Leadership in Action: Transforming Self and Structure

By Maggie Mahar, Health Beat. Posted May 17, 2008.

<!-- end: byline --> <!-- end: headline and byline --><!-- start: teaser --> Easing pain is arguably as important as saving a life. But far too many U.S. physicians focus only on the latter

"His heart filled virtually his whole chest," recalls Dr. Diane Meier describing her very first patient, an 89-year-old suffering from end-stage congestive heart failure.

It was the first day of Meier's internship at a hospital in Portland Oregon, and after being assigned 23 patients, she was suddenly told that one of her patients, who had been in the Intensive Care Unit for months, was "coding." She raced to the ICU where the resident told her to put in a "central line."

The prime consideration is always the physical and mental well-being of the client. Therapists never engage in abuse of any form of a client.  Hypnotherapists only practice within the limits of their training, competence and state laws. Advertising must be truthful. Therapists are always honest about their titles and degrees and practice within the confines of our profession. Therapists only work with clients on medical or mental disease on written referral from an appropriately licensed medical or mental health professional. Withhold non- hypnotic services if a client’s behavior, appearance or statements indicate a licensed health care professional should evaluate the client.

On the topic of ethics I'm reading a fascinating book by Allen M. Hornblum Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison documenting  the then legal but unethical use of inmates  as guinea pigs to test everything  from chemical warfare to syphilis  (while withholding treatment  as they  documented the infected  inmate  die an agonizing death.

From Library Journal

Relying on prisoners' firsthand reports, Hornblum (urban studies, Temple Univ.) has written a thorough account of the questionable medical experimentation carried out in Philadelphia's Holmesburg Prison from the mid-1940s to 1974. Research on everything from cosmetics to chemical warfare agents was conducted there, often with minimal or no record keeping. Such research raises serious ethical issues. Throughout, Hornblum asks whether prisoners can give informed consent, particularly when the potential consequences of the research are not fully explained. Although most of the book centers on Holmesburg, Hornblum does cite other prisons across the country where similar practices took place before they received widespread condemnation in the 1970s. What is shocking about this is that it did not happen in the distant past but in our own generation, with the doctors involved still in practice. Frighteningly, Hornblum reveals that at the Nuremberg trials Nazi doctors cited American prison practices as a defense for their nefarious medical experiments in the camps. 

Hello all,

I posted a news report about this during last class;

The Torture Election: Fighting for the Soul of the American Psychological Association

Jeffrey S. Kaye, AlterNet

In a surprising turn of events, New York psychologist Steven Reisner won over 30% of the votes in the mail balloting for nominations for the presidency of the American Psychological Association (APA), as announced at the beginning of April. This represented more votes than any other candidate running.

Dr. Reisner, a psychoanalyst, is a Senior Faculty member and Supervisor at the International Trauma Studies Program, an Adjunct Professor of Psychology and Education at Columbia University, and a consultant to the United Nations on stress and trauma. As a key leader of Psychologists for an Ethical Psychology, he is also a leading critic of APA's position on torture and interrogations.

I’ve been looking for guidelines for the issue of dual relationships. I am finding that nonexploitative dual relationships are not necessarily prohibited (especially in small communities with limited counseling resources). From everything I’m finding the important thing is to discuss the issues surrounding dual relationships with the client, have them sign an informed consent, document the reasons for the dual relationship and consult with another professional about the decision. That is also what we were taught by Jack Dutro at Grays Harbor College during our quarter on ethics and law. I feel as if our discussion is not taking into consideration the special needs of small rural communities. There is one counselor for all Grays Harbor County and Pacific County that has a VA contract for counseling--at the price of gas and limited public transportation the choice easily comes down to being in counseling with someone you know or not getting counseling at all.

Also the only mention I saw of a dual relationship between a counselor and student is if they are taking a class currently and in counseling at the same time. I saw nothing prohibiting a counselor from taking a former student on as a client or refusing to teach someone that had once been a client.

By Amy Goodman, King Features Syndicate Posted on April 10, 2008

Imagine, a candidate for president who, a year or so ago, no one would have considered electable. Now the person is the front-runner, with a groundswell of grass-roots support, threatening the sense of inevitability of the Establishment candidates. No, I'm not talking about the U.S. presidential race, but the race for president of the largest association of psychologists in the world, the American Psychological Association (APA). At the heart of the election is a raging debate over torture and interrogations. While the other healing professions, including the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association, bar their members from participating in interrogations, the APA leadership has fought against such a restriction.

Frustrated with the APA, a New York psychoanalyst, Dr. Steven Reisner, has thrown his hat into the ring. Last year, Reisner and other dissident psychologists formed the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology in an attempt to force a moratorium against participation by APA members in harsh interrogations. During the initial phase of this year's selection process, Reisner received the most nominating votes. He is running on a platform opposing the use of psychologists to oversee abusive and coercive interrogations of prisoners at Guantanamo, secret CIA black sites or anywhere else international law or the Geneva Conventions are said not to apply.

IT is not necessary for a student studying multivariable calculus, medieval literature or Roman archaeology to know that the professor behind the podium shoots pool, has donned a bunny costume or can’t get enough of Chaka Khan.

Yet professors of all ranks and disciplines are revealing such information on public, national platforms: blogs, Web pages, social networking sites, even campus television.

When scholars were recently given the chance to refute student criticism posted on the Web site RateMyProfessors.com, a cult-hit television series, “Professors Strike Back,” was born. The show, which has professors responding on camera to undergraduate gripes such as “boring beyond belief,” made its debut in October on mtvU, a 24-hour network broadcast to more than 7.5 million students on American college campuses.

“It’s our dominant show driving half of the traffic to mtvU now,” said Stephen Friedman, general manager of the network. “It gets more than our music premieres.”

The already arduous road to patenting a great idea is getting even longer. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court raised the bar on what the law defines as the "standard of obviousness" in patent cases. In short, if a business or technique is so obvious that anyone could have invented it, it shouldn't merit a patent. While stricter standards may ease some of the pressure on the increasingly swamped U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the new regulations--and more being debated in the coming months--could add costs and complications down the road, too. ... To get a patent approved, inventors must establish, among other things, that their invention or idea is not clearly manifest. Say you wanted to patent a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, minus the crust. Even a small child knows how to slice off unwanted bread crust, so patenting such a notion might seem preposterous. Many ideas passing as intellectual property are at least that obvious.

(This article is reminiscent of some of the discussions we've had in class over the last year and last week).

The United States was imagined as a ‘utopia’ where the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were
guaranteed. But instead, in our contemporary world, a new dystopia is being created in our nation and in our homes.
Since September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has mobilized a discourse of insecurity to create a psychological
environment that allows the constriction of liberty in the United States, while continuing an unpopular war in Iraq. In
New York City and other urban centers there has been an increased presence of camouflaged soldiers carrying rifles
at all transportation centers, and authorized surveillance reinforced by police, barricades and concrete barriers (Bornstein
2005, Katz 2006, Low and Smith 2006). Iris Young argues that the U.S. security state offers a bargain to its citizens:
“obey our commands and support our security actions, and we will ensure your protection” (2003:3). This political
manipulation of terrorism and threat from outside is inscribing a new structure of feeling based on fear and
re-inscribing the paranoia of the Cold War period to further militaristic and imperialist aims.