It could be said that education in the United States of America is exceptionally diverse and perhaps even more so in the field of psychology. Among psychological programs at different American educational institutions, not only is there no national curriculum, there is often no uniform curriculum even within a particular state. Nevertheless, there are commonalities among psychological programs and all 50 states have some legislation to certify psychologists.

The regulation of professional psychology practice is necessary in order to insure that practitioners are qualified and can meet the affirmed professional and ethical standards. The licenses granted in the state of California are Licensed Psychologist, Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), and Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT). Each of these professionals is trained to understand human behavior, to recognize various emotional problems and disorders, and to provide therapy. In addition to the above mental health professionals who function as psychotherapists, there are other types of professionals who help people experiencing distress. Surprisingly, some of these professions require a license, certification or credential and some do not.

Education and Training of a Psychologist

Generally speaking, the aim of psychology is to reduce psychological distress, promote psychological well-being and to do no harm. If this is to occur, it is essential that the psychologist be competent. Competence is a legal, ethical, and clinical concept. Competency has been the subject of numerous studies and reports, as well as Supreme Court cases; it is worthy to note that our legal system makes the power of individual choice legally contingent on competence. Recognizably, judgments about competence are often discretionary, value laden, and culturally bound. Nonetheless, there must be some standardized strategy for determining not only competency for the individual therapist, but also for the programs used to train them.

Competent training programs should begin by maintaining adequate criteria for entrance into the program. In addition to the time-honored academic standards, trainee applicants should be evaluated for their attitudes of social responsibility, respect for cultural differences, and openness to learning. A thorough evaluation by a panel or admissions committee should seek to understand if the applicant has problems or personal attitudes that are likely to interfere with their participating in the training program, besides interfering with the practice of psychotherapy in particular. The trainee applicants should be asked to submit letters of recommendation from qualified professionals in the field, who can speak to their proficiency and suitability as a trainee and future professional-peer. In addition, applicants should be asked to write a comprehensive essay about their professional goals, including a self-assessment of their personal strengths and liabilities; it is essential for the trainee to have and demonstrate an adequate amount of self-awareness prior to working with clients/patients.

Moreover, the screening procedures should ideally be a two-way process. Not only should the program thoroughly screen potential applicants, applicants should be sifting through the training program information to be certain that the program will match their professional goals, and be a good personal fit in terms of mission, values and theoretical orientation. Obviously, the program should be clear about their mission statement, their values, the faculty and their background, the curriculum, academic expectations, and evaluation criteria, as well as informing applicants about the manner in which the education-training will occur. Just as it is appropriate and ethical for would-be clients to give informed consent prior to the start of therapy, a student should have a thorough understanding of the program prior to making a commitment. Furthermore, because most educational-training programs are in the business of recruiting students and showing themselves in their best light, a prospective student should make every effort to be in contact with other students already enrolled in the program or make contact with alumni that can perhaps offer a more objective view of the program in question.

Additionally, potential students should be ready with questions, which may include: What characteristics distinguish this program from others in the same field? What types of financial aid are offered? What is the relative importance of admissions test scores, undergraduate grades, recommendations, statements on applications, experience and other requirements? Does the program prefer applicants with work experience? Are there well-established advisors available to new students? What is the attitudinal temperature between faculty and students? What is the school culture in general? Are students in the program publishing and if so, where have they published? What are former students doing with their degree after graduation? As indicated above, it is essential that the potential student seek out other students in the program or former students in order to get a student prospective and a reasonably objective view. If the student enters a program and then finds the training to be ill-fitted to his or her professional goals, it is likely that neither party will thrive.

Qualification for CA Psychology Licensure

All things considered, having a degree in psychology (even a graduate degree), does not mean there has been adequate training to make one eligible for a professional license. In fact, there are many requirements for licensure and an applicant must be in compliance with all requirements before s/he will be considered for licensure. To begin with, an applicant must have earned a doctorate degree in psychology, education psychology, or in education with the field of specialization in counseling psychology or educational psychology. The degree must have been earned from an accredited university, college, or professional school. The applicant must have engaged in supervised professional experience under the direction of a licensed psychologist for at least two years (3,000 hours), with at least one year (1,500 hours) of experience following the award of the doctorate degree. Registration with the Board is required for everyone accruing supervised professional experience.

Certificate of Professional Qualification

The American Psychological Association's (APA) ethical code accentuates that training programs take reasonable steps to assure that program graduates meet requirements for licensure. Training requirements for licensure have been debated by members of the psychological community for many years. This is true in part because of the field of psychology demands a great deal from its trainees before certification will be authorized. Although the prerequisites to become a licensed psychologist are extensive, it seems reasonable given the ethical issues faced by these professionals every day, not to mention the potential for doing harm. Licensure and credentialing materials emphasize that applicants must evidence good moral character and psychological suitability to gain admission to the profession. In order to ensure the future of the profession, it is essential that psychology professionals possess more than ethical knowledge to practice ethically; they must also possess genuine virtues character. The psychology professional must maintain character traits such as integrity, honesty, forethought, and caring.

Procedures for Misconduct

There are many areas where ethical misconduct can be found in psychology. The first concern I personally encountered as a Practicum Trainee was in the area of confidentiality; incidents involving actual or potential risks of breaking confidentiality to third parties were plentiful. What's more, I continue to find the maintaining of client confidentiality challenging in my work with minors in school-based programs and mandated juvenile programs. The limits of confidentiality, although seemingly explicit, can become blurry within an agency setting and with certain populations. Having multiple experiences with other psychology professionals who were careless (e.g. leaving files on desks or saving progress notes on office computers with shared passwords) does not give me any warm fuzzy professional feelings, and in spite of bringing this issue to their attention, I cannot deny that this continues to be a frequent problem. In fact, it is very probable that the problem is largely unrecognized and/or significantly underestimated. While failing to maintain confidentiality may not fall into the category of most harmful, in terms of misconduct, it is an issue that raises much concern. Other areas that raise much unease and deserve close attention are the issues related to blurred, duel, or conflictual relationships.


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The American Psychological Association (APA) claims to have the largest association of psychologists worldwide, with 53 professional divisions and a complex system of checks and balances that help to make the system user friendly. Their mission is to advance psychology as a science and profession and to promote health, education and human welfare. The APA offers support to psychologists and students of psychology in multiple ways. To begin with, there are a range of memberships available to those who are dedicated to the future of psychology. The APA Member category is limited to doctoral degree holders who have earned their degree from a regionally accredited graduate or professional school; further criteria includes having a degree that is at least in part, based upon a psychological dissertation or other evidence of proficiency in psychological scholarship. First-year members are given a discounted membership fee rate, in recognition of their early career status, and the APA offers a graduated dues structure that slowly increases the rate marginally over an eight year period of time thereafter.

The Associate membership is available to those who have a master's degree or two years of graduate study in psychology or related field. Associate member's dues are less than Member dues, but those who are licensed and practicing (includes Member and Associate memberships) will pay additional fees according to their date of licensure increasing over time. The Affiliate membership is available to graduate students, undergraduate students, high school students, international students, and High school and community college teachers. The APA welcomes students and offers resources and benefits to support their connection in psychology. Another type of membership offered by the APA is the Fellow membership. A Fellow status is given to APA members who have demonstrated "nationally" outstanding contributions or performance in the field of psychology. Finally, the International Affiliate membership is for psychologists who live outside the United States and Canada, who have degrees from foreign institutions with proven U.S. equivalency.
The benefits and services offered by the APA are numerous. The APA's direct services include insurance programs, financial services and career resources. The APA also offers public interest programs in advocacy, aging, AIDS, children-youth and families, end of life issues and care, disabilities, lesbian-gay and bisexual issues, minorities, minority fellowship, socioeconomic status, violence prevention, women, and work.

ASPPB

The Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards (ASPPB) is another organization that is central to professionals in the field of psychology. The ASPPB creates the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP), which is the tool that assesses candidates for licensure and certification. It is important to note that the ASPPB offers mobility programs to licensed psychologists who are seeking licensure in a state, province, or territory, different from area where license was initially attained and held. Materials for training programs and for students are also published by the ASPPB. Essentially, the ASPPB is committed to offering four critical areas of service: examination and credentialing programs, programs and services to all stakeholders, a resource for current and accurate information regarding the regulation of psychologists, and contributing to consumer protection perspectives for the development of the profession.

NRHSPP

As a psychology professional, I believe we must be as prepared as possible for the future, thinking ahead about the possibility of needing professional mobility. It is essential that one knows where he or she wants to go (geographically) in providing psychology services, as well as knowing about the requirements of that particular jurisdiction, in terms of having the appropriate credentials and the mechanisms to get there. According to their website (updated June, 2006), the National Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology (NRHSPP) is an organization that can facilitate the process of professional mobility. In 2002, the California Board of Psychology recognized the NRHSPP credential as a mobility mechanism for registrants who have been licensed at the doctoral level for at least 5 years. This nonprofit credentialing organization provides verification of the psychology professional's credentials to other registrants or to licensing boards. Additionally, this organization helps to connect informed consumers with credentialed psychologists. The registrants (members) can benefit from participating in a consumer to registrant contact system via email through the Find a Psychologist Database. The online component of this registry service allows psychologists to add their personal web site information to their registry profile, which is then made available to consumers through the Find a Psychologist Database. Furthermore, the NRHSPP can offer additional support to professionals and students of psychology, by providing continuing education through a variety of online links and resources.

APA Ethical Principles Critique

As a Ph.D. psychology student and a licensed practicing Marriage and Family Therapist it is imperative that I have knowledge and understanding of the professional ethics and laws that frame the therapeutic relationship. While there may be many available sources to assist me in understanding the APA's ethical guidelines and codes of conduct, it is clear to me that I cannot ignore an interpretation that originates first from my own value system. Given my education and experience thus far, I recognize that both interpretation and application of ethical guidelines demand the greatest principled sensitivity. Furthermore, in this process of making ethical decisions, I do believe that it is my responsibility to utilize the APA's guidelines, in part because a lack of awareness or a misunderstanding of an ethical standard is not itself a defense to a charge of unethical conduct. However, even with access to the APA's codes and guidelines and supervisory and peer consultation, I have often felt challenged by questions (client dilemmas) that do not have obvious answers. I have also come to be aware of the trend wherein the ethical codes have a tendency to take on legalistic dimensions. While I can expect that there will be situations that will push or pull for me to think about what is right for my client verses the legal minimums or expectations, I can also expect that I will feel most motivated to formulate sound reasoning and practical professional judgment based on what seems best for my client's welfare first and foremost.

It is my opinion that the APA's ethical guidelines are based on a culturally narrow perspective of counseling and do not sufficiently address the values and interests of minority as well as majority groups. Still, I believe this is largely due to the understanding that most ethical standards are written broadly, in order to be applicable to a variety of psychologists representing varied roles. The ethical standards provided by the APA are not meant to be exhaustive, nor are these codes intended to be a basis of civil liability. In fact, the use of modifiers (e.g. reasonably, appropriate, potentially) are in part written into the codes and guidelines in order to allow for professional decision-making on the part of the psychologist and to eliminate possible inequalities that could occur with the modifier.

Generally speaking, there is a tendency in psychology to be preoccupied with the individual, and yet, taking a systems-oriented approach can go a long way in informing the decision-making process especially for the collectivist-motivated client. Although the APA has made efforts to support providers of psychological services to ethnic, linguistic, and culturally diverse populations, possibly in recognition of the global nature of today's society, a true multicultural perspective that includes all cultures and subcultures has yet to be achieved.

Ethics are not concepts that can be easily characterized and have been largely understood as a values-based quest for the "good of all." It is important to remember that although ethical codes and the guidelines that constitute them are important, they cannot replace the difficult work of ethical thinking and judgment. Since the practice of psychotherapy has largely evolved within the European/North American experience, it would be wise for psychology professionals to stay keenly aware of this framework and the values associated with them. While the APA has made excellent efforts in developing guidelines and codes of conduct for the good of all, I believe they have done so in large part from the European/North American values perspective. Failure to understand aspects of individuals' culture and ethnicity may generate misunderstandings and may result in significant mental, spiritual, and physical harm.

In spite of all the rules, guidelines, resources, and support from the above mentioned professional groups, there will be cases when it may be appropriate to file a complaint. The APA Ethics Office has designed a form to be completed by the person filing the complaint. The information to be included on the form is fairly brief, but it will give the Ethics Office enough information to address the concern and respond to the sender. The form must be faxed or sent by postal mail, as the office will not communicate by way of e-mail regarding ethics complaint matters.

Tamberly Mott, MFT, is a licensed Counselor, Life Skills Coach and writer working in the San Francisco Bay Area where she finds her passion working with children, youth and families. Along with raising foster children and her own biological children on a farm, Ms. Mott has led a very prolific life and brings much experience to her clinical work. Her therapeutic practice includes: trauma (grief, suicide, rape/family violence, and chronic illness); eating disorders and self-harm behaviors; adoption and attachment disorders; divorce, custody and blended families issues; various LBGTQ issues and alternative lifestyles; religious persecution; academic and related social issues.


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For as long as I can remember, throughout my many lives, I have been a counselor and a friend, offering acceptance and encouragement to those around me, especially those who have been emotionally, physically, socially, environmentally or spiritually- wounded. Moreover, I have long been a counselor-friend to myself, learning to accept myself (my changing self, for nothing is constant), cheering on my own heart to grow, allowing for my own wounds to heal, and challenging my soul to reveal itself to my conscious, that I might be aware of my individuality and my motivations. I seek to live with purpose and passion, with oneness with others and the environment, and my professional orientation is humanistic. Furthermore, as a helping professional and a wounded healer, I seek to provide services from a holistic and phenomenological perspective. My orientation maintains an optimistic, hermeneutic-constructive view of humans and our capacity to be self-determining.

I have learned from my years as a helping professional that no one is as good as their best moment or as bad as their worst, and there is no such thing as perfect. I continue to learn that each and every person is unique, regardless of shared characteristics or contexts, and I embrace multiculturalism. Moreover, I believe that multiculturalism is a subject that every helping professional should thoroughly explore before setting off to provide therapeutic services; this is one of my identified biases. Therapists should begin by identifying their own cultural values, biases, beliefs, and world view, before they try to explore or analyze another's. This is an ongoing process, since cultural identity is dynamic and fluid.

Subsequently, we should be curious about current theories of counseling and psychotherapy, seeking to understand where they may have fallen short in their attempts to recognize cultural diversity... perhaps even contributing to encapsulation. We need to seek relevant cultural knowledge/awareness in multicultural settings and participate in multicultural training that will develop competencies. I feel this is our ethical/moral duty, that is... if we sincerely intend to help without harming.

Perhaps, cultural factors are more easily understood and responded to in terms of values and respecting diverse value systems. Professional values ought to include respecting human rights and dignity, ensuring the integrity of therapist-client relationships, enhancing the quality of professional knowledge and its application, alleviating personal distress and suffering, increasing personal effectiveness, enhancing the quality of relationships between people, appreciating the variety of human experience and culture, and striving for fair and adequate provision of counseling and psychotherapy services. These are the values that I personally choose to embrace. Additionally, I believe that it is essential that we recognize how being "human" limits our ability to provide "flawless" treatment for the clients that seek our services. Our humanness, or our inability to be omniscient, can be both our greatest reward, in terms of discovery, and our greatest source of stress, in terms of the unknown.

As therapists, we seek to understand our client's clinical needs, but there may be factors that are unknown to us, making it difficult to make the appropriate assessment. In addition, there may be competing obligations that pull and/or push us to a course of action that is incongruent with our personal sense of justice, and yet, we must take responsibility for all of our actions and frequently, our inactions as well. Although codes of ethics can provide us with appropriate boundaries to guide us, we cannot expect the codes to tell us how to process our feelings, formulate our responses, nor do our thinking for us. Every client represents a new experience; their unique situation based on their individual context and their subjective view of the issues that bring them to therapy can never be exactly replicated. The fact that there are no absolute answers and no one-size-fits-all formulas to meet the vast and often complex needs of the client, can and will cause the caring therapist to struggle with professional judgments. Therefore, being committed to the individual client and being committed to working ethnically requires balance and consultation from professional sources.

Achieving this complicated equilibrium is even more essential when doing research in psychology. In our research in psychology, I believe all research participants must be treated with respect and in a way that maintains their rights and dignity. As I seek to develop research ideas, I will consider the perspective of the participant. Besides taking all necessary steps when to ensure that the participant's psychological and physical dignity, health and safety are preserved, reciprocity will be a key issue to address. Further, the principles of participant consent and participant information are paramount. Participants should be fully informed of the study, its aims, objectives and their role, prior to giving consent, as well as being able to withdraw at any point in the research. In terms of research methodology, I have developed a curiosity for research that focuses on understanding, rather than predicting or controlling phenomena. As I seek to understand, I will honor my responsibility to be a trustworthy clinician, maintain respect (for self and others), continue to grow my capacity for self-awareness, and consult-consult-consult; only then can I consider myself to have the makings of an ethical practitioner.



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Like any discipline, psychology has developed its own language. There are terms with specific meanings to a psychologist that might have a different meaning to a layperson. For instance, schizophrenia is a diagnostic label relating to people with inappropriate affect and behavior, but to the general public, Schizophrenia means a split personality(which a psychologist would call dissociative identity disorder).

Similarly, in different areas of psychology, terms may not reflect the same concepts. For instance,different psychologists who see the abbreviation SSRI could interpret in differently. Within the realm of treatment for psychological disorders, those initials stand for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, whereas in studies of emotional intelligence, the initials refer to the Schutte Self-Report Inventory.

In your introduction, you can let your reader know how you are using important terms .Sometimes you might be discussing a relatively obscure concept that is generally known within a limited domain of psychology, such as Schutte's inventory. Your reader might need help understanding the concept. If you are not making use of any unusual terms or definitions, you probably don't need to clarify your terminology, but you can let your reader know about any such instances here.

In the same vein, you can use your introduction to discuss the operational definitions that previous researchers have used if you believe you can generate different and better operational definitions or if there is disagreement among professionals about how to measure a construct. As an example, in studies of emotional intelligence, it appears to make a difference how the researchers measure this concept( Zeidner, Shani-Zinovich, Roberts, & Matthews,2005).



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