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Developing and Practicing Ethics

by Kenneth S. Pope, Ph.D., ABPP

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We bring our personal ethics to graduate school and begin to create our professional ethics. We read about professional ethics, we discuss them in our courses, and we see the individual differences in how they are reflected in our professors' lives and work.

We begin to face questions: How central will professional ethics be to who we are and what we do? Are the professional ethics we begin developing for ourselves consistent with our own deepest values that we lived by before we entered graduate school, with the formal ethical standards affirmed by the profession, and with the realities of graduate school?

Graduate school often presents us with intriguing situations, prompting us to evaluate the ethics of research and publication, faculty-student interactions, psychological assessment and intervention, and the other aspects of what we do as psychologists. Consider the following scenarios:

  1. As a research assistant for one of the department's most respected and influential professors, you compute the inferential statistics on a large data set. The findings are not statistically significant, and the professor's new theory is not supported. The professor then throws out the data from 20% of the participants. When you re-run the stats, the tests are significant and the theory is supported. You receive your first authorship credit when the results are published in a prestigious scientific journal and you're listed as co-author. The article, however, makes no mention of the initial tests or excluded participants.

  2. Your dissertation is on how children ages 8-10 think about their own creative processes. You obtain written informed consent from the custodial parent or guardian, assuring them that your contact with the child will be limited to only a one-hour session, that the session will be completely confidential, and that when writing up your dissertation and at all other times, you will never provide any information to anyone that would allow identification of any child or family. In each session, the child makes up a story during the first half-hour, then you ask questions about how he or she thought up the theme, characters, plot, and details. One girl, whose father is a famous attorney who has won multimillion dollar judgments in defamation cases, makes up a story about how a little girl is terrified of her father, an attorney, because he comes into her room almost every night and has sex with her. He has told her that if she ever tells anyone their secret, he will stomp her dog to death and that no one would believe her anyway. When you ask her how she thought up the story about the little girl, your research participant says, "Well, she's almost exactly like me in a lot of ways." When you ask her what she means, she says she is afraid to talk any more and remains silent until the hour is up.

  3. You and your best friend are talking about how much you're both looking forward to graduating next spring. Your friend confides: "I had no idea how I'd ever get my dissertation done but luckily I had enough money to hire a consultant to design the study and analyze the data. And I was so relieved to find a good professional author who could write it up for me."

Such events pose a tangle of questions to a graduate student: Are there ethical issues involved and if so, what are they? If you're considering these scenarios as part of a course, workshop, or supervision group, to what extent do you agree or disagree with others about what the issues are and what the student in each scenario should do? What options are available for the student to attempt to understand, address, accept, or turn away from the situation? To what degree do you believe that the APA ethics code clearly and adequately addresses the issues you've identified in each scenario? To what extent does your graduate school set forth and implement clear and adequate standards that address these scenarios? If the scenarios seem to you to involve conflicting values, responsibilities, or loyalties, how do you sort through the conflicts and arrive at a decision about what to do? What are the costs, risks, and possible outcomes of the different approaches the student could take? How we work our way through such complex situations helps shape the professional ethics we begin developing in graduate school.

Ethical development is, for most, a career-long process. Ethical development that stops at graduate school can be a little like the professor relying on the same yellowing lecture notes decade after decade, never bothering to update, rethink, or renew.

The purpose of this chapter is first to discuss steps that seem important to the development of professional ethics, and then to look at some of our shared vulnerabilities that can lead us to rationalize unethical behavior.


Developing Professional Ethics


Starting With What We Do

Professional ethics are meaningless unless they fit well with what we actually do. We're not in a good position to consider the ethical implications of our acts unless we clearly understand what we do as psychologists. Teaching, research, supervision, mentoring, assessment, and intervention are abstractions until we understand what they mean in specific terms. This is not always easy. In 1947, APA president Carl Rogers appointed David Shakow to chair a committee on defining and teaching psychotherapy. Shakow's report resulted in the influential Boulder Conference and the "Boulder Model" (i.e., the scientist-practitioner model) of clinical psychology. On August 28, 1949, the recorder for the Boulder task force attempting to define therapy and establish criteria for adequate training wrote the following summary: "We have left therapy as an undefined technique which is applied to unspecified problems with a nonpredictable outcome. For this technique we recommend rigorous training."

The psychologists who created APA's first ethics code developed an ingenious way to fit the code to the work psychologists do in their day-to-day lives and to psychology's empirical roots. As committee chair Nicholas Hobbs wrote in 1948, this approach would produce "a code of ethics truly indigenous to psychology, a code that could be lived." To develop the code, a critical incident study was conducted in which all APA members were sent a letter asking them to share personal "experiences in solving ethical problems by describing the specific circumstances in which someone made a decision that was ethically critical."

It is important to ask ourselves from time to time: Do our own individual professional ethics fit what we actually do in our day-to-day work as psychologists? Do they take account of the pressures, conflicting needs, ambiguities, subtleties, gray areas, and other realities we--and our students, supervisees, research participants, therapy clients, and others--face? Professional ethics that are unrealistic are unlikely to be much help to psychologists in the real world.

Seeking Information

Few psychologists would try to design research without first reading about the topic, looking at the research already conducted in that area, becoming knowledgeable about what is already understood about the phenomenon. This kind of active searching for information can be crucial in approaching ethical issues as well. For virtually any aspect of our work as psychologists, there is a framework of formal ethical standards, laws (both legislation and case law), and published research. It can be fundamentally important to know what organizations, agencies, and committees set forth and enforce the ethical, professional, legal, and other standards relevant to our work and settings, to find out their policies and procedures, not only what they do but how they do it. To what degree does your graduate school set forth standards for faculty and students, and how are these standards implemented? Which of your local, state, or national psychology associations have ethics codes and ethics committees, and how do they function? What standards does your state psychology licensing board enforce, and how are they enforced? The reference section presents resources on the web and in the published literature that may be helpful in locating some of this information.


Finding the relevant ethics codes, legal standards, policies, procedures, and research doesn't tell us the most ethical approach to a specific situation any more than reading prior research studies tells us how to design the best research for that topic. In both cases, finding the information does not mark the end of the process, but rather the beginning of informed thinking about the specific instance at hand."

Awareness of the ethics codes is crucial to competence in the area of ethics, but the formal standards are not a substitute for an active, deliberative, and creative approach to fulfilling our ethical responsibilities. They prompt, guide, and inform our ethical consideration; they do not preclude or serve as a substitute for it. There is no way that the codes and principles can be effectively followed or applied in a rote, thoughtless manner. Each new client, whatever his or her similarities to previous clients, is a unique individual. Each situation also is unique and is likely to change significantly over time. The explicit codes and principles may designate many possible approaches as clearly unethical. They may identify with greater or lesser degrees of clarity the types of ethical concerns that are likely to be especially significant, but they cannot tell us how these concerns will manifest themselves in a particular clinical situation. They may set forth essential tasks that we must fulfill, but they cannot tell us how we can accomplish these tasks with a unique client facing unique problems. . . . There is no legitimate way to avoid these struggles." (Pope & Vasquez, 1998)

Acknowledging Complexity:
Dual Relationships As an Example

One of the most difficult challenges in developing professional ethics is acknowledging the sometimes overwhelming complexity. The situation that a psychologist encounters may have layer upon layer of complexity; moreover, the ethical standards, laws, and research relevant to that situation may form a complex tangle. The concept of dual relationships (aka multiple or overlapping relationships) exemplifies this lack of simplicity.

During the last decade or so, few topics in the area of clinical ethics sparked such intense consideration as dual relationships and related phenomena, with numerous articles and books offering thoughtful explorations of virtually every possible view. Not every author uses terms in a way that is exactly the same as every other author, but generally the context, if not an explicit definition, makes it clear whether a term like dual relationship is used in its broadest possible sense or to examine only a subset of meanings (e.g., only dual professional roles; only blending a professional role with a social, financial, or romantic relationship; or only dual relationships that seem to place clients at undue risk for harm).

A 1989 article not only demonstrated the diverse beliefs and behaviors in regard to dual relationships but also illustrated how many variables were significantly associated with this diversity. This national survey of 4,800 psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers (with a 49% return rate) examined how both views and practices tended to vary in regard to 10 factors: therapist gender, profession, age, experience, marital status, region of residence, client gender, practice setting, theoretical orientation, and practice locale.

The patterns in regard to these 10 factors are fascinating. For example, male therapists are more likely than female therapists not only to endorse but also to engage in various nonsexual dual relationships. (Other studies have shown that the same gender pattern holds for sexual dual relationships.) Psychiatrists are less likely than psychologists or social workers to view social or financial involvements with patients as ethical. The article concludes with 10 recommendations, such as suggesting that training programs need to present students with researched-based literature and other readings so that they may evaluate for themselves the full range of views, evidence, and approaches in this area.

A 1992 study used the method that had been the basis of developing APA's original ethics code mentioned in a previous section (i.e., asking psychologists to describe the dilemmas they encountered in their day-to-day practice) collected additional data about the dual relationships encountered by psychologists. Based on the findings, the authors called for changes in the ethical principles, so that the ethics code would, for example, (1) define dual relationships more carefully and specify clearly the conditions under which they might be therapeutically indicated or acceptable, (2) address clearly and realistically the situations of those who practice in small towns, rural communities, remote locales, and similar contexts (emphasizing that neither the current code in place at the time nor the draft revision under consideration at that time fully acknowledged or adequately addressed such contexts), and (3) address realistically the entanglements into which even the most careful therapist can fall.

For psychologists seeking resources in approaching dual relationships, fortunately there have been countless guides published in articles and books, helping clinicians carefully weigh the factors, values, and possibilities in trying to arrive at the best possible decision about whether entering into various kinds of relationships with a client makes clinical and ethical sense (for examples of such guides, see the section "Dual Relationships: Trends, Stats, Guides, and Resources" at In addition to the more general decision-making aids, there are resources for virtually every kind of specialty practice and context (e.g., a 3-level model for family therapists involved with religious communities to negotiate dual relationships; a decision-making model for social dual-role relationships during internships).

Knowing Actuarial Data About Challenging and High-Risk Topics

It can be helpful to know the areas of psychology that psychologists find most ethically challenging. A prior section described how APA used a critical incident study as the unique basis for its first ethics code. Half a century after that first study, another critical incident study asked a random sample of APA members what major ethical dilemmas they encountered in their day-to-day work. The most frequently cited dilemmas fell into the following categories, listed in descending order:

  1. confidentiality
  2. blurred, dual, or conflictual relationships
  3. payment issues
  4. academic and training issues
  5. forensic issues
  6. research issues
  7. the conduct of colleagues
  8. sexual issues
  9. assessment issues
  10. harmful interventions
  11. competence
  12. ethics codes and committees
  13. school psychology
  14. publishing issues
  15. helping the financially stricken
  16. supervision issues
  17. advertising and (mis)representation
  18. industrial-organizational psychology
  19. medical issues
  20. termination issues
  21. ethnicity issues
  22. records and documentation

Ethics in Psychotherapy and Counseling, 2nd Edition discusses in detail actuarial data about licensing board complaints and malpractice suits against psychologists, from which the following lists are abstracted. Data from psychology licensing boards over a 14 year period show that the most frequent disciplinary actions involved violations in the following areas, in descending order of frequency [note: these data are from Pope & Vasquez, 1998]:

  1. dual relationships (sexual and/or nonsexual)
  2. unprofessional or negligent practice
  3. fraud
  4. conviction of crimes
  5. inadequate or improper supervision
  6. impairment
  7. confidentiality
  8. records and documentation
  9. using false information in applying for a license

Data from malpractice suits against psychologists over a 15 year period shows that claims most often fall into the following areas, in descending order of frequency [note: these data are from Pope & Vasquez, 1998]:

  1. sexual violations
  2. incompetence in developing or implementing a treatment plan
  3. loss from evaluation
  4. breech of confidentiality or privacy
  5. improper diagnosis
  6. other (a mysterious category of individual claims not falling into any other category)
  7. suicide
  8. defamation (e.g., slander or libel)
  9. countersuit for fee collection
  10. violation of civil rights
  11. loss of child custody or visitation
  12. failure to supervise properly
  13. improper death of patient or third party
  14. violation of legal regulations
  15. licensing or peer review issues
  16. breach of contract

A national study found that about 12% of those who practice clinical or counseling psychology were the object of at least one formal complaint (i.e., ethics, licensing, malpractice). Male psychologists (17%) were significantly more likely than female psychologists (6%) to encounter formal complaints, and aspects of practice were significantly related to the probability of a formal complaint. Knowing the actuarial data about challenging and high-risk aspects of practice can help ensure that psychologists approach these areas with adequate care and thoughtfulness.


In a national study, psychologists reported that consultation with colleagues was their most valuable resource for acting ethically. The degree to which we are honest and open with our colleagues in this area can be a source of useful information. One can always ask: "How would I feel if all of my colleagues knew my actual ethical values and the ways in which I evaluate what I do from an ethical perspective?" If considering that scenario makes us uneasy in some way, it's worth reflecting on why it makes us uneasy and what, if anything, we might want to do about it. Routine consultation with colleagues can not only help us identify--and not act on--blind-spots, momentary lapses, and misjudgments--but also strengthen the sense of community among psychologists, a community in which ethics are an important value, thoughtfully examined and frequently discussed. If, in arriving at a decision about a troublesome situation, we find ourselves reluctant to consult, more comfortable keeping the dilemma or our decision completely to ourselves, it may be a red flag, marking one of those instances in which consultation with trusted colleagues can save us from a terrible misstep.

It's worth paying attention also to those times we consult but not with complete honestly, openness, and readiness to learn. In such times we choose our consultants carefully because of what we believe they will or won't say. We spin the situation in a way that downplays or conceals entirely certain aspects, and that pulls for a particular response (i.e., the one we are subtly guiding the consultant to give us). This form of talking to colleagues is not really consultation so much as it is extracting permission to do what we've already decided to do or trying to gather protection should we get caught ("But Dr. X said it was OK!!!").

When confronting especially difficult ethical decisions, we can consult not only with individual colleagues but also with relevant committees. The American Psychological Association has worked hard to ensure that its ethics code is not simply window-dressing in a public relations campaign but a practical statement of principles to which all members agree to be held genuinely accountable. The ethics committee hears and adjudicates formal complaints based on this code. Consulting with the members of this committee can often be exceptionally useful. Many state psychological associations also have ethics committees that can provide consultation. Universities have committees serving similar purposes--ethics committees, grievance boards, Institutional Review Boards addressing research standards, etc. It makes sense for every graduate student to find out what committees monitor and enforce standards, to learn how they work and what standards they uphold, and to consult with them when the need arises.

Assessing Costs and Taking Risks

The ethical implications of our choices in some situations may lead us to act against our own financial or similar self-interests. Part of developing professional ethics is assessing just what our ethics are worth--how much money, how much time, how much trouble--and what risks we are willing to take to practice our ethics. Our ethical values may bring us into serious conflict with our professors, supervisors, employers, colleagues, or friends. Under what circumstances, if any, are we willing to risk a good grade, an important letter of recommendation, a fellowship, a promotion, or a job because to "go along" with what we ourselves believe to be an unethical situation seems wrong?

Simon's classic article "The psychologist as whistle blower: A case study" documents what can happen when a psychologist tries to do what he or she considers ethically right. Simon describes the dilemmas faced by psychologists who "find that their professional responsibilities to their clients are in conflict with the demands of their organization. This problem is illustrated in the firing of a VA psychologist who objected, first internally and then publicly, to VA policies that he believed jeopardized the health and well-being of his patients. The responses of the VA, the Civil Service Commission, professional associations, and others to this incident show a series of threats to the integrity of professional practice in institutional settings."

When the costs appear too steep, it is always tempting, of course, to reason that remaining silent or participating in what we think is an unethical act is justified. We allow ourselves to be convinced that silence or participation will also enable us--by making more money, keeping our jobs, not rocking the boat, showing our loyalty to those around us--to do far more good and address much more important ethical issues than we could by a Quixotic and self-destructive attempt to "stand on principle" with regard to the current inconsequential issue. This is the great vulnerability of any psychologist's professional ethics, no matter how well-developed: the sophisticated cognitive maneuvers through which any unethical act can be transformed into acceptable legitimacy. Awareness of this slight-of-mind magic can head off--or at least give us a fighting chance against--it's charms and is the topic of the following section.

Rationalizing Unethical Behavior

However well-developed our individual professional ethics, there may be times when the temptation is just too great and we need to justify behaving unethically. The following rationalizations--adapted from those originally suggested by Pope and Vasquez--can make even hurtful and reprehensible behaviors seem ethical, or at least insignificant. All of us, at one time or another, probably have endorsed at least some of them. If some excuses seem absurd and humorous to us, it is likely that we have not yet had to resort to using those particular rationalizations. At some future moment of great stress or exceptional temptation, those absurdities may gain considerable plausibility if not a comforting certitude.

  1. It's not unethical as long as a managed care administrator or insurance case reviewer required or suggested it.

  2. It's not unethical if we're victims. If we need justification for our victim status, we can always use one of 2 standard, off-the-rack, one-size-fits-all standbys: (a) our "anything-goes" society, lacking any clear standards, that lets what were once solid rules drift and leaves us all ethically adrift or, conversely, (b) our intolerant society, tyrannized by "political correctness," that is always dumbing us down and keeping us down. Imagine, e.g., we are arrested for speeding while drunk, and the person whose car we hit decides vengefully to press charges. We can make ourselves the real victim by writing books and appearing on tv pointing out that the legal system has been hijacked by a vicious minority of politically-correct, self-serving tyrants who refuse to acknowledge that most speeding while drunk is not only harmless but constructive, getting drivers to their destinations faster and in better spirits. The fact that some people may question or criticize the claims and reasoning in our books is obviously an attempt to silence us, reinforcing our victimhood.

  3. It's not unethical as long as we can name at least five other professionals right off the tops of our heads who do the same thing. (There are probably countless thousands more we don't know about or we could name if we just had the time.)

  4. It's not unethical as long as there is no body of universally accepted, scientific studies showing, without any doubt whatsoever, that exactly what we did was the sole cause of harm to the client. This view was vividly and succinctly stated by a member of the Texas pesticide regulatory board charged with protecting Texas citizens against undue risks from pesticides. In discussing Chlordane, a chemical used to kill termites, one member said, "Sure, it's going to kill a lot of people, but they may be dying of something else anyway" ("Perspectives," Newsweek, April 23, 1990, p. 17).

  5. It's not unethical as long as we weren't really feeling well that day and thus couldn't be expected to perform up to our usual level of quality. No fair-minded person would hold us accountable for what we did when it is clear that it was the stress we were under--along with all sorts of other powerful factors--that must be held responsible.

  6. It's not unethical as long as no one ever complained about it.

  7. It's not unethical as long as our clients' condition (probably borderline) made them so difficult to treat and so troublesome and risky to be around that they elicited whatever it was we did (not, of course, to admit that we actually did anything).

  8. It's not unethical as long as we don't talk about ethics. The principle of general denial is at work here. As long as no one mention ethical aspects of practice, no course of action could be identified as unethical.

  9. It's not unethical as long as we don't know a law, ethical principle, or professional standard that prohibits it. This rationalization encompasses two principles: specific ignorance and specific literalization. The principle of specific ignorance states that even if there is, say, a law prohibiting an action, what we do is not illegal as long as you are unaware of the law. The principle of literalization states that if we cannot find specific mention of a particular incident anywhere in legal, ethical, or professional standards, it must he ethical. In desperate times, when the specific incident is unfortunately mentioned in the standards and we are aware of it, it is still perfectly ethical as long as the standard does not mention our theoretical orientation. Thus, if the formal standard prohibits sexual involvement with patients, violations of confidentiality, or diagnosing without actually meeting with the client, a behavioral, humanistic, or psychodynamic therapist may legitimately engage in these activities as long as the standard does not explicitly mention behavioral, humanistic, or psychodynamic therapy.

  10. It's not unethical as long as a friend of ours knew someone that said an ethics committee somewhere once issued an opinion that it's okay.

  11. It's not unethical as long as we know that legal, ethical, and professional standards were made up by people who don't understand the hard realities of psychological practice.

  12. It's not unethical as long as we know that the people involved in enforcing standards (e.g., licensing boards or administrative law judges) are dishonest, stupid, and extremist; are unlike us in some significant way; or are conspiring against us.

  13. It's not unethical as long as it results in a higher income or more prestige.

  14. It's not unethical as long as it's more convenient than doing things another way.

  15. It's not unethical as long as no one else finds out--or if whoever might find out probably wouldn't care anyway.

  16. It's not unethical as long as we're observing most of the other ethical standards. This means that each of us can, by fiat, nullify one or two ethical principles as long as the other, more important standards are observed. In a pinch, it's okay to observe a majority of the standards. In a real emergency, it's acceptable simply to have observed one of the ethical principles in some situation at some time in our lives or to have thought about observing it.

  17. It's not unethical as long as there's no intent to do harm.

  18. It's not unethical as long as we don't intend to do it more than once.

  19. It's not unethical as long as we're very important. The criteria for importance in this context generally include being rich, well known, extensively published, or tenured; having a large practice; having what we think of as a "following" of likeminded people; or having discovered and given clever names to at least five new diagnoses described on television talk shows as reaching epidemic proportions... Actually, if we just think you're important, we'll have no problem finding proof.

  20. It's not unethical as long as we're busy. After all, given our workload and responsibilities, who could reasonably expect us to obtain informed consent from all our clients, keep our chart notes in a secured area, be thorough when conducting assessments, and follow every little law?

It is likely that most, if not all of us could extend this list. Our abilities to think creatively and respond ethically to even the most daunting challenges seem mirrored by the strategies available to rationalize even the most unethical approaches.


Developing and practicing ethics is an active process continuing from graduate school throughout our careers. The psychologist who remains unaware of recent research, changes in the law, or other emerging information relevant to ethical decision-making is as limited as a professor teaching a course who hasn't read any literature on the topic for the last decade. Gathering the relevant information enables informed consideration. Drawing on help from our colleagues and wherever else we can find it, we attempt to see the implications of the information for the ethical aspects of the situation at hand and evaluate options to see which makes the most ethical sense. Just as when we design an experiment we try to search out the many sources of potential error--investigator paradigm effect, unintentional expectancy effect, demand characteristics, Hawthorne effect, spurious correlations, etc.--through which our persistent efforts to understand a phenomenon can end up misleading us, ethical considerations require constant, active awareness of our human vulnerabilities to rationalize unethical choices and to fall prey to inductive and deductive fallacies. With ethical development and practice, as with so many other aspects of what we do as psychologists, we never escape the need to seek new information, think critically, remain aware of our vulnerabilities, and always question.


On the internet: At this site the American Psychological Association Ethics Office presents ethics information and resources. This site, maintained by the Association of State & Provincial Psychology Boards, is a good source of information on licensing laws and standards, providing contact information (and links where available) to state and provincial licensing boards.

http// A good place to start searches for government regulations, laws, etc. Search engine searches every word of every U.S. government document in a quarter of a second. Provides links, where available, to state and local government sites. This site presents an extensive bibliography of books, audiovisuals, and journal article citations on "Ethical Issues in Research Involving Human Participants." This site provides full-text articles on ethics, malpractice, and professional standards from such journals as American Psychologist, Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology, and Psychology, Public Policy, & Law; the ethics codes of APA and over 40 other organizations in the areas of therapy, counseling, and forensics; a guide to dual relationships; a guide to the security of clinical records on computers; links to psychology laws and licensing boards in Canada & the U.S.; and other free resources. The Office of Research Integrity "promotes integrity in biomedical and behavioral research" and "monitors institutional investigations of research misconduct and facilitates the responsible conduct of research through educational, preventive, and regulatory activities." The site provides numerous resources and has created "three listserves to foster discussion and networking among institutional officials and others interested in preventing research misconduct, teaching the responsible conduct of research, or conducting research on research integrity."


American Psychological Association. (2003). Ethical principles for psychologists and code of conduct.

American Psychological Association. (1993). Record keeping guidelines. American Psychologist, 48, 984-986.

American Psychological Association, Committee for the Protection of Human Participants in Research. (1982). Ethical principles in the conduct of research with human participants. Washington, DC: Author.

American Psychological Association, Ethics Committee. (1996). Rules and procedures. American Psychologist, 51, 529-548.

Canadian Psychological Association. (2000). Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists, 3rd edition.

Chastain, G., & Landrum, R. E. (Eds.). (1999). Protecting human subjects: Departmental subject pools and IRBs. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Ethics & Behavior. While most psychology journals such as American Psychologist, Psychological Science, and Professional Psychology: Research & Practice, carry occasional articles on ethics, Ethics & Behavior, published by Erlbaum, focuses on ethical issues in psychological research, teaching, publication, therapy, supervision, and related topics.

Fisher, C. B. & Tryon, W. W. (Eds.) (1990). Ethics in applied developmental psychology. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Gates, J. J., & Arons, B. S. (Eds.). (2000). Privacy and confidentiality in mental health care. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.

Hadjistavropoulos, T., & Bieling, P. J. (2000). When reviews attack: Ethics, free speech, and the peer review process. Canadian Psychology, 41, 152-159.

Kalichman, S. C. (1999). Mandated reporting of suspected child abuse: Ethics, law, & policy, Second Edition. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Keith-Spiegel, P., & Koocher, G. P. (1998). How to confront and unethical colleague. In G.P. Koocher, J. C. Norcross, & S. S. Hill (Eds.), Psychologist's desk reference (pp. 469-473). New York: Oxford University Press.

Koocher, G. P, & Keith-Spiegel, P. (1998). Ethics in Psychology : Professional Standards and Cases. New York: Oxford University Press.

Payton, C. R. (1994). Implications of the 1992 ethics code for diverse groups. Professional Psychology: Research & Practice, 25, 317-320. Please follow this link for information about Carolyn Payton's life & a quote.

Pope, K. S. (1994). Sexual involvement with therapists: Patient assessment, subsequent therapy, forensics. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Pope, K. S., Tabachnick, B. G. & Keith-Spiegel, P. (1987). Ethics of practice: The beliefs and behaviors of psychologists as therapists. American Psychologist, 42, 993-1006.

Pope, K. S., & Vasquez, M. J. T. (1998). Ethics in Therapy & Counseling, Second Edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Pope, K. S. & Vetter, V. A. (1992). Ethical dilemmas encountered by members of the American Psychological Association: A national survey. American Psychologist, 47, 397-411.

Shidlo, A., & Schroeder, M. (2002). Conversion therapy: Ethical, clinical, and research perspectives. Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press.

Sieber, J. E. (1992). Planning ethically responsible research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Simon, G. C. (1978). Psychologist as whistle blower: A case study. Professional Psychology: Research & Practice, 9, 322-340.

Tabachnick, B. G., Keith-Spiegel, P, and Pope, K. S. (1991). Ethics of teaching: Beliefs and behaviors of psychologists as educators. American Psychologist, 46, 506-515.

Whitley, B. E, & Keith-Spiegel, P. (2002). Academic Dishonesty: An Educator's Guide. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.


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