Survey of professional education in ethics in clinical psychology internship programs

Attempted to assess the extent to which clinical psychology internship programs offer professional education in ethical standards. While almost 80% of the programs offer such training, less than half of these provide a formal, systematic, and comprehensive learning experience. Many of the programs only provide a limited exposure to ethical standards that occurs on an informal basis as issues emerge in supervision. All but two of the programs that do not offer training in ethical standards reported that this was the primary responsibility of the clinical psychology graduate school program. The immediate implementation of formal training in ethical standards is needed urgently.