Psychologists And Psychotherapists' Understanding Of The Professional Ethics In Guangzhou: A Qualitative Research

Objective and SignificanceThe research of professional ethics of psychological counseling and psychotherapy industry started late in China. Its research quantity is small and dimension is relatively narrow. With the rapid development of China's psychological counseling and psychotherapy, the research of professional ethics of the industry becomes more and more important. The majority of the researchers in our country have come to a consensus that we should deeply study the ethics situation of this industry and formulate the target-oriented ethics standard to guide the practitioner's ethical behavior.This subject starts from the perspective of psychologists and psychotherapists, attempting to find out their understanding of the professional ethics in our country. This research will contribute to the localization of western ethics research results in China and help relevant departments formulate professional ethics standard.Methods10 psychologists and psychotherapists in Guangzhou, from different agencies and with different working tenure, have been chosen as the object of this qualitative research. Face-to-face interview is carried out. Phenomenology research technique will be adopted to analyze and sort out the interview material, in order to explore the interviewees' understanding of ethical issues and ethical standard of the psychological counseling and psychotherapy industry.Results1. The way that practitioners engaging in psychological counseling and psychotherapy industry access to ethical knowledge is multiple and fragmented. According to the interview, it is found that practitioners access to ethical knowledge through the following ways: school education, various non-academic courses, professional books, television media, communication with peers and academic research.2. Practitioners engaging in psychological counseling and psychotherapy industry all agree that the industry code of ethics is particularly important, but they still hope that the industry code of ethics could be more detailed in order to be more user-friendly guided, and this would increase operability in practice.3. Informed consent is interpreted as a glorious ideal but also the reality of difficult to operate by practitioners engaging in psychological counseling and psychotherapy industry. Practitioners believe that informed consent is of great importance, and need to be performed strictly accordance to the requirements of ethical code. In practice, informed consent is not implemented as the ethical code required. The fact that visitors do not know the psychological counseling and treatment well increases the difficulty of the implementation of informed consent. Colleges and university's counseling's free charge policy leads that practitioners' concept of informed consent fades gradually.4. The principle of confidentiality is interpreted as a principle of great importance as well as the premise and bottom line of carrying out psychological counseling and psychotherapy by practitioners engaging in this industry. When a third party requires to know the condition of patients, this puts practitioners into a dilemma between protecting the patients' privacy and complying with the norms of their own career. Some practitioners indicated that once they dealed with the visitors' identifiable information, they can used the information for academic exchanges and other fields.5. Practitioners engaging in psychological counseling and psychotherapy industry believe that there are contradictions when practitioners deal with non-sexual dual relationship. For acquaintances or visitors look forward to working with the practical requirements of the psychological, generally, practitioners engaging in this industry for a short time will avoid the double relationship. As for senior practitioners who have a more complex network of social relations, it is difficult for them to avoid double relationship and they have to cope with it with their own strategies.6. The romantic relationship between consultants and visitors is interpreted as a serious error and also a high error by practitioners engaging in psychological counseling and psychotherapy industry. Practitioners have a clear idea that they need to avoid the romantic relationship between consultants and visitors. Although the industry code of ethics makes specific provisions for it, practitioners do not know what the meaning exactly is behind the standard-setting. Some practitioners believe that the occurrence of romantic relationship between consultants and visitors is a serious error, while some attributed this to the inevitable transference and counter-transference in the course of treatment.7. Practitioners engaging in psychological counseling and psychotherapy industry believe that there is not a certain assessment norm of professional competence. Practitioners say that they need to be supervised and have an ongoing training. Practitioners hold an objectives attitude toward the assessment of their professional competence. They believe that they have the basic quality of doing their work well, but still needs to be supervised and have an ongoing training.8. The emotional capacity is interpreted as a principle of great importance as well as an opportunity for the transformation of consulting relationship by practitioners engaging in this industry. During the interview, practitioners recognize it brings them negative emotions at work. However, this kind of negative emotions is considered as an opportunity for promoting their own inner sensitive, and also an opportunity to change visitors.9. As for the supervision of the ethics industry practitioners believe it is in dire need of establish an "safety network". Practitioners engaging in this industry hope the nation make related regulations in order to establish a standardized supervision system. At the same time, some practitioners question the eligible of steering division. They believe there are very few people are qualified to do the steering work due to historical reasons. In order to address the needs of the steering, they developed strategies like case discussion, peer supervision and personal experiences to take place of steeringConclusions1. There is not a supervising mechanism monitoring the Psychological counseling and psychotherapy industry, which hampers the development of the industry. In this case, psychologists and psychotherapists have to supervise their professional conduct with self-regulation. In order to better protect the interests of the clients, psychologists and psychotherapists need to be supervised by a set of unified and professional ethical standards and particular professional ethic committee. What's more, psychologists and psychotherapists should internalize their professional ethics standard as part of their own moral faiths, and eventually let it become a part of their better self-regulation.2. Standards of professional ethics of psychological counseling and psychotherapy industry originated in the Western world, which is very different from the Chinese culture. A proper strategy is needed to eliminate the difference between these two cultures. A scientific and rational model of ethical decision-making being explored in the Western world may be the inspiration to guide psychologists and psychotherapists to make the best ethical behavior according to the benefit of the clients. 3. Psychologists and psychotherapists should attach importance to professional ethical problems the way they deal with their professional techniques. They should keep on introspecting the influence which social environment is having on their own ethical value. Trying best to keep up with the highest ethical standards will help them deepen their understanding of their professional ethical standards and become distingue psychologists or psychotherapists.FeaturesQualitative research method is adopted to deeply explore the interpretation of professional ethics by the practitioners of psychological counseling and treatment. The research has discovered many specific phenomena of micro-ethics of the industry, which cannot be obtained with the approach of quantitative research.Limitations1 Researchers, as a research tool, will inevitably have some effect on the emotion, point of view or attitude of the interviewees during the interaction. There is possibility that due to various factors, interviewees cannot fully express their thoughts during the interview.2 The approach of in-depth interview varies from person to person. A set of unified, effective and objective standards is needed to examine and evaluate the analysis and conclusions. The conclusions of this research still need follow-up study and further confirmation and amendment by relevant studies.3 In this study, the research questions are relatively general. The conclusion of the study is not specific enough. In any future studies, researchers can study some more specific issues related to the professional ethics of the industry.4 Qualitative researches have a smaller quantity of research samples. It can not be extended to the general population, as quantitative research does. Hence a follow-up cross-sectional survey of a larger sample is needed to examine the phenomenon concerned in the present study.