I really had high expectations for
Hanson, Kerkhoff and Bush’s Health Care for Psychologists: A Casebook.  The book is put out by the American
Psychological Association press, and quite frankly, I have not yet met an APA
press book that I didn’t like, so I had high expectations for this book when I
received it.  One thing that I have
learned in life is "expectation is everything" and one sets oneself
up for disappointment when baselines are set high.  I do believe that this is an excellent book, and has an audience,
however my perception might be skewed from the fact that I had such high hopes
(and the fact that I have been looking at many other ethics text books as of
late to meet my particular target). 

This is not an overview of the
basic ethical principles and standards for psychologists as suggested by the
APA (2002).  This is a specialty book,
describing specific situations with long detailed worked-through examples.  The case approach is very different from
that taken by Koocher and Speigel’s (reviewed in Metapsychology June 2005) who use many, short, and to-the-point examples to illustrate their
concepts.  In my opinion, the longer,
more detailed cases in this book, though closer to reality (in terms of
complexity and fuzzy figure/ground discriminations), limited their utility to
the reader because the length of time and effort needed to read, analyze and
synthesize each example.  I suppose this
is a classic depth vs. breadth approach.

The book is divided into five aspects of health care
common to the clinical psychologist: crisis and emergency care, acute care,
inpatient rehabilitation, outpatient services and subacute and long-term
care.  Each chapter has between 3-6
examples illustrating different situations that might emerge in health care
settings.  The examples represent
specialized cases, such as "crisis response to 9-11" or
"malingering and the management of chronic pain."  Personally, I found the cases so specialized
that they were not the best choice to begin discussion in beginning graduate
students learning the ethical minefields of clinical psychology.  The cases are interesting, and important,
but ultimately, highly specific to a venue that many clinical psychologists may
never know. 

That said, the cases are long and
detailed enough to give grist to very good mill-work.  What I particularly like about this book is the compilation of
relevant standards and principles from the 2002 APA code at the end of each
vignette.  The presentation in this
format allows for active self study in a much more efficient way than when
cases are presented under a chapter title specific to a given ethical
standard.  This feature is a great
strength of this manuscript.  The worked
through analysis is not just a copy-and paste of the code, rather it is a
customized discussion and application of the standard to the particular
case.  This is a great tool for the
student- I wish that more books used this format.

Ultimately, it was my experience
that the cases presented in this book represented a domain that was
way-too-specific to my needs (developing a basic graduate level class). 

I do believe that the cases could
serve as great discussion starters- and practice for students, but I think that
they demand a specific audience.  I
would recommend this book as a second ethics class (though this does not exist
in most programs as far as I know) or as part of a graduate level health
psychology class after basic ethics have been taken.  If you are not a graduate student, unless you are in the health
care field, I might look at other more basic texts.  If you are looking for a general overview of ethical issues in
clinical psychology Ethics for Psychologists or Standards and
Practices by Koocher might be better choices.  As I said early in the review, this is an excellent book in an
excellent format.  However, unless you
are working in a health care/health psychological field, the examples are too
removed from normal experience to be provocative. 

© 2005 Michael Sakuma
 

Michael Sakuma,
Assistant Professor, Psychology Department at Dowling
College, Long Island, New York.

Categories: Ethics