Part 1: Assessments and Legal and Ethical Psychology in Missions

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As a mental health practitioner trying to help further the cause of missions, I will be looking at issues as they develop in the arenas of assessment, overseas behavior and treatment, and contexts where you find cross-cultural and organizational cultural issues. I also want to discuss how to work with missions in the most effective way, looking at specific kinds of assessments and the ministerial exception. I am hoping, Theresa, that I will surface issues that you may be able to speak to from a legal perspective.

Theresa, I would like to take some leadership in this particular thread to discuss some points that I have a bit of a problem with when I watch what I have done myself, what I have thought about doing, and what some of my colleagues may be doing. I think that as mental health practitioners trying to help further the cause of missions, we find ourselves in situations where we may do or say things, or make decisions or offer input, that may step a bit beyond the scope of our licenses.

I'm assuming here for this thread that these are licensed people working in a cross-cultural context. In saying that, I realized that there are 50 different licensing states in the United States and many other countries that license psychologists. I am not attempting to pontificate legally about each of those situations.

For the purposes of this thread I will limit myself to some of the issues that I deal with in California, which is a very restrictive state and which disallows me from doing numerous things that other people in other states can do without any problem.

I will be looking at issues as they develop in the arenas of assessment, overseas behavior and treatment, and contexts where you find cross-cultural and organizational cultural issues. I also want to discuss how to work with missions in the most effective way, looking at specific kinds of assessments and the ministerial exception.

I am hoping, Theresa, that I will surface issues that you may be able to speak to from a legal perspective.

Read on.