CMA Ethical Standards & Professional Applications 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: When a CMA practitioner's scope of practice ends and a client's needs exceed movement analysis (e.g., they disclose trauma), the ethical action is to:
- Continue working and incorporate informal trauma counseling
- Refer the client to an appropriately licensed mental health professional (Correct answer)
- End the professional relationship without providing any resources
- Consult movement notation texts to find a precedent
Correct answer: Refer the client to an appropriately licensed mental health professional
Referral to appropriately credentialed professionals when client needs exceed scope of practice is a cornerstone of ethical conduct.
Question 2: In Laban Movement Analysis, the concept of 'effort observation' raises ethical concerns primarily because:
- Effort qualities are too complex to observe accurately
- Movement observations can be misused to make psychological inferences beyond what the data supports (Correct answer)
- Space Harmony calculations are proprietary and copyrighted
- Clients are legally permitted to refuse all effort assessments
Correct answer: Movement observations can be misused to make psychological inferences beyond what the data supports
Effort observation describes how movement is done but should not be overextended into unwarranted psychological diagnoses or character judgments.
Question 3: A CMA is asked to testify as an expert witness in a legal case using movement analysis. The primary ethical obligation is to:
- Advocate solely for the party that hired them
- Provide objective, evidence-based testimony within the established limits of the LMA framework (Correct answer)
- Decline all legal work as it falls outside CMA practice
- Amplify findings to ensure the court takes movement evidence seriously
Correct answer: Provide objective, evidence-based testimony within the established limits of the LMA framework
Expert witnesses have an ethical duty to provide honest, impartial, and evidence-based testimony regardless of who retained them.
Question 4: Confidentiality in CMA practice requires that client movement profiles:
- Be shared with any other health professional the client has ever seen
- Be disclosed to the client's employer upon request
- Be protected and shared only with explicit client consent or as required by law (Correct answer)
- Be posted anonymously in professional forums for peer feedback
Correct answer: Be protected and shared only with explicit client consent or as required by law
Client movement data carries the same confidentiality obligations as other professional health-related information.
Question 5: A student CMA practitioner is supervised by a certified CMA who asks the student to document observations they did not personally make. This situation represents:
- Standard training practice in movement analysis
- An ethical violation, as documentation must reflect only one's own direct observations (Correct answer)
- A helpful shortcut that improves training efficiency
- An acceptable exception when under direct supervision
Correct answer: An ethical violation, as documentation must reflect only one's own direct observations
Professional integrity requires that documentation accurately reflects one's own direct observations, not fabricated or secondhand accounts.
Question 6: In educational settings, a CMA instructor who has a dual relationship with a student (e.g., also their therapist) should:
- Maintain both relationships as long as they remain transparent
- Disclose the dual relationship to the school and manage or terminate one relationship to avoid conflict of interest (Correct answer)
- Keep both roles separate by never discussing movement in the therapeutic context
- Ask the student to choose which relationship to maintain
Correct answer: Disclose the dual relationship to the school and manage or terminate one relationship to avoid conflict of interest
Dual relationships create conflicts of interest that can compromise professional judgment; disclosure and management or resolution are ethically required.
Question 7: A CMA discovers an error in a previously submitted movement analysis report that could affect a client's treatment. The ethical obligation is to:
- Discard the erroneous report and issue a new one without informing the client
- Inform the relevant parties of the error promptly and provide a corrected report (Correct answer)
- Wait to see if the error causes harm before taking action
- Deny the error to protect professional reputation
Correct answer: Inform the relevant parties of the error promptly and provide a corrected report
Professional ethics require prompt disclosure of errors that may affect client welfare, followed by corrective action.
CMA Ethical Standards & Professional Applications 3
When a CMA practitioner's scope of practice ends and a client's needs exceed movement analysis (e.g., they disclose trauma), the ethical action is to: