Читать книгу Positive Ethics for Mental Health Professionals - Sharon K. Anderson - Страница 31

Like needs and motivations, values can range from noble to base. Schwartz (1994) identified 10 groupings of values:

 Power (authority, wealth, social recognition)

 Achievement (ambition, competence, success)

 Hedonsim (pursuit of pleasure, enjoyment, gratification of desires)

 Stimulation (variety, excitement, novelty)

 Self-direction (creativity, independence, self-respect)

 Universalism (social justice, equality, wisdom, environmental concern)

 Benevolence (honesty, helpfulness, loyalty)

 Conformity (politeness, obedience, self-discipline/restraint)

 Tradition (respect for tradition and the status quo, acceptance of customs)

 Security (safety, stability of society).

We can understand values in two ways: values as preferences and values as principles (Parks & Guay, 2009). Values as preferences are personal choices about desirability. They are subjective and can easily change over time. Values as principles are more objective and consistent. We can call them moral values, and they are guides to how people ought to behave (Parks & Guay, 2009, p. 676). Moral values have to do with your relationships to other people: helping them, respecting them, and fulfilling duties.

Some of your moral values are personal and learned from your family of origin, your religious traditions, and other sources. Some of your values are, or will be, purely professional—learned from the socialization process within professional contexts. Some of your values will overlap and be a combination of personal and professional values.

Probably some of your values revolve around the human condition and the desire to see people thrive and grow. Obviously, these values match well with many of the goals of psychotherapy—they also drive, in part, your motivation to be a therapist. Some of your values, however, revolve around financial, social, and personal success and stability. Being a successful psychotherapist is clearly a way to actualize these values. The bottom line is that our values are complex; thus, the likelihood of dealing with conflicting values is high. Indeed, one way to assess and better understand our values is to explore the choices we make when values conflict with other values and/or motives (Abeles, 1980). For example, you might believe that having nice things is a good thing and you value having a nice office in which to work, but your value and motivation to help people without access to mental health care keep you working at the local mental health center for a lower salary than you could earn in private practice.