Sociology / Ethics in Psychology
Ethics in Psychology
Ethics is morality or the parameter of what is right and wrong that is applied to people and society as a whole so that it will benefit everyone. In psychology ethics is applied by considering the safety and confidentiality of patients, students, colleagues and even co-relationships of patients they are treating or colleagues and superiors they are conferring with.
“This Ethics Code applies only to psychologists’ activities that are part of their scientific, educational, or professional roles as psychologists. Areas covered include but are not limited to the clinical, counseling, and school practice of psychology; research; teaching; supervision of trainees; public service; policy development; social intervention; development of assessment instruments; conducting assessments; educational counseling; organizational consulting; forensic activities; program design and evaluation; and administration. This Ethics Code applies to these activities across a variety of contexts…” (American Psychoglogical Association, 2016). Thus, ethics in psychology is a broad concept which encompasses the various roles of the psychologist in their complex profession to, ultimately, treat the patient and to help him to adjust in society. It is applicable in a variety of ways and may be done through research, counseling and even forensics when crime is involved. Evaluation is the key and administration is the answer to the problem but with due care all under the code of ethics in psychology.
After having watched a film on Netflix: The Unabomber, this film arose in my mind with thoughts on ethics. The bomber who has had a dozen of victims and a hundred survivors made me think about the issue of ethics in psychology. He was put on trial but he did not want to be
placed in a mental institution, preferring instead to plead guilty so that his manifesto on life which is the hate of technology would be ascertained never to be forgotten in the minds of the people who read it. It was the role of ethics to give him the chance to reform, to be well-adjusted in life and to participate in society because he was withdrawn and unable to make human contact due to his traumatic childhood background as a genius who could not adapt in the school environment wherein people would have their relationships and have families which he couldn’t do for reasons due to being underage, vulnerable to society and maladjusted most of the time. His lawyers wanted him to plead insanity but he would none of it. Everything about him, in my opinion was decidedly insane. His childhood experience twisted him up to the point wherein revenge was his only way of satiating his lust to get even with the world. And he was a genius at it. If given the proper treatment, under the ethical mode of psychology, he could have been normal, he could have had the chance to enjoy the nature he so dearly loved and imparted this love for nature in the right, ethical way that would not have done harm to society. In the psych ward he could have had the chance to see nature and be with people that he so much wanted, it nearly consumed him. “I remember the rain and the trees. It was so beautiful.” The Unabomber said to his arresting officer ( The Unabomber, 2017). Instead they cajoled him to plead guilty and was placed in solitary confinement for the rest of his life. I recall how he watched the mountains through the bus he rode towards his jail cell and how poignant it was. His lawyers were right to plead insanity, to save him, because he was misunderstood, no matter what he had done. This is ethics in psychology at its finest hour, to forgive the tormented and have him reformed so that he
could enjoy life and not be so attached into his ambition or delusion to change the whole world because who can do that? The world would have to stop just to change its ever expanding technological advancement towards the future.
In principle then, I believe that every man has the right to be treated humanely as a patient, perhaps to be studied but not to be harmed in the course of the study. The Unabomber could have been treated through therapy and studied psychologically for signs of the times: terrorism in our midst. To study how the human mind turns into terrorism is a much more laudable action rather than to leave him locked up with all the answers as to why terrorists become terrorists in this day and age.
Also it is a way to forgive him by giving his twisted thoughts the chance to unwind and to allow him to feel how it is to be human, to have relationships, to have a family and to understand life and technology as a way of nature unfolding.
In the light of the development of the ethics in psychology throughout the years in history, we have already come to realize that animals are not to be harmed as much as possible. Perhaps, someday, animals used as lab rats in experiments for the human mind shall be totally banned for good and be replaced instead with technological robots instead. The impetus was to save the human mind from deteriorating. We have used human subjects as experimental lab rats and according to the article by Jefferson Fish, Phd. this is considered torture. “…behind-the-scenes contacts between APA and the government, and was created to provide cover for a number of psychologists to create a rationale for, organize, participate in, and profit substantially from using
torture in the interrogation of terrorism suspects.” ( Fish, 2016 ). This is today. We may have avoided innocent human subjects or patients from torturous methods of gaining access to the human mind due to the ongoing process of refining the ethical standards of research into the human brain, but today’s terrorists replaced them so that even the innocent ones whose race and religion threaten society pushes us back further by torturing them to admission of something they may or may not have committed.
Ethics in psychology is a very tricky thing. There is what is called “transference” or developing your ideation towards your psychologist or psychotherapist or psychiatrist as the case may be. Thus, ethics in psychology today has developed a code of conduct that prohibits intimacy in terms of sexual relations between patient and therapist as well as relative and therapist. “The conduct codes and principles of ethics are put in place to ensure that anyone receiving services from a psychologist as well as the psychologist providing the services is protected against any breach of conduct that may cause physical or emotional harm to those involved in the services.” (
European foundation for Psychologists and Analysts ).
Perhaps in the past, this transference had mended its way between the therapist and their patients or relatives because the subject at hand delicately bordered on intimacy levels. I have seen the film ( A Dangerous Method, 2011) about Carl Jung and his patient and how they became so close that they fell in love with each other to the point of losing their subjectivity which did not do anything good on the patient. She became greedy for his time even as she knew he was a married man. She became manic and sexually deviant to the point that Carl Jung had to stop
seeing her and treating her as a patient.
All these insights and analysis upon the way ethics in psychology came to be is very important because this is how we see the evolution of how the mind works and was said to have been treated. The human mind today is overflowing with information that the ethics committee on psychology would do best to catch up and find better and more humane ways of treating their patient.
Today, the electroshock therapy treatment has been abolished and replaced with oral medicines. This is a giant leap for mankind. He is less trapped these days. He is treated more humanely. We recall the times when a hole was drilled unto his forehead to let out the steam in his brain. But now we know better. Hopefully, we shall always know better. But, like everything else when one comes down, another problem crops up. It is tempting to say we have come a long way towards modernization. But in comes terrorism and intolerance for homosexuality or the loss of trust towards religion which has somehow came to be made a freak show for those who try to use it in nationalistic ways. We do not know the future, but we do know our past and our future. That much we know of and we can go on from there believing that we can be ethical in dealing with the human mind, its concepts and applications.
References:
A Dangerous Method (film), 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCLsgx1X9fE
American Psychological Association, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCLsgx1X9fE
European Foundation of Pyschologists and Analysts, http://www.efpa.be/ethics.htm
Fish, Jefferson, Phd.Is Psychologists’ Code of Ethics Immoral? https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/looking-in-the-cultural-mirror/201603/is-psychologists-code-ethics-immoral
The Unabomber (Netflix Series) 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsd_LMDlzhI
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