Client welfare and the client. What and whether to define?

Agata Celińska-Miszczuk

Agata Celińska-Miszczuk Institute of Psychology, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin

Keywords: psychologist’s professional ethics; human welfare; recipient welfare; client welfare; professional ethics codes

Abstract

The article “Client Welfare in Psychologists’ Ethics Codes” provokes reflection on changes in the way psychologists understand human welfare and on the significance of this fact. The aim of this comment is to point to the potential risk involved in attempting to define client welfare unambiguously. The essence of the comment – assuming, after the Code of Professional Ethics for the Psychologist currently in effect in Poland, that the paramount value in the work of a psychologist (including one who will introduce additions to the current codification) is the other person’s welfare – is the reflection on whether it will not be more important for the welfare of the recipient of psychological services that psychologists (the “providers” of these services) focus on determining the nature of the “subject” of this welfare accurately rather than precisely define the concept of welfare.

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