Ethical & Professional Considerations 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 Ethical & Professional Considerations flashcards as text
A therapist conducting ACT via telehealth discovers that a client in crisis is located in a state where the therapist is not licensed. The most appropriate immediate action is to:
Answer: Manage the immediate safety need while concurrently clarifying jurisdiction and licensure obligations
Ethical duty to protect overrides procedural concerns in a crisis, but the therapist must simultaneously address licensure and jurisdictional requirements as soon as safely possible.
In ACT-informed supervision, a supervisor notices a supervisee is consistently avoiding difficult experiential exercises in session. Ethically, the supervisor should:
Answer: Explore the supervisee's experiential avoidance as a parallel process and use it as a learning opportunity
ACT supervision uses parallel process to help supervisees identify and address their own experiential avoidance, which mirrors what clients may experience.
A client using ACT for anxiety management asks their therapist to testify that they are 'cured' in a legal disability proceeding. The therapist should:
Answer: Offer an honest clinical opinion regardless of how it affects the client's legal case
Therapist integrity requires providing honest clinical testimony; misrepresenting a client's status to aid their legal case constitutes professional misconduct.
Which documentation practice best supports both ethical accountability and ACT treatment fidelity?
Answer: Noting functional outcomes, values-aligned goals, and client progress on ACT processes such as defusion and acceptance
ACT-consistent documentation focuses on functional outcomes and specific ACT processes rather than symptom checklists, fulfilling both clinical and ethical standards.
A client discloses that they have been physically abusing their elderly parent who lives with them. The therapist's mandatory reporting obligations in most U.S. states require:
Answer: Reporting to adult protective services, as elder abuse is a mandated reporting category in most states
Most U.S. states mandate reporting suspected elder abuse to adult protective services regardless of the client's consent or verification by a third party.
An ACT therapist is approached by a pharmaceutical company offering a significant honorarium to present ACT research at a conference they sponsor. The primary ethical concern is:
Answer: Conflict of interest, which could bias the presentation or compromise professional integrity
Financial relationships with commercial entities create conflicts of interest that can compromise objectivity and professional integrity.
When a therapist uses ACT's 'self-as-context' concepts in session, which ethical principle most directly supports this intervention?
Answer: Autonomy, by fostering the client's perspective-taking capacity and self-direction
Self-as-context work supports client autonomy by strengthening their capacity for flexible perspective-taking and self-directed living.