Reflective Essay on Resolving an Ethical Dilemma

The material ethical dilemma happened took place during my dealings with a leading medical clinic. Health institutions typically procure the services of a psychologist who would cater for their personnel and ensure their mental well-being. The contract between the firm and I stipulated that I had an obligation to cooperate with the organization in certain circumstances such as providing detailed assessments of the staff. During my stay, an altercation arose between two respected doctors, Ben and Janice, at the clinic. Ben had a confrontation with his direct supervisor Janice, who has always complained that she finds his demeanor towards her distasteful. After the quarrel, Janice proceeded to send a stern e-mail warning Ben that his disrespect and insubordination of senior management would have serious implications. Infuriated by the e-mail, Ben proceeded to submit his letter of resignation. Afterward, he spoke negatively of the organization publicly and assailed the clinic and Janice on his Facebook page. He did this after blocking everyone associated with the organization from reading any content he posted. The only exception was me. I believe Ben felt that the rapport we had as well as the duty of confidentiality would preclude me from breaching his privacy. When word got the hospital personnel, Janice and two senior managers demanded screenshots of the disparaging posts, as they feared that he would hurt the clinics image. Their intention was to circulate copies of the posts to discredit Ben. They argued that my contract mandated that I cooperate with the institution in any way that safeguards its interests and that this incident warranted that form of cooperation.

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Fortunately, there is a Code of Ethics that guides practitioners in such circumstances, and I readily turned to the set guidelines on how to resolve ethical dilemmas. The foremost step in handling dilemmas involves defining the material issues as well as the concerned parties. The issues have already been set out in the preceding discussion (IACP n.d.). The ethical dilemma involved the clinic, its board, Janice, Ben, and I. The second step was to identify the pertinent clauses, principles, and legislations. In this, the IACP Code of Ethics offered primary guidance. First, the code enumerates four key principles that psychologists must adhere to, two of which were relevant to this situation. In practice, counselors must respect their clients rights and dignity (IACP n.d.). This principle encompasses the prohibition to intrude inappropriately on clients privacy and treat all information they obtain as they conduct their work as confidential (IACP n.d; Donner et al., 2008, p.370). Respect also entails ensuring that the client understands and gives their consent to any professional action that a psychiatrist proposes (IACP n.d.). The other pertinent principle is integrity. According to the Code of Ethics is the requirement to treat others in a just, overt and straightforward manner, honor any professional commitments and clarify any form of confusion that others have about their responsibilities (IACP n.d.).

Other than these principles, there are also other clauses within the Code that are material in the circumstances. However, there is simply an extension of the identified principles. The respect for a clients dignity entails safeguarding their fundamental rights and honoring the right to confidentiality, autonomy, confidentiality, and self-determination (IACP n.d.). Key to the concept of confidentiality is the requirement to keep any personal information about the client, whether obtained indirectly, directly or by inference, confidential (IACP n.d.; Avashti and Grover, 2009, p.149). The IACP maps out what constitutes personal information, including biographical information, names, addresses as well as any descriptions of a clients life and circumstances that can enable others to identify the client (IACP n.d.). There is also the need act in conformity with the law, in this case, contract and medical law. In the medical field, psychiatrists play a key role in submitting assessments on medical personnel when required by the relevant boards when an individuals conduct is under scrutiny. What this means is that there are limitations to the level of confidentiality accorded to the medical staff, especially when they come under scrutiny for misconduct. Contracts between hospitals and psychiatrists as well as the hospital and other employees often have a clause to that effect. The Code stipulates that the breach of confidentiality is permissible if required by law and that the conveyance must be limited to relevant persons (IACP n.d.; Sullivan and Moyer, 2008, p.26).

After consulting the Code of Ethics and other pertinent laws, the next step in resolving the ethical dilemma involves conducting a detailed assessment of the rights, obligations, and welfare of the concerned parties. On its part, the hospital has the duty to respect Bens right to privacy. Privacy is a concept that encompasses the entitlement to limit who gains access to personal info, when others can view the information, and what details they can view. It is a safeguard against any unwanted or uninvited observation and valued highly. Even so, the clinic seeks to violate Bens privacy following the retaliatory action that he took against the organization. The hospital board was particularly keen to safeguard the institution from being prejudiced by Bens private actions and maintained that the need to safeguard their interests supersedes his liberties. Bens defamatory posts could hurt the organizations reputation and could serve to diminish its profitability and market share. Defamation is essentially a serious an unlawful offense that Ben perpetrated against the company. An invasion of his privacy was, therefore, justifiable to hold him accountable. Janices roles and interests matched those of the clinic. Janice had the duty to respect Bens privacy, but his defamatory and disparaging posts on his Facebook page justified her quest to obtain copies of the content to ensure that faced reprisals for his actions.

Concerning Ben, he had an interest in restricting who gains access to his Facebook posts. The networks privacy settings permit users to set up security settings in such a way that they can limit what others can access. Janice's and the hospital personnels inability to view any content on Bens profile meant that he did not wish to share his posts with them. As a result, Ben would find it objectionable for anyone to retrieve screenshots of his posts covertly and then have them shared, circulated, and utilized by others. It would be a blatant invasion of his privacy. He also had the legitimate expectation that his psychiatrist would not breach his confidence. However, like every other citizen, Ben must observe the law and abstain from any illegal courses of action, to be precise, defaming others. On my part, I had the duty to promote Bens right to privacy as well as safeguard the clinics interests. Bryce and Mahaffey (2007, p.3) sum up my duty toward Ben in this succinct statement, a counsellor must not disclose confidential client information. I received a friend request from Ben after a session where he was desirous of me assessing him by his interactions on social media. What this means is that I had the professional obligation to respect his dignity and treat the content I accessed on his profile with confidence. I was also bound by contract to safeguard the clinic's interests by presenting evidence to the board whenever a practitioner came under scrutiny for any misconduct. Whats more, there was the looming possibility of a lawsuit instituted by Ben for the violation of his privacy.

After listing the responsibilities and interests of the stakeholders in an ethical dilemma, the next step is to generate a list of the alternatives. The incident fit perfectly within the definition of an ethical dilemma. An ethical dilemma typically arises when one has to choose between two (or more) morally acceptable choices. It may also be the case that the available action steps are equally unacceptable. An ethical dilemma takes place when a professional leaves an equally acceptable option undone, and whatever choice one makes still hurts others (Ghillyer 2010). Whats more, the decision arrived at contradicts a personal moral principle, and entails the abandonment of an ethical principle (Ghillyer 2010). The circumstances fulfill all the criteria that pertain to ethical dilemmas. I faced two competing alternatives. The first one involved cooperating with the clinic as mandated in my contract and retrieving the screenshots. The second option was to respect Bens right to privacy. These conflicting courses of action show that no matter what I chose, I had to violate a moral principle. Safeguarding the hospitals interests meant I had to infringe upon the privacy of a patient while refusing to obtain the copies meant that Ben would continue his defamatory attacks and hurt the clinics prospects. None of the alternatives I had was perfect, as they could not resolve the debacle in a purely ethical fashion.

Evidently, my dual role as a psychiatrist at the hospital led to a dilemma involving the tension between my commitment of beneficence toward my client and conflicting obligations to the hospital (Vyskocilova and Prasko, 2013, p.4). A clear-cut resolution for this dilemma seemed completely elusive, and this prompted me to explore a third alternative. This option involved refusing to indulge the hospitals request for screenshots. A close reflection of the contractual terms revealed that Ben could retaliate by instituting a lawsuit against me as his psychiatrist as well as the organization for the violation of his inherent right to privacy. Granted, Ben acted unlawfully by defaming his former employer and Janice. Even so, precedence shows that the exceptions that allow psychologists to bypass the need for confidence when cooperating with hospitals in holding their employees accountable for any misconduct did not apply in this case. The essence of this alternative was that Bens misconduct had to have occurred during the tenure of his employ and that the misconduct had to be the kind that would warrant a psychiatric assessment. It was my opinion that even though Bens actions were unlawful they did not merit the submission of a psychological evaluation, let alone the need to infringe upon his rights. My contractual obligation to safeguard the organizations interests could override my professional mandate to treat any information my client gave me access to with utmost confidence.

The likely outcome of this decision is that Ben would continue to post maligning content about the hospital and Janice, but his privacy would be preserved. The institution and I would be protected from an action for the breach of privacy. The clinic would not obtain the posts they need to take appropriate action. However, there is another legal route that does not entail infringing upon Bens privacy, which includes instituting a defamation suit against Ben. With this alternative, Ben would face reprisals for his misconduct, and the company would have the opportunity to prove that his claims are malicious. It would be possible to submit prayers to the court to retrieve screenshots of the disparaging posts. However, there was the risk that word would get to Ben and that he would delete the incriminating content. I, therefore, decided that this alternative was the best course of action to take. The second last step involved informing the parties, in this case, Janice and the management of my decision. I explained the systematic process I us...