International Psychology - Professional Regulations and Ethical Standards

Professional Regulations and Ethical Standards

Many countries around the world have professional regulations for the practice of psychology. “With some exceptions, the existence of professional regulation reflects the level of development of professional psychology in that country. A profession needs to establish an identity and credibility before there is something to be regulated” (Pettifor, 2007, p. 312). In the 35 European countries represented in EFPA, a major effort is underway to unify the basic academic curriculum as well as other requirements underlying the training of psychologists. These countries are now in the process of establishing a European Diploma in Psychology comparable to a Master’s level university education of six years duration that includes supervised practice.

Some countries that currently have no regulation of the profession include: India, Iran, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Thailand and Turkey. Several of these countries are working toward licensing legislation, and several have developed ethical standards of practice to guide. At present a considerable number of national psychology associations have adopted a code of ethics such as, for instance, APA’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. EFPA has adopted several codes of ethics in recent years, and the five Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden) adopted a unified code of ethics in 1988, which they revised in 1998 to be more consistent with EFPA’s meta-code (Pettifor, 2007). Moreover, IUPsyS and IAAP, adopted, in 2008, developed a Universal Declaration of Ethical Principles of Psychologists.

Read more about this topic:  International Psychology

Famous quotes containing the words ethical standards, professional, regulations, ethical and/or standards:

    Our rural village life was a purifying, uplifting influence that fortified us against the later impacts of urbanization; Church and State, because they were separated and friendly, had spiritual and ethical standards that were mutually enriching; freedom and discipline, individualism and collectivity, nature and nurture in their interaction promised an ever stronger democracy. I have no illusions that those simpler, happier days can be resurrected.
    Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)

    The American character looks always as if it had just had a rather bad haircut, which gives it, in our eyes at any rate, a greater humanity than the European, which even among its beggars has an all too professional air.
    Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)

    The admission of Oriental immigrants who cannot be amalgamated with our people has been made the subject either of prohibitory clauses in our treaties and statutes or of strict administrative regulations secured by diplomatic negotiations. I sincerely hope that we may continue to minimize the evils likely to arise from such immigration without unnecessary friction and by mutual concessions between self-respecting governments.
    William Howard Taft (1857–1930)

    My belief is that no being and no society composed of human beings ever did, or ever will, come to much unless their conduct was governed and guided by the love of some ethical ideal.
    Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)

    The standards of His Majesty’s taste made all those ladies who aspired to his favour, and who were near the Statutable size, strain and swell themselves, like the frogs in the fable, to rival and bulk and dignity of the ox. Some succeeded, and others burst.
    Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)