In essence, mental health professionals have a responsibility of offering service to people with issues of mental disorder or mental health problems. Mental health problems range with an increase in intensity from mare stress to critical mental disorder. Psychologists have knowledge of clients behavior, emotions and thoughts that they use together with answers they get from their client to administer counseling. On the other hand, psychiatrists use medicine, lab tests and physical examinations to administer treatment. Notably, because mental health professionals give their services to the public, they are required to follow set ethical code of conduct and non-compliance calls for penalties. However, there are still cases of unethical cases in the profession. In the general principle given by APA, a mental health professional should act for the benefit of the client. However, there was a case of conversion therapy administered by a psychologist to a 22-year-old gay. On the other side, the Association gave guidelines for its members not to use Goldwater rule to analyze current politicians but they still gave their psychoanalysis on president Trump which was unethical. Lastly, guidelines prohibit a mental health professional from having affairs with their clients in or out of session. However, there are still cases of sex assault among them.
Introduction
Notably, the mental health professional is a community service provider or a health care practitioner with the responsibility of offering services to people with issues of mental health or mental disorders. The first picture that hits the mind when mental health is mentioned is a psychologist. However, there are other types of mental health professionals and who can solve many mental problems. This field of career is not like what many would think that the specialist is just seated listening and asking questions. Specialists in this area specialize in the science of emotions, behaviors, and thoughts. Mental health professionals work in places like the workplace, schools, health facilities and many in private offices. Psychologists, for example, treat wide range issues from relationships to mental problems through counseling. However, not all mental health professionals use counseling for their medication. For example, a psychiatrist will mainly diagnose treat and help prevent emotional, mental and behavioral disorders using psychiatric medicine, lab tests, and physical exams. A psychiatrist is a doctor with a doctor of medicine degree or doctor of osteopathic medicine degree. However, a general practice doctor can also prescribe medication on emotional and mental problems (Jorm, 2000). There are also other professionals who can offer mental problems treatments including nurses but their education level is below a degree level. Notably, this profession deals with other people's problems and hence mental health professionals should observe a high ethical code of conduct. However, there are few cases of unethical practices among the mental health professionals that occur still.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
There are major cases where doctors use the un-prescribed way to help their client. According to ethical principles of psychologists, general principle number one states that mental health professional should strive to act for the benefit of care of the client and should do no harm to them. However, there are cases of psychologists who use the wrong form of medication like conversion therapy. Reparative or conversion therapy is an unsafe practice based on the condemned idea that people can change their sexual alignment. On 7th May 2012, the Beth Allen law firm and Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in Portland complained of a psychologist who was using conversion therapy to help Hirsh a 22 years old university student in Oregon. They also launched a website where people could file their grievances over unethical practices of mental health professionals. According to the report, Hirsh had gone to see the psychologist in Portland for depression management in February 2011. However, the therapy stopped after six months when Hirsh realized that the psychologist was using reparative therapy. Notably, conversion therapy was termed as a bogus way to fix what is not broken. The result of many forms of conversion therapy practiced contributing significantly to societal disapproval of LGBT people, their gender expression, and their sexual orientation. APA had warned mental health professionals earlier over the potential risk of using conversion which includes depression, self-destruction behaviors, and anxiety. However, even with the warning from the board and other warnings, some health professionals still use the bogus method. In our case, Hirsh confirms that the doctor started basing all therapy sessions on sexual orientation which are approaches used by conversion therapists prompting Hirsh to stop attending therapy without solving the main issue of inactive social and romantic life with his gay condition. This was against the code of conduct guidelines which states that psychologists should respect their clients. In this case, the psychologist ought to have respected Hirsh condition and help him appropriately without engaging sexual issues too much. In my opinion, this was a violation of principles given by APA in which client should be respected. Therefore, APA was supposed to discipline the psychologist to avoid such cases in future.
In other news, the mental health professional has been wondering the mental stability of the United States president Hon. Trump. However, APA gave guidelines for all members including the psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers not to talk about politicians’ mental condition unless they had an in-person conversation or the public figure had requested so. This debate came up after president Trump was involved in several comments that were not fit for his position. The question about if America had nuclear weapons and why they are not used stirring the whole thing. Last February, a group of psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers wrote a letter to New York Times saying that president Trump was mentally unstable giving evidence that they had diagnosed him with different pathologies that made him unfit for the office. Even with APA giving guidelines that its members should not refute the Goldwater Rule on current politics, another minor group called A Duty to Warn came up with other rules opposing what APA had guided. Their rule stated that client confidentiality should be broken if they had potential to damage the society or own self. The group, therefore, gave members authority to refute Goldwater rule and give their analysis of president Trump. According to APA guidelines, talking to the public about your client's case is unethical whichever the case (New York Times). There were no sanctions in this case because the groups were divided with different opinions. The story was reviewed a year later in New York Times as the condition of the U.S. president was still in question to some psychologists. They argue that even though many would think president Trump was joking, in his positions if some comments could be taken seriously could damage the community causing war. In my opinion, comments of president Trump should be reviewed and psychoanalyzed because some of his comments can stir global war. Therefore, I support the idea to refute Goldwater rule to verify the mental stability of leaders because they have potential to damage many lives if they are not mentally stable.
Some of the other unethical practices that a mental health specialist should not practice is being in an intimate relationship with clients. Creating a sexual relationship with clients in often cases add problems other than solving them. A psychologist who aims at helping clients should avoid making intimate friends with clients because it can lead to unethical behavior. Intimate relationships between clients and their psychologists impair their professional performance and in most cases harm clients. However, it is impossible to avoid all contacts with clients outside the office. Some relationships that do not hinder the process are therefore ethically okay. Nonetheless, APA guidelines suggest that sexual relationship may not be harmful two years after the therapy. An example of a sexual case is that of Eric Felsch a psychologist in St. Cloud who dropped his profession after facing charges of sexual assault. News of Mr. Felsch was on the headlines of SC Times on Feb 9, 2018, claiming that the 46 years psychologist has stopped his practice amid sex assault charges. He was arrested and was presented in court on charges of third-degree criminal sexual conduct. He signed with the board of psychologist in Minnesota that he will not practice psychology until the case ends. Investigations on a case filled in December that he was in a sexual relationship with a client in session and after the session between 2011 and 2013 are ongoing. In 2014, Felsch had been disciplined by APA board for inappropriate behavior at work in which he embraced one of his customers for 30 to 40 minutes and another one in which he used to great and farewell a client with "I love you" which is unethical (Nora, 2018). In my opinion, any mental health professional should adhere to ethical guidelines given by the regulating body. In this case, if Mr. Felsch is found guilty by the court, he should suffer a maximum penalty to be used as an example to other related cases.
References
American Psychological association, (APA). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/
Jorm, A. F. (2000). Mental health literacy: Public knowledge and beliefs about mental disorders. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 177(5), 396-401.
New York Times, (Feb 17, 2018). Still Talking After All These Years.
Nora G. H. (Feb 9, 2018). St. Cloud psychologist stops practice amid sex assault charges. SC Times.
Southern poverty law center (May 7, 2012). Oregon Doctor Should be investigated for Unethical Use of Conversion Therapy.
