Ethical and legal issues of unlicensed abnormal psychology professionals

¶ … Concering Unlicensed Professionals

Unlicensed professionals in any field can be a threat to the safety of clients. But this gets more complicated when the professional is working in a health related area. For this reason, it is highly unethical to hire an unlicensed professional to serve in the field of abnormal psychology because while the person may be competent, he doesn't have state license to practice which raises many suspicions like why did the person never sought license and also cast a shadow on his credentials. The hiring and serving of an unlicensed professional raise some serious ethical and legal issues which are discussed below:

Credentials are questionable:

Think about it: why wouldn't someone who wants to serve in the field of abnormal psychology not get a license? Simply because the person did not meet the eligibility requirements for sitting for the license exam. This means the person does not have the required education qualification or clinical experience to sit for the exam. There is also a good possibility that he or she failed the exam which also means that the person lacks knowledge required to pass the exam. In either case, the "professional" is not ready to serve as a licensed professional just yet and hence must stay away from the field and should not pose as a professional till he has received license.

2. Can have a "shady" background

Another very common reason for not completing the license exam or not becoming licensed is that the person is scared of something. For all we know, the person may have served in some other capacity without a license too. There is a good possibility that such a person resorts to fraudulent ways in other aspects of his life too and hence must not be allowed to work with vulnerable people.

4. Patient safety is at risk

The most important reason why such a person raises ethical and legal issues is safety of the client. We know that abnormal psychology is a sensitive field and a person who wants to work with patients in this field must be highly competent and should also have the license to prove his competency. It's like driving: no matter how good a driver you may believe you are, unless you have a license, you are not allowed to drive because by driving without a license, you can put the lives of other drivers at risk too. Secondly if caught driving without license, you can easily end up in prison. The same is the case with an unlicensed professional working in the field of abnormal psychology. Even though in some cases, it was found that unlicensed professionals were not unfavorably viewed by the patients (Rubin, 2000), the fact remains that practicing without a license is unethical because it puts a human life at risk.

5. Legal consequences

A person found practicing without a license can face serious legal consequences according to how the state views unauthorized practice, (Dobbins, 2002)