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Ethics and Morality
Blogging to Promote Positive Ethics: The Pennsylvania Experience
The Birth of an Ethics Blog for Psychologists
Posted August 8, 2011
Guest Blogger: John D. Gavazzi, PsyD ABPP
Blogger's note: In my last post, about positive ethics, I mentioned the new ethics blog published by the Pennsylvania Psychological Association as an example of positive ethics in action. It is an amazing resource for all psychologists and their students. Thus, I have asked Dr. John Gavazzi, a Pennsylvania psychologist, ethics educator, and one of the developers of that blog, to tell us more about the origins and purposes of the blog.
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For some years the Ethics Committee of the Pennsylvania Psychological Association (PPA) had been using an online discussion board to share ethics vignettes with educators across the country. We used one of four bulletin boards on PPA's web site for this task. We knew that the vignettes were a valuable resource, as some ethics educators used them in their classes. Individuals around the world, literally, tapped into our site to view the vignettes to start conversations about ethical dilemmas. Our most popular vignettes had over 10,000 hits.
But technology marches on, and the leadership of PPA decided to update our web site and eliminate our bulletin board. The Ethics Committee did not want to lose this opportunity to share vignettes because it is part of our mission:
"The committee shall provide information to the membership and to the public about the formal ethical principles and the evolving standards of practice of psychologists. Such information shall be distributed regularly and proactively as well as in response to inquiries."
After some research and discussion, we decided to launch a blog, which we launched on April 20, 2011, for a grand total of $10 to register the domain name. The Blogger.com application is free through Google.
Dr. John Gavazzi
The original purpose was to share the vignettes so valuable to ethics educators. As we explored the versatility of the blog format, however, we realized that we could expand our activities to enhance our positive influence on ethics educators, practicing professionals, and students. Our first idea was to post prior articles from The Pennsylvania Psychologist and news stories related to ethics and ethics education. After a few short months, the site already contains over 70 posts that include books reviews, original articles, and information from The Pennsylvania Psychologist. As of this writing, two psychologists from outside Pennsylvania volunteered to have their articles published on the blog.
News stories have become a central theme to our blog, to demonstrate how ethical issues emerge on an everyday basis. The stories have touched on lots of ethical issues, such as how psychologists should respond to "friend requests" on Facebook, bullying, electronic data security, forced medication for prisoners, practical tips for emailing patients, and sports concussions.
Most importantly, we decided to open the blog up to as many people as possible. There are no passwords to remember, only a site to bookmark. In addition, readers can follow this blog simply by signing up for the email service. Once they sign up by email they receive an email anytime a new item is posted. Unfortunately, there is no way to notify folks when comments are entered on the site. I say "unfortunately" as there have been several excellent responses to postings from ethics educators across the country. Even blog technology has its limits!
As for other content, we have relevant links to a variety of ethics-related resources, such as Ken Pope's site, APA's Ethical Principles and Code of Conduct, and, of course, The Ethical Professor. Our blog archive is easy to navigate and a "search" function helps to find information quickly. We also house RSS feeds from PsycPORT and the APA Journal Psychotherapy. The blog also displays PPA's Twitter feed.
Our overarching goal is to promote ethics in a way that is positive, and moves beyond the ethical floor. Although ethical rules, regulations, and statutes are important, we do not plan to focus on these. We have posted stories about what happens when psychologists do not follow the rules or live up to the community standards, but our emphasis is to promote positive ethics and help psychologists strive to do their best work. When psychologists aim toward excellence, they are likely incorporating many of the rules, standards, and codes of conduct into their practice. By moving beyond the codes, psychologists are better able to provide the highest quality service by striving toward the ethical ceiling. We believe the ethical vignettes really work in this direction. We also have a link to a free podcast on positive ethics by Sam Knapp and me.
Our viewership is already international. We have had viewers from Malaysia, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, the Philippines, Germany, India, Romania, Russia, and Japan. Our most popular referring site is Google, followed by LinkedIn and PPA's home page (www.papsy.org).
Here's one unanticipated service: I have received several email requests to help psychologists work through ethical issues they are facing. The requests have come from across the United States. This type of volunteer service seems to fill a need for psychologists.
Finally, we hope that ethics educators will direct their students to this site. We hope that they find the ethics vignettes, articles, and links to be of value. Educators may encourage their students to participate in the vignette analysis. Once we have more content on this site, ethics educators may use this site, our podcasts, and any other content to promote professional ethics as more than just a set of rules and codes that need to be memorized. Ethics is alive every day in our professional lives, whether we engage in teaching, psychotherapy, consultation, or assessment. Moreover, we reach for higher aspirational ethics when we present psychology to the public and advocate for our patients with local, state, and federal representatives.
We truly hope that this blog raises awareness about the broad range of ethics and helps both students and professionals.
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Mitch Handelsman is a professor of psychology at the University of Colorado Denver and the co-author (with Sharon Anderson) of Ethics for Psychotherapists and Counselors: A Proactive Approach (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010).
© 2011 Mitchell M. Handelsman. All Rights Reserved
