Legal Aspects and Competence of Professional Psychology

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Legal Aspects of Professional Psychology

Evaluate the influence of both legislation and case law on professional psychology.

Over the years in the field of Psychology there arose several legal aspects. There are issues pertaining to a) general issues in professional ethics; (b) malpractice; (c) patients' rights (includes informed consent, confidentiality); (d) licensure (includes accreditation, sunset legislation); (e) legal issues (includes federal regulations, insurance issues); (f) therapist sexuality (includes legal aspects); (g) sexism and bias (includes racial and religious prejudice); and (h) ethics in teaching and training (Haas, 1983).

Professional licensing deals with the different professionals, in the field of psychology, who are recognized by health, ethic, and government boards as being qualified enough to practice psychology. The controversial practice of using unlicensed individuals to administered psychological tests has been questioned by some psychologists, professional organizations, state and provincial boards of psychology, state governments, departments of education,
and third-party health care providers (Hall, 2005).

Treatment of mental illness and psychology is complex and requires years and years of training and education. Those professionals who going through the education and training are held to higher standards and practices. ALong with those standards is payback in the form of insurance payments and reimbursements. Certain guidelines and laws need to be followed to be allowed the monetary benefits of professional psychology.

Confidentiality is a topic in the medical, legal and religious fields. Psychology is not immune to the topic. The issue of confidentiality has to do with who will have access to the information obtained from assessments, that a person is even receiving any type of psychology treatment, and when to report an issue (such as abuse, crime, etc.) to another authority (Carducci, 2002). Laws and legislation, through prior case law, has established guidelines to address these issues.

Laws are the rules set by government; they shape politics, economics, and society as a whole. These laws are not tied to ...