discussion

 

The three guidelines I think could be challenging are impartiality and fairness, resolving ethical issues with fellow professionals, and conflicts with organizational demands. Impartiality and fairness are a guide on how professionals should be in their assessments, evaluations, and even testimonies. Assessments should be conducted based on standardized and supported methods. There should be no favoritism among the parties either. This could also include conflicts of interest and maintaining objectivity. A part of remaining impartial is also being neutral or unbiased. Resolving ethical issues with fellow professionals describes when a professional may face an ethical issue that involves another professional. These issues can arise in various contexts, such as collaboration, disagreements over professional standards, or concerns about one’s colleague’s actions that may not align with ethical guidelines. Conflicts with organizational demands is describing a conflict of interest between professional obligations and the demands of the organization they are working with. These conflicts can arise in a variety of professional settings, whether in business, healthcare, law, education, or any other industry. Essentially, this conflict occurs when what the organization expects or pressures the professional to do is at odds with what the professional knows is ethically right or what aligns with their professional standards.

Being impartial may be challenging because at the end of the day I am still human. There may be times where I don’t even realize my bias is playing a part in the decisions I    am making, and hopefully I am surrounded by people who hold me accountable and are able to let me know if they feel I am being partial. Resolving ethical issues with a fellow colleague is something I think would be challenging in the beginning especially as a someone newer to a job simply because it takes courage and confidence to stand up for others and yourself. Similarly with conflicts with demands of the organization, there may be times where there is push back and being able to stand firm in what you know if right can be hard.

An example where I would have to overcome challenges with impartiality and fairness could be if I was appointed by the court to evaluate the parents in a custody case following a divorce. During the interviews the mother discloses that the divorce is due to abuse. A challenge that I could have is being bias being a child of divorced parents myself, or even holding any other personal beliefs on abuse or roles as parents. I could overcome this by self-reflecting identifying that this is a bias and consulting a mentor, supervisor, or colleague to gain a more objective perspective on the case. An example where I am faced with an ethical issue involving another professional could be if a colleague suggests sharing a client’s private information with a third party without proper consent. This would be violating the client’s confidentiality. As a forensic psychologist we could be asked by an organization to expedite an assessment to meet a tight deadline. In this case, I could negotiate for more time explaining that cutting corners could jeopardize the integrity of the assessments.

American Psychological Association. (2011). Specialty guidelines for forensic psychology. 

https://www.apa.org/practice/guidelines/forensic-psychologyLinks to an external site.

American Psychological Association. (2010). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of