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Guidance for administrators, supervisors, and supervisees on handling multiple relations in supervision, which can be beneficial but also create complex boundary issues. The authors discuss the concept of boundaries, the ethical considerations of multiple relations, and offer recommendations for maintaining ethical relationships in supervision.
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Dallas, Texas
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
American Psychological Association Insurance Trust As fiduciaries, supervisors are to act on behalf of their supervisees; there are at least 10 provisions in the American Psychological Association Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (2002) that provide guidance for those in this role. Unfortunately, there are many questions the APA Ethics Code does not answer with regard to multiple relations in supervision. The authors address a variety of problems that can arise in this professional context and offer guidance for administrators, practitioners, and students. Keywords: ethical decision making, ethics, multiple relations, risk management, supervision The lion and the calf shall lie down together, but the calf won’t get much sleep.—Woody Allen Multiple relations frequently occur between supervisors and supervisees. For the most part, these relationships are beneficial for supervisees, but there are times when complex and potentially harmful situations also may arise. In these cases, the American Psychological Association Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (APA Ethics Code; 2002) often provides inad- equate guidance. In this article, we offer some guidance to assist administrators, supervisors, and supervisees in these challenging situations. Although the prohibition regarding sexual relations with super- visees is now settled (APA Ethics Code, Standard 7.07; Associa- tion of State and Provincial Psychology Boards, 2003, pp. 7– 8), other types of multiple relations are permitted because they are not necessarily harmful or unethical per se (APA Ethics Code, Stan- dard 3.05). In fact, they can be and often are beneficial (e.g., Lazarus & Zur, 2002). Although nonsexual multiple relationships frequently may be acceptable and helpful, engaging in them can create complex issues regarding boundary management. In such situations, admin- istrators, supervisors, and supervisees may be faced with intricate and very ambiguous situations that involve differing types of nonsexual multiple relationships, boundary crossings, and some- times boundary violations. Such circumstances become even more problematic when supervisors lose their objectivity and their per- sonal interests become involved. It is in these situations that the potential for harm arises (APA Ethics Code, Standards 3.06 & 3.08).
Boundaries refer to the “rules of the professional relationship that set it apart from other relationships” (Knapp & VandeCreek, 2006, p. 75). Gutheil and Gabbard (1993) stated that a boundary violation “represents a harmful crossing, a transgression, of a boundary” (p. 190), that such departures from accepted practice are potentially harmful and place patients and the therapeutic process at great risk. Gutheil and Gabbard also made a distinction between boundary violations and what they termed boundary crossings , which occur when a professional deviates from the strictest professional role but is not unethical per se. Later, Smith and Fitzpatrick (1995) defined this notion as a “nonpejorative term MICHAEL C. GOTTLIEB received his PhD in counseling psychology from Texas Tech University. He is a forensic and family psychologist in inde- pendent practice in Dallas, Texas. He is board certified (American Board of Professional Psychology) in family psychology, a fellow of the Amer- ican Psychological Association (APA), and a clinical associate professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center. He is a past member of APA’s Committee on Professional Practice and Standards and the Ethics Committee. His interests surround ethical decision making and the psychology–law interface. KELLY ROBINSON will receive her PhD in clinical psychology from the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, the University of Texas South- western Medical Center at Dallas in August 2007. She received an indus- trial engineering degree from Northwestern University and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. Her areas of professional interest include ethical decision making, professional development, and adult psychother- apy. JEFFREY N. YOUNGGREN received his PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Arizona. He is a clinical and forensic psychologist located in Rolling Hills Estates, California. An associate clinical professor of medical psychology at the UCLA School of Medicine, he serves as a risk manage- ment consultant for the Insurance Trust of the American Psychological Association. He is a past chair and member of the Ethics Committee of the APA and the Ethics Committee of the California Psychological Associa- tion. He currently serves as a member of the Committee on Accreditation of the APA. CORRESPONDENCE CONCERNING THIS ARTICLE should be addressed to Mi- chael C. Gottlieb, 12810 Hillcrest Road #B224, Dallas, TX 75230. E-mail: [email protected] Professional Psychology: Research and Practice Copyright 2007 by the American Psychological Association 2007, Vol. 38, No. 3, 241–247 0735-7028/07/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0735-7028.38.3. 241
that describes departures from commonly accepted clinical prac- tice that may or may not benefit the client” (p. 500). They cite the example of a patient who brings a Christmas gift to his or her psychotherapist. The patient “crossed a therapeutic boundary by offering something over and above the agreed-upon fee for pro- fessional services” (p. 500), and the psychotherapist must decide to refuse it or cross the boundary and accept it. In this example, crossing the boundary and accepting the gift may be beneficial, especially if doing so would be considered appropriate because of the patient’s cultural background, whereas refusing it might be viewed as offensive and potentially harmful. This example applies to psychotherapy, but similar boundary crossings may arise in supervisory relationships as well. Boundary crossings entail behavior that is a departure from accepted practice, but it is important to remember that they are common occurrences. They do not become violations unless they reflect exploitation of the supervisee, a supervisor’s loss of objec- tivity, disruption of the supervisory relationship, or the reasonable foreseeability of harm (Younggren & Gottlieb, 2004). It is only when boundary crossings lead to boundary violations that they can be exploitive (Gutheil & Simon, 2002) and place supervisees at risk (Gutheil & Gabbard, 1993).
The APA Ethics Code (Standard 3.05[a], p. 1064) defined multiple relationships in the following manner: A multiple relationship occurs when a psychologist is in a profes- sional role with a person and (1) at the same time is in another role with the same person... or (3) promises to enter into another relationship in the future with the person.... Supervisors can play a variety of additional professional roles with supervisees that may be beneficial, such as serving on a dissertation committee, hiring a research assistant, or teaching an academic course. We presume that few would find these multiple relationships problematic, much less unethical, because in each case the supervisor remains in an evaluative capacity. Further- more, each role is fairly circumscribed and presents little potential for conflict of interest per se, as long as the supervisor retains his or her objectivity. Gutheil and Gabbard (1993) raised concerns regarding what they referred to as the “slippery slope.” According to this notion, for example, a supervisor begins down the slope when a strictly helpful, professional relationship gradually moves toward a more personal one. When this process begins, the potential for harm may arise. Hence, it is obviously safest not to start down the slope at all, but we contend that it is seldom problematic, for example, to have lunch with a supervisee, discuss current events, or travel to a professional meeting together. In fact, a sound argument can be made that such informal contacts with supervisees are beneficial, provide good opportunities for mentoring and modeling, and that there may be no slippery slope at all. Unfortunately, things are seldom so simple. Lamb, Catanzaro, and Moorman (2004) noted that there was no consensus regarding which multiple relationships were acceptable and that unacceptable ones were difficult to rec- ognize. Their conclusion prompts caution because a supervisor may not recognize that he or she is heading down the slippery slope until it is too late. Ladany, Lehrman-Waterman, Molinaro, and Wolgast (1999) examined supervisees’ perceptions of supervisors’ practices and found that more than half of supervisees reported at least one perceived ethical violation by their supervisor. Six percent of the supervisees had supervisors who violated dual-role ethical princi- ples, only 35% of supervisees discussed the ethical violation with their supervisor, and 54% discussed it with someone else. In 14% of the cases, a person of power was aware of the violation but did nothing about it. These data are sobering and lead us to conclude that the issue of multiple relationships in supervision has not been addressed ade- quately by our profession. A simple example illustrates the point: Dr. Jones’s last appointment of the day is with his supervisee Ms. Smith. When they finished, Jones noted that his family was out of town, he was going to take himself to dinner, and asked Smith if she would like to join him. She agreed, they had a pleasant dinner discussing professional issues, Jones paid the bill for both of them, and they went their separate ways. Is asking a supervisee to dinner an ethical transgression? A shared dinner typically would not be considered problematic and gener- ally is construed as potentially beneficial, but such a conclusion requires two assumptions. First, Jones’s invitation was transparent. That is, he wanted a dinner companion and nothing more. Second, Smith correctly understood Jones’s intentions. That is, she inferred nothing more from his invitation and did not take it to mean something other than what he intended. When these two assump- tions are met, we can reasonably assume that the dinner would be enjoyable and perhaps beneficial to Smith as well. Unfortunately, the exact same scenario could lead to significant difficulties either because Jones had unacknowledged personal motives or because Smith found the invitation inappropriate or coercive. This example illustrates a fundamental problem in ethical decision making. When ethical dilemmas arise, they are often less about what objectively occurred and far more about how they were perceived. Supervisees frequently rate their best supervisors as those with whom they socialized and subsequently developed personal rela- tionships (G. Schoener, personal communication, November 15, 2004). In such relationships, we presume that good boundaries are maintained; when problems arise, they are discussed openly and resolved successfully, and through this process, supervisees gain self-confidence as independent professionals. At the same time, supervisory relationships entail power differ- entials and create unique vulnerabilities for supervisees. When a supervisor’s personal needs or a supervisee’s distorted perceptions lead to an increasing number of boundary crossings, the potential for harm can develop quickly. As a result, supervisors should remain mindful that multiple relationships can be harmful and that boundaries must be managed carefully. Because psychology edu- cators serve as role models, Kitchener (1992) argued the follow- ing: implicit attitudes and explicit behavior of faculty communicate as much as course content about being ethical.... Thus, if faculty model unethical behavior it is very possible that the most influential ethical attitudes that students learn will not come from explicit ethics educa- tion but from the experiences that they have in other areas of the curriculum. (p. 190)
guidance for practice. In offering some recommendations for boundary management in supervision, we make the following assumptions:
In this section, we offer some guidance for administrators, supervisors, and supervisees.
Administrators are not just responsible to and for individual staff and students but to their entire service delivery unit. By their management style, they create an atmosphere or culture in which people work. This culture has systemic properties such that the relations between any two individuals can affect others for whom administrators are equally responsible. Administrators assume that supervisors and supervisees will engage in multiple relationships and that supervisors will manage these relationships by maintain- ing good boundaries. Nevertheless, maintaining a healthy culture in which ethical responsibility is modeled is a task that requires vigilance and ongoing attention. In this spirit, we offer the follow- ing recommendations:
slightly inebriated and behaves somewhat inappropriately. On Mon- day, two staff members are overheard discussing how the intern’s behavior at the party might impact his/his professional work. The new intern did not exhibit prudent judgment by drinking excessively at the party, but his or her evaluation should not be based on gossip either. We urge administrators to help everyone in their service unit to keep focused on the evaluative component of their work. Although this recommendation is not a panacea, we believe that mindfulness of this responsibility serves a protective function.
In this section, we extend the work of Younggren and Gottlieb (2004) by applying it to the supervisor–supervisee relationship. As supervisors proceed through the following questions, we recom- mend remaining mindful of Assumption 10, that the contemplated relationship be evaluated from the supervisee’s point of view. For the purpose of this section, consider the following example: Dr. Able was a 30-year-old, female, clinical psychologist, and an assistant professor at a major research university. Despite outstanding scholarly productivity and a deep commitment to her research pro- gram, she worried about not obtaining promotion and tenure. As part of her responsibilities at the psychology clinic, she began to supervise Mr. Elder. He was a 30-year-old, male, military veteran, who was a 2nd-year doctoral student in clinical psychology. Despite being professionally inexperienced, Elder had been very responsive to Able’s supervision, and she began to think that he had great potential as a psychotherapist. One day he asked whether she would accept him as her research assistant because he was considering doing his dissertation in her area.
visors, and supervisees. In particular, we have emphasized three themes. First, administrators and supervisors should be proactive and take responsibility for providing information to supervisees and model appropriate ethical behavior. Second, supervisees need to become informed consumers of supervision services and feel more empowered to advocate for themselves and their peers. Third, all those involved in the supervisory process should try to foresee multiple relationship problems in an effort to prevent them. Anticipating these problems is far preferable to coping with them afterwards. We did not quote Woody Allen’s joke about lions and calves to be humorous. As administrators and supervisors, we do not con- sider ourselves to be lions. We prefer to view ourselves as shep- herds who take good care of those entrusted to us, and for the most part this is the case. But, potentially exploitive multiple relation- ships can make lions of us; when this occurs, calves are at risk. In our view, the best way to avoid becoming a lion is to always consider the calf’s eye view.
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