Ethical Scenario - Case Study Example

Ethical Scenario The APA (American Psychological Association) Division draws its ethical guidelines from the American Psychological Association’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. Both APA Division and Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP) have ethical guidelines that guide sports psychologists. In this scenario, the issue of confidentiality arises when the softball coach asks the sports psychologist to reveal what happened during the meeting. However, the APA’s ethical guidelines state that psychologists have an obligation to protect confidential information obtained by any medium from their clients (APA, 2010).

Similarly, AAPS ethical guidelines state that an AASP member has the primary obligation of upholding and taking reasonable precaution to respect confidentiality rights of the people they work with or consult (AASP, 2011). Thus, the sports psychology has been limited from disclosing any information to the softball coach. However, there are scenarios that they may warrant the release or discussion of confidential information as stated in the APA ethical guidelines. A psychologist can disclose confidential information if they get an appropriate consent from the individual or the organizational client on behalf of the patient or the client.

A psychologist can also disclose confidential information without the permission of the client when allowed by the law only in valid purposes such as offering the needed professional services (APA, 2010). However, AASP ethical guidelines do not provide such provisions. Thus, the sports psychologist can disclose confidential information collected from the athletes if, (a) the coach gets consent from the institution and, (b) the law allows him or her to disclose the information to offer the necessary professional services.

ReferencesAmerican Psychological Association. (2010). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/index.aspxAssociation for Applied Sport Psychology. (2011). Ethics code: AASP ethical principles and standards. Retrieved from http://www.appliedsportpsych.org/about/ethics/code