The Case of Dr. John case study contains violations. For this section of the exam, you must use the APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (2017) to review the case study. In addition to the APA Principles of Psychologists, you may also use the code of ethics for psychologists within your country or state. Using the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (American Psychological Association, 2017), identify three General Principles and four Ethical Standards specific to the Case of Dr. John.

Case of Dr. John

Dr. John is a psychologist and is conducting an intake session with a 23-year-old female client, Darling, who presents with symptoms of major depression and anxiety. After the intake, Dr. John informs the client of the therapy process and provides Darling with the office crisis line phone number. The client attends sessions weekly for four months and begins to feel better as evidenced by comments the client made to Dr. John. Dr. John agrees and has also noticed improvement in the client and decides to ask Darling out on a date to "celebrate your health." Darling accepts. After several dates following her therapy sessions, Darling and Dr. John begin a sexual relationship. Darling wants to get serious with Dr. John and asks Dr. John if he would like to meet her parents. Dr. John declines the offer but informs Darling she can continue her therapy sessions on a biweekly basis. Darling agrees and continues therapy.

Darling and Dr. John continue to date several times a month or have sex in Dr. John's office, either before or after her therapy sessions. For one of her therapy sessions, Darling asks her aunt to drop her off and pick her up from Dr. John's office, due to her (Darling) car being in the shop for repair. The aunt visits the office early (to pick up Darling) and waits in the lobby for Darling to end her session with Dr. John. After Darling and Dr. John leave Dr. John's office, the aunt greets Darling and introduces herself to Dr. John. Dr. John finds the aunt quite attractive and slyly gives the aunt his business card with his personal cell phone number on the back of the card. Several weeks later, the aunt visits Dr. Johns office. Dr. John is excited to see the aunt and begins to give the aunt a grand tour of his office, including the file room. Within the file room, Dr. John opens one of the file cabinets, showing the aunt his "success" by opening several client files. He shows the aunt his billing rate per hour and the charges to the clients account and other personal information on the clients, including their (client's) picture.

The aunt seemed impressed and began to ask questions, leading to Dr. John's continued bragging. Dr. John talked about the services he provided to "those mute kids" and his inability to comprehend what they were saying, joking how "I made a killing on that billing!" Dr. John admitted to conducting his "personal" research on children at the school for the deaf without parental consent, stating "I was not qualified to do the research formally because I was not trained in that area...but it's all the same...who's gonna ask if I was trained in that area anyway...who cares if the parents didn't know...who's gonna tell?" Dr. John further stated

"...and then I used some assessment tools that I had no clue about...I billed it anyway and got paid a ton of money baby!"

After a tour of other rooms within the office, Dr. John makes a pass at the aunt and kisses her on the hand, leading to the aunt and Dr. John sneaking into one of the offices to have sex. After the interlude, Dr. John and the aunt leave the room and notice a client sitting in the lobby waiting to see Dr. John. The client, Mr. Smith, indicated this is his first appointment and that he is a veteran who sometimes get dates incorrect due to a previous war injury but, Mr. Smith is adamant his first appointment is today. With the aunt still present, Dr. John confirms he was expecting him, but stated he was not aware that Mr. Smith was a veteran. Dr. John's brother was a veteran who suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder and died from HIV/AIDS while being homeless. As a result, Dr. John finds himself uncomfortable with Mr. Smith and does not want to see Mr. Smith in his office. Instead, Dr. John recommends to Mr. Smith they conduct their sessions at the nearby grocery store or another public setting instead of Dr. John's office. Mr. Smith does not like the idea and asked several concerning questions however, Mr. Smith stated, "I don't wanna walk away from help...I know I need it" and then he (Mr. Smith) agreed to meet in the grocery store for his session with Dr. John to discuss his mental health challenges due to his history of trauma. The aunt thought the recommendation was quite funny and begins to laugh as she walks out of the office door.