Stephen H. Behnke, J.D., Ph.D.
Director, APA Ethics Office

May 31, 2008 - Oahu, Kapi‘olani Community College, 6 CE
June 1, 2008 - Kauai, Kapaa, Cafe Coco, 3 CE
June 2, 2008 - Maui, Kihei, Pacific Disaster Center (PDC), 3 CE
June 3, 2008 - Hilo, Univ. of Hawaii, 3 CE

June 4, 2008 - Kona, Alii Cove Residence, 3 CE

 

This ethics workshop will address ethical decision-making, the relationship between ethics and law with specific attention to Hawai’i state law, and ways for practicing psychologists and other mental health professionals to minimize exposure to legal and ethical liability. This workshop will include a discussion of the APA Ethics Code, with a focus on the structure of the Code and specific ethical standards that are especially relevant to ethical practice.

Reference will be made to other mental health professional codes of ethics, as a way of more deeply understanding the APA Ethics Code. The program will emphasize how psychologists can use the APA Ethics Code to facilitate ethical decision-making.

Case vignettes will be used to illustrate ethical decision-making applied in actual clinical practice.

Learning Goals and Objectives:

1. Identify a process for resolving legal and ethical dilemmas;

2. Find concrete ways to minimize exposure to legal and ethical liability;

3. Use the Ethics Code as a tool to facilitate ethical decision-making;

4. Identify significant differences between the 1992 and the current APA Ethics Code relevant to practitioners;

5. Compare and contrast other mental health care professional codes of ethics with the APA Ethics Code;

6. Understand how specific standards in the new Ethics Code relate to the practice of psychology.

Dr. Stephen H. Behnke received his J.D. from Yale Law School and his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan. In 1996, Dr. Behnke was made chief psychologist of the Day Hospital Unit at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, a position he held until 1998, when he was named a faculty fellow in Harvard University's program in Ethics and the Professions. After completing this fellowship, Dr. Behnke directed a program in research integrity in the Division of Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School. In November 2000, Dr. Behnke assumed the position of Director of Ethics at the American Psychological Association. He holds an appointment in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Behnke’s research interests focus on issues at the convergence of law, ethics, and psychology. He has written on multiple personality disorder and the insanity defense, on issues involving competence and informed consent to treatment and research, on forced treatment of the severely mentally ill, and on state laws relevant to the work of mental health practitioners.