The Duty to Protect: Ethical, Legal, and Professional Considerations for Mental Health Professionals

"Psychologists and other mental health professionals understandably experience significant anxiety regarding their duty to protect when working with potentially dangerous individuals who are at risk of harming others or themselves. In fact, a recent study suggests that 75% are misinformed about their legal duties to such clients. The duty to protect: Ethical, legal, and professional considerations for mental health professionals dispels myths and provides clinicians, supervisors, and trainers with a comprehensive resource addressing the situations in which a duty to protect may apply. In addition to defining and clarifying the duty to protect, the book describes assessment steps and interventions to reduce risk. The chapters are written by leading scientist-practitioners to promote best practices in some of the most ethically and legally challenging areas encountered. The contributors discuss the legal and ethical foundations of the duty to protect and the duty to warn; professional ethics codes in the United States and in other countries; and assessment of risk to others in cases involving threats of homicide, intimate partner violence, stalking, the transfer of communicable diseases, and impairment while operating heavy machinery or motor vehicles. Threats of harm to the self are also discussed in chapters that address suicide, self-injury, and end-of-life issues. This comprehensive resource will assist mental health providers in understanding their options and obligations and thereby improving the care they provide in some of the most stressful and potentially dangerous situations they face"--Jacket. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).