Obtaining informed consent has become a routine part of both initiating and continuing clinical services. Psychologists are trained to anticipate the risks and benefits, identify alternatives, understand limits to privacy, explain these factors to prospective clients, and assist them in making decisions about their participation. Only in recent years have psychologists begun to more formally incorporate the principles of informed consent into their work with supervisees. Providing supervisees with relevant information at the outset helps to minimize risks for supervisors and supervisees and to maximize benefits for supervisees and their clients. This article addresses the objectives and benefits of obtaining informed consent to supervision, highlights relevant ethical standards and guidelines, and describes the elements of a supervisory informed consent document.
Most psychologists who face board complaints experience significant personal and professional distress. As a result, they become vulnerable to cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses that may compromise their clinical work as well as their ability to defend themselves. Awareness of some of the most common sources of distress associated with complaints can allow psychologists to take steps to minimize, if not obviate, problematic countertransference, impaired objectivity, and self-defeating responses throughout and beyond the complaint investigation and adjudication process. Further, awareness of these pitfalls can inform the work of the supervisors, consultants, and psychotherapists who assist psychologists facing ethics complaints.
Professional psychologists are expected to know ethical standards and engage in proactive analysis of ethical considerations across professional roles (e.g., practice, research, teaching).Yet, little is known about the current state of doctoral ethics education in professional psychology, including the content covered and pedagogical strategies used to ensure developing
When mental health professionals reflect on the milestones of their careers, images of supervisors past invariably come to mind. For better or worse, supervisors play a significant role in the professional development of their supervisees. The professional ethics that they teach, and more so that they model, make an indelible impression. Lessons learned, particularly during the early formative years, will reverberate in the years to come. The responsibility of a clinical supervisor cannot be overstated. For these reasons, clinical supervision has long been considered an essential and fundamental component of the training and sometimes of the rehabilitation of psychologists and other mental health professionals. Welch (2003) characterized supervision as "the scaffolding from which all clinical work is taught" (p. 1).Consultation is often mentioned as a postsupervision method for developing and maintaining competence in particular areas of practice (Knapp
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