Читать книгу Ethics in Psychotherapy and Counseling - Kenneth S. Pope - Страница 24

Dr. Larson is an executive director and clinical chief of staff at the Golden Internship Health Maintenance Organization. For one year, he closely supervises an excellent postdoctoral intern, Dr. Marshall. The supervisee shows great potential, working with a range of patients who respond positively to her interventions. After completing her internship and becoming licensed, Dr. Marshall goes into business for herself, opening an office several blocks from Golden Internship Managed Care Organization. Before terminating her work at the organization, Dr. Larson tells Dr. Marshall that she must transfer all patients to other center therapists. All of the patients who can afford her fee schedule, however, decide to continue in therapy with Dr. Marshall at her new office. The patients who cannot afford Dr. Marshall’s fee schedule are assigned to new therapists at the center. Dr. Larson hires an attorney to take legal action against Dr. Marshall, asserting that she unethically exploited the health maintenance organization (HMO) by stealing patients and engaging in deceptive practices. He files formal complaints against her with the state licensing board, charging that she had refused to follow his supervision in regard to the patients and pointed out that he, as the clinical supervisor of this trainee, had been both clinically and legally responsible for the patients. He refuses to turn over the patients’ charts to Dr. Marshall or to certify to various associations to whom she has applied for membership that Dr. Marshall has successfully completed her postdoctoral internship.

Dr. Marshall countersues, claiming that Dr. Larson is engaging in illegal restraint of trade and not acting in the patients’ best interests. The patients, she asserts, have formed an intense transference and an effective working alliance with her; to lose their therapist would be clinically damaging and not in their best interests. She files formal complaints against Dr. Larson with the licensing board, charging that his refusal to deliver copies of the patients’ charts and to certify that she completed the internship violates ethical and professional standards.

Some of the patients sue the Golden Internship Managed Care Organization, Dr. Larson, and Dr. Marshall, charging that the conflict and the legal actions (in which their cases are put at issue without their consent) have been damaging to their therapy.