Ethics and the Digital Shift in Mental Health Practice

If you have suspected that you need to do ethics differently when you are engaged in distance mental health work, but you have not been able to articulate just how, this five-course series will offer clarity. This course provides an overview of the myriad aspects that change in distance scenarios, and why it is so important to come to grips with the central question of the digital age: how can we use technology to enhance care without compromising the trust, privacy, and dignity of the people we serve? We explore how core ethical commitments in mental health practice (such as beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, confidentiality, and justice) are affected by the digital shift, and examine the changes in context, medium, and power that accompany online modalities and begin to build a conceptual foundation for the subsequent courses in this series.<br><br> This course is the first in a five-course series offering a deep-dive examination of how ethics in mental health practice has shifted to adapt to the digital age. The next course in this series is titled <em><a target="_blank" href="/catalogue/courses/ethical-foundations-of-telehealth">Ethical Foundations of Telehealth</a></em>.