Sport and Exercise Psychology Review - Sport Psychology Goes to ...

Issues of Confidentiality, Privacy and Privilege
of sport psychologists working at this organisational
level (i.e., sports medicine groups)
and the different entry points for interventions
see Andersen and Brewer (1995).
I also know of many cases where coaches
contact a sport psychologist to work with athletes,
but also ask for service and feedback
on their coaching and how they can better
communicate with individual athletes. Couple
that scenario with a team manager handling
payment, and we end up with the sport
psychologist serving several masters. Who
gets to know what? Certainly a coach could
benefit from knowing that a certain athlete
responds better to kicks up the bum than to
pats on the back, but telling a coach what an
athlete needs still requires permission from
the athlete. Most parents love their children
and want the best for them, and many have
strong needs to know what is happening with
their offspring. Subtle, and not so subtle,
pressures from parents to obtain information
from the sport psychologist about their
children are some of the most frequently
encountered confidentiality quagmires my
students face. Managers holding the purse
strings would certainly want to know about
what value they are getting for their money
and what changes in athletes, team environments
and coaching practices are in the
works. See the section below on the training
of sport psychologists regarding how to talk
to coaches, and by extrapolation, to administrators
and parents about the issues of confidentiality
and privacy in service delivery.
Privilege
Privilege is actually a legal term associated
with confidentiality. Laws in many countries
require people to testify in court so that all of
the information that can possibly be obtained
on a particular case is brought to light. However,
legal systems do recognise that there are
special relationships intimately associated
with (usually) constitutional rights to privacy,
and information revealed in such relationships
comes under the aegis of ‘privileged
communication’. Examples of these special
relationships include: husband and wife (in
some countries even same-sex partners); clergy
and those in confession or pastoral care;
physicians and patients; solicitors (lawyers)
and clients; and psychotherapists (psychologists,
psychiatrists, counsellors, social workers)
and those they help. The issue of
privilege may come up for sport psychologists
in cases of malpractice or other instances
where progress notes are subpoenaed, or the
psychologist is asked to testify for or against a
current or past client.
Violations of, and exceptions to, the
principle of confidentiality
The seemingly innocuous. Coaches often mistakenly
believe that psychological testing can
predict who will be good competitors. Some
sport psychologists comply with coaches’
wishes to test their athletes, and present
coaches with psychometric results. Usually
consent is obtained from athletes to pass on
results, sometimes it is not. Even when consent
is given (see below), how truly free is the
athlete to grant such consent? And if coaching
decisions, such as selection, amount of
playing time, or position on the team are
based, in part, on tests results being made
available, then the dictum of ‘do no harm’
may be violated. The other ethical issue in
this case is the misuse of psychometric instruments,
but that topic would require a whole
paper in itself (cf. Sechrest et al., 1996; Schutz
& Gessaroli, 1993).
The casual mention of a famous athlete’s
name as a person one has worked with also
seems innocuous enough. This name-dropping,
without permission, is, however, a
breach of confidentiality. As stated in Section
4 of the British Psychological Society’s
(1993) code of conduct, covering confidentiality,
psychologists shall:
convey personally identifiable information
obtained in the course of professional work to
others, only with the expressed permission of
those who would be identified, (subject always
to the best interests of recipients of services
or participants in research and subject to
the requirements of law and agreed working
practices)
Sport & Exercise Psychology Review Vol 1 No 2 7