The Professional Ethical Dilemmas for Psychologists in Outsourcing Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) and Their Coping Strategies Author:Wei-Hsiu Wan, Daisy Chen, Chih-Hung Wang
Research Article
This study is aimedatdiscussing the professional ethical dilemmas that psychologists encounter in outsourcingemployee assistance programs and their coping strategies. We have individual in-depth interviews with five psychologistsand analyzed the data by qualitative content analysis. The resultsshow the professional ethical dilemmas as following: (1) psychologists are in the embarrassing situation that whose interests should take the priority[AK1]; (2) psychologists perceive challenges against enterprises introducing professional consultation; (3) psychologists face the pressure thatenterprises are cost-controllingoriented; (4) psychologists worry that the right of doing no harm in individual cases will be jeopardized; (5) psychologists are stuck when individual cases are not willing to seek help but really need help; (6) psychologists face conflicts because of the welfare of individual cases and demands of institutions.The coping strategies are as following: (1) psychologists convey the value of helping others to enterprises and solve the difficulty of interest conflicts; (2) psychologists utilize the characteristics of caringness and encouragement to help others, then dissolve the defense of enterprise[AK2]; (3) psychologistsutilize specific and feasible strategies to step out of the dilemma that enterprises are cost-controlling oriented; (4) psychologists adjust their counseling style todeal with unaccomplished matters that fail to safeguard the rights of the cases; (5) psychologists practice consultation to help people and resolve predicaments where individual cases are not willing to seek help; (6) psychologists develop a spirit of cooperation in order to eliminate conflicts from the welfare of individual cases and demands of institutions.Finally, we will propose the recommendations based on the findings of this study.