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
Under the APA Ethics Code, a psychologist using ACT must ensure that assessment tools used to measure psychological flexibility are:
Answer: Valid, reliable, and appropriately interpreted within the client's cultural context
Ethical assessment requires selecting tools with established psychometric properties and interpreting results in culturally informed ways.
An ACT group therapy facilitator notices one member repeatedly dominating sessions in ways that harm others' progress. The ethical response is to:
Answer: Use ACT-consistent group interventions and, if needed, address the issue privately with that member
Group leaders have a duty to protect all members' therapeutic experience while using ACT-consistent approaches before escalating to removal.
The ethical principle of justice in ACT practice most directly requires practitioners to:
Answer: Ensure ACT services are accessible across diverse socioeconomic and cultural populations
Justice obligates practitioners to work toward equitable access to effective treatments like ACT, including adaptations for underserved populations.
A consultant discovers that an ACT training program at their institution misrepresents its certification as nationally accredited when it is not. The ethical obligation is to:
Answer: Report the misrepresentation to institutional leadership and relevant ethics bodies
Allowing false credentialing claims to stand harms consumers and the profession; practitioners have an ethical obligation to correct misrepresentations.
When a client's progress plateaus in ACT, the therapist's ethical course of action is to:
Answer: Review treatment fidelity, seek supervision, and consider whether ACT remains the best fit
Ongoing competence requires honest evaluation of treatment effectiveness and willingness to revise the approach in the client's best interest.
What distinguishes appropriate ACT-consistent transparency from harmful oversharing by the therapist?
Answer: Appropriate disclosure serves the client's defusion or values work; oversharing shifts focus to the therapist's needs
The clinical and ethical test for self-disclosure in ACT is whether it serves the client's psychological flexibility, not the therapist's comfort or need for connection.
A supervisee in ACT training asks the supervisor to sign off on competency hours the supervisee did not actually complete. The supervisor's ethical duty is to:
Answer: Decline and address the breach of integrity directly with the supervisee
Supervisors must ensure documentation accuracy; falsifying hours constitutes fraud and must be addressed directly before any escalation.