminate against anyone on basis of identify factors but you can
refuse to take on a case if you think if something about their values, diagnoses, or monetary
capacity would effect the quality of your treatment. You must refer them elsewhere if that’s the
case.
2) Sexual harassment – any kind of sexually charged stuff that a psychologist does to a person that
to a reasonable person seems abusive or messed up and is uninvited, continues to happen ever
after the person asks for it to be stopped or the psychologist knows is messed up.
3) Harm – take reasonable steps to avoid harm
4) Multiple relationships – MR is when a psychologist has a relationship with someone (or person
close to this someone) while also having a different relationship with this person (or person
close to this person). MR is not banned per se but is a problem if you can show it impacted the
psycho’s objectivity or competency. Also post termination non sexual MR is not illegal but if this
relationship was promised while therapy was going on or if can be shown to have affected the
competence or objectivity of therapy in any way then it’s a no no.
Shouldn’t mix therapy and forensic assessment/eval (even if one is for the person close to your
patient) because it can jeopardize objectivity. Refer out whenever possible.
Goetlib’s decision making model dictates that the wrongness of MR depends on 3 factors a)
extent of power differential, b) length of either professional relationship and c) clarity of
termination of each relationship (likelihood of getting into another relationship at some point).
If a MR happens you gotta address it with patient and try to stick to the APA ethics code as
much as possible.
5) Conflict of interest – Refrain from accepting professional role that puts people to harm. Also you
can’t recommend patient to engage in ancillary service if you stand to gain from it which is
absolutely fucking retarded.