Exercise 2Vignettes for Ethical Decision-Making

1)You have been asked to assess the intellectual and emotional state of a four-year-old aboriginal girl whose family is under investigation by Child Welfare authorities because of suspected child neglect. You find the child shy, bright, and appealing. You do not see other family members. You recommend that the child be formally apprehended and placed in a good foster home because, from what you have been told, you think that she will never amount to anything if she remains with her biological family. You would be happy to take her into your own home.

2)You are asked to conduct a child custody assessment in a situation where the mother is white Caucasian and the father is black Afro-American. The father is wealthy and the mother is not. Both appear to be loving parents with the children. The father argues that it is in the children’s best interests to grow up in an Afro-American family rather than to be subjected to the racist attitudes in the white society. You are a white Caucasian female professional. What are the ethical issues that you must consider?

3)You are a government-employed mental health professional in a rural community. Your supervisor informs you that you need to have a woman committed to an institution. Marie has just been evicted from her home, is said to be hysterical, incompetent, depressed, and obviously mentally ill. She has 39 cats that the neighbours do not like, and the house is filthy. You find that she is not mentally ill, but rather is developmentally delayed and has maintained a relative degree of independent living, although some consider her to be a nuisance. Citizens complain to the Premier and the Minister that you are not prepared to do anything. You are ordered to do something. You continue to believe that she has a right to live in the community and the community has the obligation to provide support systems. What should you do? (Manual to the Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists Vignette #74).

4)You have developed an interview instrument that can determine a person’s sexual orientation without the individual knowing that it is being disclosed. You are quite excited by this discovery and publish an article on your findings. You are approached by the representative of a large educational system about buying your instrument at a significant price. The representative says that the educational system intends to have all teaching staff take the test to ensure that no homosexuals are teaching in their system. Although you are pleased with the recognition of your work, you are uncomfortable with its intended use. (Manual to the Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists Vignette #43)

5)You have a contract to provide mental health counselling for five days a month to a group of First Nations communities. In your work you become aware of children who have been sexually abused. In accordance with provincial law, you report the abuse to the proper authorities. Subsequently, social workers, police officers, and the courts become involved. One of the chiefs takes you aside and asks that you not make any further reports to the authorities “because the white system is racist, abusive, and disempowering to the aboriginal people.” He implies that your contract will be cancelled if you continue to report. (Adapted from the Manual to the Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists Vignette # 89).

6)Betty is a 25-year-old woman with a disability who lives in a supported living situation and is six months’ pregnant with her boyfriend of two years. You are a rehabilitation career counsellor who assists her in maintaining employment. Betty’s mother asks to see you and you assume that it will be about how Betty’s pregnancy affects her work situation. However, you soon find that the mother wants your assistance in preventing Betty from marrying David and to convince Betty to be sterilized after the birth of the child. What are your counselling goals?

7)You have established a private practice limited solely to sex therapy. After a couple of years you accept unmarried couples as clients despite some vigorous criticism from a few individuals in the community. You now discover that there is a need for therapy for gay and lesbian couples, but you also anticipate that you would receive widespread public disapproval from this community if you accepted them as clients. How do you resolve this dilemma?

8)You are working part-time as a data analyst to assist Dr. Scubby in his investigation of two different interventions approaches with persons with adult onset of brain injury. The clients are randomly assigned to two treatment groups on an ongoing, open-ended basis. Since this project appears to you to be research, you question why it has not received a research ethics review and why the clients have not been told and consented to be research participants. You also have questions about the adequacy of the research design. You are told that it is really just an internal quality assurance program, so it does not require review, and it makes no difference to the clients because no one is denied treatment and they might not understand anyway. You are advised to just do your data analysis and not worry about these things. Later Dr. Scubby presents the results of the study at a professional conference as research and publishes an article with no discussion of methodological limitations or of ethical implications. Do you have any further responsibilities?

Reference:

Sinclair, C., & Pettifor, J. (2001). Companion manual to the Canadian code of ethics for psychologists(3rd ed.). Ottawa, ON: Canadian Psychological Association.

GCAP 632 Lesson 9 Exercise 2