Legal Aspects of Professional Psychology

Legal Aspects of Professional Psychology

In today's world of Psychology there are so many issues and other legal aspects that play a part in the psychology industry. This particular topic covers a really huge area in psychology such as the testing, confidentiality, the many case studies, assessments, the diagnosing and lots more. There are so many of therapist in the professional world of psychology that seem to have a hard time of maki9ng sure they are abiding by the laws in place today, while trying to care for their patients and providing the best service to them . Today it is really easy to mistreat client /patient this is one of the many subjects that will be discussed within this paper. Also the many different legal aspects today will be looked at closely and many statistics not looked at will be brought to the table and examined to view how they relate to the psychology field.

Legal Issues Related to Informed Consent and Refusal

Looking at Informed consent more closely, according to Rosenfeld, 2010, "It's defined as the actual result of a process of reaching an agreement to work collaboratively. The informed consent provides the patient along w/ the therapist the opportunity to be on the same page. The patient needs to have the information as to what type of treatment the therapist has in mind for them to of course helps them overcome these situations. This is what is called the recurrent process in the psychology industry." In most cases this client can actually consent to an assessment but it must altered months later based on what the actual results were and the clients progress and reaction (Rosenfeld, 2010).Quoted from Cobb v. Grant in the 1972 case," It is the prerogative of the patient not the physician to determine for himself the actual direction that he believes his interests will lie. To help enable the patients to chart his course and knowledgeably, reasonable familiarity with the therapeutic alternative and their hazards becomes essential."

"There is case after case w/quote after quote giving patients the right to choose their own treatment or refused their treatment. (Pope and Vasquez, 2007)

Legal Issues Associated w/ Assessment, Testing, and Diagnosing

There are many thinks that can change the outcome of clients life, and that's how they therapist that's conducting the assessments, and the testing perform them. The final diagnosing has been known to be really important to any patient. The main reason has been the deciding factors they have played in some cases it has decided whether or not an individual goes to prison, involuntary hospitalization, which can really put a damper on ones reputation. This is why patients need to know the actual purpose, the nature and understand how the technique will be handled with the assessment. This is if and only the patient has knowledge of the test and knows that it was not any other type of written test. There are many patients that try out of the buildup of fear of actually looking crazy try to put a front to please the doctor. Before proceeding it is the responsibility of the doctor to fully provide the information and make sure the client has full understanding of what's being done and said before moving on. (Pope and Vasquez, 2007).

One thing to keep in mind especially with lots of clients having insurance, and that's making sure that you are using the correct diagnosis there have been many legal issues involved due to this. Then there is coverage that is not given for certain sickness. You find that many physicians have been known to change a person's diagnosis so that the individual will receive what's coming to him/her from their insurance company. With this taking place the public eye has been very close on the physicians. It has gotten to the point to where investigators have been brought in to make sure that stops and that the therapist stops this completely (Psychological Association 1963, 2010).

Maintaining Confidentiality in Therapy

One of the biggest areas in the psychology industry is confidentiality. Majority of the time it is not done due to malicious intent. But that of an individual stressed or possibly suffering from fatigue and not knowing. It has been many things that therapist, let's face it they have just overlooked and did not have a clue about it. Many have been known to not discuss their day out the office /w their spouses because they fell they may say something by accident about one of their patients. In some cases some therapist can't even go workout and release stress thinking that they may run into someone that may know one of their clients. The charts of many of their patients cannot be around for other eyes to see especially when another session with another client is around, you do not want to the name to get out. The type of messages that the doctor leave must be straight to the point not revealing information. The very main reason for this is that there could possibly be someone present other than the patient. Another thing that the physicians must be very