Developing ethical guidelines for positive psychology practice: An on-going, iterative, collaborative endeavour

ABSTRACT

As positive psychology has developed as a field, questions have arisen around how to ensure best practice, including with respect to ethics. This issue is particularly pertinent vis-à-vis its applied dimensions, such as positive psychology interventions by students and graduates of MAPP programmes. However, the field has hitherto lacked clear ethical guidelines to assist practitioners. Aiming to address this gap, the authors have devised a set of guidelines, in collaboration with key stakeholders across the positive psychology community, published in the International Journal of Wellbeing. The current article briefly summarises the importance, development, content, and future directions of these guidelines, thus providing a concise overview of this important project. It is hoped that this article, together with the guidelines themselves, will not only highlight the importance of ethical practice, but offer practical suggestions for guiding practitioners in the field.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethics
• morals
• values
• strengths
• guidelines
• practice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Strengths 1–7 are ranked by how often they were mentioned and emphasized across 10 similar codes of ethics (e.g. British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy’s ‘Ethical Framework for Good Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy’). Strengths 8–11 the authors have deemed important in upholding the six principles.