Chapter One

JAMES L. WERTH JR. DEVON L. CUMMINGS MINDI N. THOMPSON

Many ethical and legal developments have affected the practice, research, and education of counseling psychologists since Kitchener and Anderson's (2000) chapter was written for the previous edition of the Handbook. Most notably, the American Psychological Association (APA, 2002) revised its Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (Ethics Code). In addition, the implications of laws such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) are significant. Further, such professional issues as competence and impairment have received widespread attention in psychology. This chapter provides an overview of a selected set of legal and ethical issues currently affecting counseling psychologists. We focus primarily on developments since the previous edition of the Handbook, but for the sake of comprehensiveness, we include reviews of areas that have continuing relevance.

We first discuss fundamental risk management considerations that psychologists or trainees should keep in mind regardless of their specific situation. Next there are two major sections, each with several subcomponents. Because of the significant energy invested in examining and defining professional competence, we highlight the movement to define competencies, issues related to professionals or students with competence problems, and self-care. We then review several potentially challenging ethical situations: (a) dealing with conflicts between professional ethics and the demands of employers, (b) fulfilling the duty to