New Therapist 7 |
Online therapy guide |
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Online therapy, because it's described as a form of psychotherapy, is bound by the same rules and ethical codes as other forms of therapy. But the nature of the medium is such that a number of glaring legal loopholes have appeared in applying the codes for face-to-face therapy to those of online therapy. In the absence of any widely accepted and endorsed codes, the best and most legally defensible guides to deciding what's ethical and legal in online therapy cases are the existing legal precedents and ethical codes. Typically, these would be the American Psychological Assocation's ethics code, the Canadian Psychological Association's code or the guidelines established by the body governing therapy in your country or state. Among the trickier legal knots troubling lawyers and therapists in the field is the issue of geographic boundaries. For example, who polices an Australia-based online therapist who contracts with a client in California. If things turn sour, should the aggrieved Californian report the therapist to the Californian professional board or the Australian legislative body? If the complaint is about conduct unbecoming in a Californian state code but acceptable to the Australian authorities, does the client have any legal recourse? To deal with such slippery legal and ethical problems, various bodies have put together codes of conduct for online therapists. They cover different amounts of ground in different areas but agree that the unique potential for ethical breaches and problems in online therapy call for a baseline code of ethical and reasonable conduct to be adopted by practitioners. Fittingly, most of the codes available for online therapy can be found online. They include: 1. A code of ethical conduct approved by the American Counselling Association (ACA) can be found at www.counseling.org/gc/cybertx.htm. Entitled Ethical Standards for Internet On-Line Counselling, this is a fairly onerous code, approved in October 1999, with a strong emphasis on security of information to prevent intrusion by hackers. 2. The American Psychological Association (APA) released a rather tame and non-commital statement on the conduct of online therapy in November, 1997 (www.apa.org/ethics/stmnt01.html), which it has yet to update in subsequent drafts of its existing ethical code for psychological practices. The statement refers, sensibly perhaps, to the existing guidelines in its existing ethical code (www.apa.org/ethics/code.html) on the limits of competence, confidentiality, avoiding harm, structuring the relationship and a range of other issues which touch on the online equivalent. 3. National Board for Certified Counsellors Standards for the Ethical Practice of WebCounselling - www.nbcc.org/ethics/wcstandards.htm 4. The Health On the Net Foundation was one of the first to release a code of conduct for medical and health web sites (www.hon.ch/HONcode/Conduct.html). It's early origins show in the scant detail into which it ventures in dissecting the potential pitfalls of online therapy and the generic approach it takes. 5. The Standards for the Ethical Practice of WebCounselling of the National Board for Certified Counsellors (www.nbcc.org/ethics/wcstandards.htm) offers another rather broad approach to the matter. 6. The International Society for Mental Health Online (ISMHO), a professional body for online therapists, endorsed its own code in January 2000 (www.ismho.org/suggestions.html). It's a more considered and nuanced version of online therapy ethics than the others on offer, not surprising given that its several hundred members are all online therapists. |
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