Portfolio Submitted in Accordance With The Requirements of The University of Surrey For The Doctorate of Clinical Psychology Including An Investigation of Ethical Dilemmas Experienced by Clinical Psychologists in Different Settings.

This questionnaire study compared clinical psychologists working in secure settings (n = 45) with those working in non-secure settings (n = 43) regarding ethical dilemmas experienced in the course of their work. The comparisons included the quantity of ethical dilemmas experienced and the intensity of the dilemmas experienced (ie. how 'troubling' they were to the clinical psychologists). All measurements and written descriptions concerned ethical dilemmas experienced in the previous two years by the clinical psychologists. Overall the findings supported the view that there are no differences between the two groups of clinical psychologists; these included comparisons for presence and intensity of ethical dilemmas experienced (obtained from responses to a 34-item questionnaire) and written descriptions of ethical dilemmas. Also there were no differences for the total sample of clinical psychologists in this study for the types of written descriptions of ethical dilemmas compared with psychologists generally in the previous studies of the American Psychological Association (Pope and Vetter, 1992) and the British Psychological Society (Lindsay and Colley, 1995). The study provides contemporary information concerning ethical dilemmas experienced by clinical psychologists, which may be useful for training in dealing with them. It has also generated useful areas for future research. It is proposed that an area that needs addressing is how clinical psychologists 'solve' the ethical dilemmas they face