Cutting-Edge Ethical Issues in Behavioral Health Care:
Moral injury and artificial intelligence

Today's behavioral health practitioners face myriad ethical challenges. Key among them are challenges associated with moral injury and practitioners' increasing use of artificial intelligence to assist people in need. Join us as Dr. Frederic Reamer explores these topics in this two-part webinar.

Part I

Behavioral health practitioners sometimes witness, perpetrate, or fail to prevent acts that violate their deeply held beliefs. The harm that they experience is referred to as moral distress or injury. Moral distress and injury may trigger a wave of symptoms and emotions that adversely affect the practitioner: posttraumatic stress disorder; feelings of overwhelming guilt and remorse; and a sense of demoralization in the form of disheartenment, dejection, hopelessness, loss of values, and despondency. These adverse effects can be so debilitating that some practitioners consider leaving the profession they love. Dr. Reamer will discuss the concepts of moral distress, injury, and demoralization; the symptoms that can manifest; prevention, self-care, and resilience; legal and ethical obligations, including what it means to be a whistleblower; and how to develop moral courage to advocate for organizational and policy changes to prevent harm.

Part II

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly prevalent in the behavioral health professions. AI is being used to conduct client risk assessments; provide resources to clients; assist people in crisis; strengthen prevention efforts; document and supervise clinical services; interact with clients using social robots; identify systemic biases in the delivery of behavioral health services; provide professional education and supervision; and predict practitioner burnout and service outcomes, among other uses. Ethical standards related to AI are evolving.

Dr. Reamer will examine cutting-edge ethical issues related to behavioral health practitioners’ use of AI, apply relevant ethical standards, and outline key elements of a strategy for practitioners’ ethical use of AI. He will explore ethical issues and risks related to informed consent and client autonomy; privacy and confidentiality; transparency; potential client misdiagnosis; client abandonment; client surveillance; plagiarism, dishonesty, fraud, deception, and misrepresentation; algorithmic bias and unfairness; and use of evidence-based AI tools.