Categories
Posts tagged with the category Ethics
Integrity and Congruence: A New Paradigm for Character
Integrity is a suggestive, inarticulate word: its definition is hard to pin down. For most of my life, I’ve associated the word integrity with “character,” yet another evasive word with multiple meanings. I’ve thought of integrity as suggestive of morality, of the ability to stand up for what’s “right,” to...
The Role of Morality in Trauma
Trauma represents a life altering experience. It engenders a sense of helplessness, confusion, and disorganization for those directly involved in it and for those who bear witness to it. Part of this confusion is attempting to decipher what is real and what is fantasy, what is inside and what is outside, what happened in the past and what is...
Questioning Ethics
There continues to be controversy regarding the perception of unethical conduct surrounding the DSM for more than 30 years. The DSM-5, approved this past weekend for publication in May 2013, has even been highly criticized by Allan Frances, the chair of the DSM-4 committee. There has also been evidence alleging ongoing financial conflict of...
What Will You Stand For?
It is time to go to war again against the DSM-5 panel and the new volume they have agreed to publish as is. This book will radically reshape the way clinicians have to bill insurance, codes diagnoses, and receive reimbursement. Some of the worst things did not make it into the volume—parental alienation disorder, for example, a product of divorce...
Values Are Valuable
"There is nothing which requires such gentle handling as an illusion." --Søren Kierkegaard
I have been raised to believe in honesty, that we don’t cheat—ever—and that our word, when given, is binding. These values are very strong family values that I wish to instill in my own children. However, lately, I have been wondering if those values are a...
Lies and Relationships
I was talking about behavior interventions with a group of host-home providers for adults with disabilities. I was explaining how we can change behavior by ignoring the undesired behavior, and rewarding or reinforcing the desired behavior, and especially about the ethics of doing so. Even disabled people are free to choose how they will be,...
Moving From Cultural Relativism to Cross-Cultural Values
Where does identity come from? Are you a product of your culture, or are you an independent moral agent?
There is a constant tension in the world between the concept of “culture” and the concept of “universal human rights.” How can both be respected when they conflict?
The authors of a forthcoming paper in the journal Neuroquantology argue that...
We Are a Christian Nation
We are a Christian nation.
We say it; we believe it; we don’t think that much more about it. And all our un-Christ-like thoughts and impulses are denied, becoming daimonic.
Stephen Diamond (1996) posited that thoughts and feelings left untended can grow to dominate the personality. The angry person who denies their anger stops noticing they are...
Eugenics and Psychiatry: A Brief Overview of the History
In my casual observations in conversation with colleagues, I find that very few mental health professionals are aware of the historical link between psychiatry and eugenics. I was not aware of this history until relatively recently, when I read Robert Whitaker’s groundbreaking and brilliant text, Mad in America. When I read that section of the...
Lies, Truth, and the Call of Conscience
Unless you have been living under a rock during the last two weeks or live in a country that does not find U.S. news an addictively bad soap opera, you are well-aware of the political battle regarding “facts” and “truth.”
In a New York Times op-ed piece last week, Charles Blow said, “Honesty is a lost art. Facts are for losers. The truth is dead....
A Tale of Questionable Ethics
A friend brought to my attention a Craigslist ad that went up in mid-August, and to say I was morally outraged is an understatement. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Craigslist, it is an online listing of ads for items on sale, usually at bargain prices, as well as housing ads and job listings. Many people who use Craigslist tend to have...
With Great Power Comes...Amorality?
Penn State, Goldman Sachs, Enron, University of Virginia, SuperPACS, the Catholic Church–we live in an era of institutional scandal. If you want to know why we are careening from one major institutional scandal to the next, there’s a simple answer: the psychology of power has changed.
To be sure, there’s nothing new about a...
Featured Topics
All Categories
Most Recent Posts
- Posted by on May 24, 2013 - 10:00am
- Posted by on May 23, 2013 - 10:00am
- Posted by on May 22, 2013 - 10:00am
- Posted by on May 21, 2013 - 10:00am
- Posted by on May 20, 2013 - 10:00am
Recently Added Media
-
Added on June 4, 2012
-
Added on May 25, 2012
-
Added on May 8, 2012
-
Added on March 6, 2012
-
Added on January 6, 2012
-
Added on November 1, 2011
