Ethics & Professional Standards Flashcards
7 cards from real ACT practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Ethics & Professional Standards flashcards as text
Which scenario represents a violation of the ethical principle of fidelity in ACT practice?
Answer: Promising a client specific therapeutic outcomes ACT cannot guarantee
Fidelity requires honesty and keeping promises; guaranteeing outcomes that no therapy can ensure is a breach of trust and professional honesty.
An ACT practitioner is approached by a pharmaceutical company to co-author promotional material combining ACT with their medication. The primary ethical concern is:
Answer: Conflict of interest that could bias professional judgment and harm public trust
Financial relationships with industry create conflicts of interest that must be disclosed and managed to protect professional integrity and public trust.
An ACT therapist working in a school setting discovers a student client is being bullied by a teacher. Ethically, the therapist must:
Answer: Address the situation with the appropriate school authority while managing confidentiality carefully
Duty to protect and mandated reporting considerations may require action even when information arises in the therapeutic relationship.
How does ACT's philosophical stance of functional contextualism relate to ethical practice?
Answer: It requires practitioners to evaluate clinical actions by their functional outcomes for the client in context
Functional contextualism holds that truth is evaluated by what works in context; ethically this means practitioners must assess whether interventions genuinely serve the client's wellbeing.
A client requests access to their therapy records. Under HIPAA and ethical standards, the therapist must:
Answer: Provide access within the required timeframe with limited exceptions
HIPAA grants clients the right to access their protected health information within 30 days; therapists cannot routinely deny this right.
An ACT practitioner is invited to testify as an expert witness in a client's legal case. The most significant ethical consideration before agreeing is:
Answer: Whether taking the role will compromise therapeutic neutrality and the client relationship
Serving dual roles as therapist and expert witness creates a conflict that can compromise both the therapeutic relationship and objective testimony.
The Hexaflex model's emphasis on psychological flexibility has a direct implication for ACT practitioners' own ethics, which is that:
Answer: Practitioners should practice the same flexibility skills they teach, including openness to ethical feedback
ACT's core model implies practitioners who embody psychological flexibility are better equipped to receive, process, and act on ethical feedback without defensiveness.