Why is the selection of culturally neutral assessment tools so critical to the ethical practice of psychology? What potential harm can result if assessment materials are culture-bound? What potential limitations do you foresee encountering with culturally neutral assessment tools?

Class, I wanted to bring up an example of cultural bias in assessments. Unfortunately for years, most studies if IQ tests have occurred with mostly Caucasian participants. Because of cultural differences amongst different groups, we cannot generalize research done with an all Caucasian sample to other ethnic groups. African American and Hispanic individuals tend to score on average 15 points below Caucasians on average on IQ tests, while Asian Americans tend to score higher than average on IQ tests. This does not mean that African Americans and Hispanics are less intelligent than Caucasians and Asian Americans are more intelligent than Caucasians, but rather IQ tests were normed on Caucasian samples when first created. Therefore, IQ tests tend to be culturally biased and you must be cautious when interpreting the scores on an IQ test for members of minority groups. The way that Psychologists are attempting to resolve this issue is by creating new norming tables for different cultural groups so that members of different groups are compared within each other, as opposed to being compared to a Caucasian norming group.

Have you ever encountered other examples of culturally biased assessments?

According to the APA Ethics Code, what conditions would justify termination of therapy? Do you agree with the prohibitions? Why or why not?

Class, I wanted to share with you an article that offers helpful suggestions for therapists who are terminating or anticipating terminating therapy with clients. This article is by Dr. John Grohol who writes some pretty good pieces for Psych Central. Normally I recommend avoiding Psych Central when writing scholarly papers, but some of their articles are good pieces for discussions. I am interested to hear your thoughts on Dr. Grohol's therapy termination tips.

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2009/05/27/termination-10-tips-when-ending-psychotherapy/

While I understand that religion is a very important part of many people's lives, I do not see that counseling or therapy is the place for talking about it. IF the counseling is through a pastor then I think that is fine, but when it comes to psychologists or psychiatrists counseling a client, I believe that is not the place to discuss religious beliefs, of either the client or the therapist. When religion is discussed in counseling, if the client and therapist have opposing views, it seems to me that this could cause a variety of problems, not the least of which is to make the client feel uncomfortable talking to the therapist. As you said, even if the client does not feel hostility toward them from their counselor, they may believe that the counselor does not really understand what gives them their motivation or drives their lives. Many people have differing views about religion and those differences could cause problems within the therapy setting, in my opinion. Thoughts?

Discuss the different guidelines for ethical and legal practice in counseling and psychotherapy groups.

With the fast moving of technology it's no wonder there are more and more therapeutic opportunity available for potential client to take advantage of. Internet psychology services are rapidly increasing and that implies on line assessment. Discuss some inter-mediated assessments.