What might you do in these situations? What are the pros and cons to
the various options, and what do you see as being the best approach to take? Are there any negative
consequences to your chosen actions? What might you do to minimize and/or
counteract those? Is there any way you could
have prevented these situations from arising in the first place?
1. You are the school psychologist at an elementary school. One day the kindergarten teacher stops by to ask for your advice: the parents of one of her students are upset about their son's feminine behavior, and have consulted a private therapist to help him become more masculine. The therapist devised a behavioral system in which the boy receives a blue chip for each masculine behavior he shows, and a pink chip for each feminine one; he then gets rewards for the number of blue chips minus the number of pink chips he receives each day. The parents have asked the teacher to implement the same system in the classroom, for consistency, and school policy indicates that teachers must consult the school psychologist before participating in parent-initiated treatment programs. (Adapted from Jacob and Hartshorne, 2003)
1a. Same scenario as above, but the behavioral program is to target acting-out behavior, so that the child receives blue chips each time he engages in disruptive behavior, and pink chips each time he engages in appropriate behaviors such as raising his hand.
2. You work in a busy urban hospital that is currently undergoing some renovations. During the renovation period, psychiatry files have been moved to the hallway from the locked records room in which they were previously kept. You raise concerns with your supervisor that this may breach client confidentiality, as the files themselves do not lock, and request that they either be moved to a more remote area, be transferred to locked cabinets in the hallway, or that you be allowed to keep at least your records locked in your office. Your supervisor explains that none of these options are feasible: the records need to be readily accessible to all hospital personnel, and while the records room could be opened via the ID cards that all personnel wore, the same would not be true of a locked file drawer or your office, and that remote areas would not be accessible either.
3. A teacher at the school in which you work has consulted you regularly about several children with behavioral problems, and you increasingly feel that the problem is her classroom management rather than the children's behavior. However, she clearly indicates she is not interested in any criticism of her teaching or classroom management, and insists you intervene with the children "who desperately need your help." She has begun to discuss these issues with others in the teachers' lounge, and to bring this up to you when you stop in there.
3a. Same as above, but in addition to the school's being your workplace, it is also the school your children attend.