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Ethical issues in South African psychology : public complaints, psychologists' dilemmas and training in professional ethics.

This study examined three perspectives on ethical dimensions of South African professional



psychology. These perspectives were derived from three data sets. The first data set comprised a



series of public complaints against psychologists; the second a series of ethical dilemmas reported



by psychologists themselves, and the third comprised a study of the training of South African



psychologists in professional ethics.



Clear patterns emerged in the analysis of each data set, and efforts were made to integrate the



findings. Psychologists in particular registration categories, trained at particular universities and



working in particular practice contexts were disproportionately more likely to attract complaints.



Similarly, patterns of dilemmas experienced by psychologists also emerged. Comparison of



complaints with dilemmas suggested that there were significant differences and some similarities



in the ethical issues and contexts associated with public complaints and psychologists' own ethical



dilemmas. The study of ethics training suggested general dissatisfaction with the relevance and



quantity of ethics training nationally.



The main findings were integrated to make recommendations for improving the ethics training of



South African psychologists. The limitations of the data are described, along with suggestions for



future research to examine in greater depth and specificity several dominant patterns described by



the present study. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2002.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ukzn/oai:http://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za:10413/10564
Date04 April 2014
CreatorsWassenaar, Douglas Richard.
ContributorsLindegger, Graham Charles.
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
Languageen_ZA
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis

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