Informed consent

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What is informed consent? Why is informed consent so important in the field of psychology?

Informed consent is where the client is fully informed by their clinician (psychologist) of the proposed treatment and the likely outcome (including possible negative consequences). Informed consent is essential in psychology as the client needs to be motivated and actively involved within the therapy. They are only able to do this if they have an awareness of what they are likely to be working on within therapy and why they are working on those specific elements. They also need to be aware of possible outcomes which can be both positive and negative.

Some psychological therapies will require the client to put themselves in difficult or anxiety provoking situations (for example in the treatment of social anxiety the client may be required to go to busy places or with a spider phobia the client may be asked to be ...