Ethical Codes or Programs: 1)

¶ … ethical codes or programs: 1) Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (2002) and 2) General Education Program at Saint Leo University. We will compare the two codes by highlighting the similarities as well as the differences that exist between both programs.

Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (2002)

The Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct were designed in the year 2002 and highlighted some of the ethical and general principles of psychology and is practical application.

The general principles in the new APA Code are merely guidelines that psychologists would be better off applying because of the context and professionalism that these principles depict within the dynamics of the relationship that psychologists and patients have. The general principles of the APA Code include: 1) 'Beneficence and Nonmaleficence': This basically denotes avoiding any format of harm physical, mental or spiritual to the patient; 2) 'Fidelity and Responsibility': This basically denotes the understanding of ethics and social conduct on the psychologist's part when applying any professional treatment (Wilmshurst, 2008). This also denotes the construction of a sustainable and trusting relationship with the patient. 3) 'Integrity': This denotes the encouragement of loyalty, precision and reliability from the patient; 4) 'Justice': This denotes that the psychologist must have a just, aware and unprejudiced approach towards any and all treatments keeping in mind that the limitations of every patient is different; 5) 'Respect for people's rights and dignity': This denotes the importance of mutual respect n the psychologist-patient relationship whereby each respects the other's cultural and personal backgrounds without judgment and respects the boundaries of privacy and freewill (APA, 2002).

The primary aim for the ethical principles is to present the psychologists with the guidelines of their professional limitations and expectations. The ethics principles, unlike the general principles, are the rules and regulations which have to be enforced on a standard for all psychologists and psychological institutions. The ethical principles are basically categorized into 10 different spheres that fall under two main variations of psychology: the function of the psychologist and the practical application. The function of the psychologist mainly deals with the medical, therapy and teaching psychology aspects and is expanded further in the subsections of the ethical principles, namely (Andberg, 2004):

1) Competence, 2) Privacy and Confidentiality, 3) Education and Training and 4) Therapy.

The practical application variety of the ethical principles mainly covers the areas of an individual's knowledge, investigation and development, examination production and proposals, managerial skills. These aspects are mainly covered and explained in the following subsections of the ethical principles:

1) Resolving Ethical Issues, 2) Human Relations, 3) Advertising and Other Public Statements, 4) Keeping Records and Fees, 5) Research and Publication and 6) Assessment (Andberg, 2004; Wilmshurst, 2008).

It is important to briefly discuss each of the aforementioned categories of the ethical principles to clearly understanding their dynamics. In the category of 'Competence', the main focus lies on the recognition and maintenance of the limitations of the abilities of the patients as well as developing their coping, decision-making and social skills. In the category of 'Privacy and Confidentiality', as the name suggests, the main focus lies on all areas and uses of confidentiality issues or intrusion issues. In the category of 'Education and Training', the main focus lies on the conceptual clarity as well as the theoretical use and practical application of all the concepts at a personal, group and social level. In the category of 'Therapy', the main focus lies on therapeutic treatments across all level sie. individual, familial, group and social. Furthermore, in this category all topics that might lead to the need to therapy and the path to tackle them is also covered as well as all the initiation and end of any therapy session (APA, 2002).

Elaborating on the practical application section it is important to highlight that in the category of 'Resolving Ethical Issues', the main focus usually is on the rules and regulations of psychology and their correct application eradicating all misconceptions, prejudices, maltreatments and controversies. In the category of 'Human Relations', the main focus lies dismissing all bias, harassment, harmful instances, personality clashes while simultaneously establishing collaborative efforts, cooperation and organizational team work (Wilmshurst, 2008). In the category of 'Advertising and Other Public Statements', as the name suggests, the main focus lies on the correct and informative marketing/advertising of psychological concepts through the use of focus groups, workshops and media appearances (APA, 2002). In the category of 'Record Keeping and Fees', the main focus lies on the documentation of all confidential data and professional analysis as well as the expenses and financial breakdowns. In the category of 'Research and Publication', the main focus lies on the institutional clearances for all research, studies and development as well as the groping of all investigative teams and topics. Here the social responsibility towards the environment and the animals is also given due attention. In the category of 'Assessment', the main focus lies on all analyses done whether the focus is on the reason behind conducting the analyses or the methodology used to conduct the analyses or the results attained and interpretations made (Andberg, 2004).

In summary, the main idea behind the 2002 APA Ethics Code was basically the revision of the rights that the patients and psychologists had towards each other as well as their own selves. In this Ethics Code the patients have mainly been given open access to their entire personal and confidential medical and health data stored with their psychologists including the analysis of all examinations. Furthermore, an added responsibility of the psychologists has been the provision of the summarized and analyzed versions of all records for the patients if the situation required such disclosure (Wilmshurst, 2008).

General Education Program at Saint Leo University

The Saint Leo University has an Education Program that aims to give students the opportunity to explore all dimensions of a personal and professional ethical context that they'll need in their future academic endeavors along with apt knowledge of the concepts and subjects they are studying. Furthermore, amongst other goals of the Saint Leo University, its education program also aims to establish a keen understanding of the Benedictine and Catholic customs amongst their students in the personal and practical settings (Saint Leo University Catalogue, accessed on February 20, 2009).

The General Education Program at Saint Leo University is made up of the following six factors:

Excellence

Community

Respect

Personal Development

Responsible Stewardship

Integrity (Saint Leo University Catalogue, accessed on February 20, 2009)

All of these factors include a different set of requirements that have to be instilled in the students, through the educational setup applied under the General Education Program.

Through the factor of 'Excellence' the Saint Leo University mainly sets itself up to be an endeavor towards better and more refined educational standards. The primary aim of the administrative setup and teachers, through the factor of excellence, is that they can as a group and as individuals make sure that they are able to develop amongst their students the skills and personality package that the will need to not only be successful in their chosen field but also be morally upright. Dr. Kirk explains that the only way that the Saint Leo administration can hope to instill a high moral standard amongst there is student is by never backing down or away from the original image and objective of the General Education Program (Kirk, 2006).

Their aims through the general education program include making the students:

Professionally adept and prepared for a chosen vocation

Experience individual progress

Develop moral and spiritual ethics and principles

Have lucid, professional and successful communication abilities

Experience academic and logical expansion

Capable of reacting innovatively and creatively

Have successful interpersonal capabilities

Develop social conscientiousness (Saint Leo University Catalogue, accessed on February 20, 2009)

Community is a factor whereby the main aim of the educational program at the Saint Leo University is to be able give back and improve the community with the passage of time. Here the primary input of the university is the ability to promote the Christian belief and traditions within the community as well as instill in its students the emotions of patriotism, community service, sense of belonging and harmony. Furthermore, the university, through its educational program, also aims to have socially responsible outlook and approach towards all of their community endeavors in order to maintain a healthy environment and maintain development in related spheres as well (ALA/ACRL, 2008).

Respect is considered the third most important factor in the general education program of the Saint Leo University. Through this factor they not only promote mutual respect and understanding amongst the students but also amongst the administrative units. As part of their program, one of the most promoted factor is every student's and individual's skills and abilities are respected and valued on a par and based on those abilities, those students and individuals are encouraged towards higher performance. Furthermore, through respecting each individual's capabilities, the university aims to promote diversification and constant promotion of news ideas (Kirk, 2006).

Another main factor that has also been mentioned above is the factor of Personal Development that is held highly important at Saint Leo University. The administration and education board at the university feels that it is essential for every educational institution to have the kind of educational setup that will promote the progress of every individual's mental, physical and spiritual being in an appropriate and composed way (ALA/ACRL, 2008).

Responsible Stewardship is another important factor in the educational setup of the university as the administration feels that an individual's capability and service spectrum can not be fully utilized without his or her ability to truly use the resources available to him or her. The administration feels that they, as an institution, can use all the resources available to them and their students towards not only developing their university but also their community as well as the neighboring communities (ALA/ACRL, 2008).

Integrity is perhaps one of the most important factors in the educational program of Saint Leo University. Integrity is the necessary backdrop for all of the factors that have already been explained above because without integrity the overall pursuit of the goals and application of any of the beliefs would be pointless. There is a need to be unbiased, fait, loyal, constant and respectful towards the work that one does, whether he/she is a student or a teacher, in order to truly realize the depth of the outlined objectives (Kirk, 2006).

Comparison of Saint Leo University Educational Code and APA Ethics Code:

In the above sections, we have highlighted, through the use of various sources, the different aspects of both the Saint Leo University Educational Code and the APA Ethics Code renewed in 2002. There are quite a few similarities between both the codes and some dissimilarities as well.

The very obvious dissimilarity between the two codes is the specifications i.e. The APA code is directed towards the department of psychology and lays down the general principles and ethics that are required in the patient-psychologist dynamic. On the contrary, the Saint Leo Educational Code is not directed towards one particular subject but is designed as an overall guideline of conduct for any and every department within the university.

Keeping this in mind, another dissimilarity that can be established between the two codes is that one has a very specialized and situational approach towards the application of principles and ethics i.e. The APA codes are designed in context of the phenomenon of psychology and hence are more tailored or custom-made for situations that might arise when dealing with cases that require therapeutic help. Conversely, the Saint Leo University Educational Code encourages diversification amongst the students and the community and hence has a very open-ended and somewhat limited approach towards the situational designs that are needed to tackle specific situations. This does pose a hurdle for the overall performance and application of the general educational program but is not the biggest disadvantage and can be fixed through the introduction of other more detailed and specified factors whereby the coping strategies for certain situations can be pre-designed.