“Confidentiality, Consent, and Moral Fallibility”
with Bradford Cokelet, Ph.D.
In this ethics training seminar, we will cover three main issues: confidentiality, consent, and moral improvement. For confidentiality and consent, the instructor will begin by summarizing the typical standards and practices that apply in non-therapeutic medical settings. We will then transition to group discussion about how therapeutic and more specifically psychoanalytic settings complicate the relevant ethical issues (e.g., informing patients of a tentative diagnosis is much less obviously good in a therapeutic context). In the third part of the seminar, we will turn to questions of moral improvement and repair. Among other topics, we will discuss the way that moral language “shuts down conversations” and the ways in which perfectionist moral ideals (e.g., expectations or fears of extreme recrimination for any moral lapse) can block both productive thinking about ethical complexities/ambiguities and processes of relational accountability, repair, and growth.
Art credits: “Sunrise on the Bog” by Richard M. Markus, 2021 | Inkjet on archival rag (14″ x 9″)
Bradford Cokelet, Ph.D. teaches at the University of Kansas. He works with psychologists to understand and measure moral character development, writes and teaches contemporary philosophic ethics, and is committed to opening up cross-cultural dialogue between eastern and western philosophers. Brad has a long-standing interest in psychoanalysis and has been an ethics advisor to the Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute since in 2018.
Learning Objectives:
After each unit of this course, participants can expect to be able to …
- Students will learn about typical standards and practices surrounding the ethics of consent and confidentiality in medical settings.
- Students will explore the special issues regarding the ethics of consent and confidentiality that arise in psychoanalytic and broader therapeutic contexts.
- Students will learn about prominent philosophic theories of moral responsibility and repair and discuss various psychological impediments that can block moral responsibility, repair, and growth in clinical practice.
READINGS:
- Da Silva, G. (2003) Confidentiality in Psychoanalysis: A Private Space for Creative Thinking and the Work of Transformation. In, Levin, C.D. et. al (Eds.) Confidentiality: Ethical Perspectives and Clinical Dilemmas (1st ed.). Routledge
- Frattaroli, E. (2013). Reflections on the Absence of Morality in Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice. In: S. Akhtar (Ed.), Guilt: Origins, Manifestations, and Management. Jason Aronson
- OPTIONAL: “The Unconscious Need for Punishment: Expression or Evasion of the Sense of Guilt” Available on-line >>
Registration is closed.
Please email info@wbcps.org for late registrations.
