The Code of Ethics in Action
Professionals’ overarching responsibility is to internalize the spirit and meaning of the Code’s principles, and to be able to apply these in current and anticipated situations. The following attitudes and behaviors are examples of enacting the APNN Code of Ethics, meant to support you in applying the Code.
1. Prioritize the principle “First, cause no harm” in thoughts, decisions, and actions (nonmaleficience, procedural justice)
- Ensure your primary disposition toward clients is one of respect and empathy, giving priority to their comfort, security, and trust and to assisting them to rescue their health and wellbeing and be in more control of their future.
- This first principle means that the initial phases of the therapy are not rushed or skipped over, because the first requirement is to support the client in achieving composure and good posture before permitting the complex system dynamics to begin.
- This first principle applies to potential clients and to NPT therapists as much as it applies to current clients. For example, overbooking oneself or one’s supervisees’ causes harm by increasing pressure and depleting the energy and attention required for top performance on clients’ behalf and for the practitioner’s healthy work-life balance.
- This principle also means respecting and complying with the legal and moral rights and obligations involved with copyright-protected materials (e.g., written or recorded works), which are the intellectual property of those who created them. By law, we do harm if we copy, share, alter, or misrepresent the source of such materials without written permission.
- This principle means that NPT therapists serve people with only those health conditions that the therapist is already formally authorized by the NeuroPhysics Therapy Institute to serve.
2. Prioritize and respect the rights, autonomy, and dignity of all individuals (beneficience, autonomy, confidentiality, social justice).
- Preserve clients’ legal right to privacy and control over their personal information by treating all information shared by clients as confidential, just as the law does.
- Respect clients’ decisions to terminate treatment or to decline optional permissions (e.g., for video or other data collection methods or case reporting).
- Recognize and “put away” any personal biases to ensure they do not prevent acting with respect and care toward all, regardless of another’s age, gender, race, nationality, religion, ethnicity, social or economic status, sexual orientation, health condition, or disability.
- Under no circumstances engage in a sexual relationship with any client, supervisee, or student.
- Under no circumstances harass anyone verbally, physically, emotionally, or sexually.
3. Abide by agreements and professional standards for client confidentiality and privacy.* (fidelity, confidentiality, procedural justice)
- Be well-versed in policy and procedure for NPT location processes to offer, explain, and acquire explicit agreements with clients, including parental or guardian consent before working with minors.
- Do not identify any client by name, injury, or disorder to anyone except your NPT setting’s personnel unless the client has supplied signed permission to do so.
- Respect both your clients’ privacy as well as your own. You will know many things about your clients, which are to be kept confidential by you. Further, clients should know very little about your private life, beliefs, and political persuasions because you keep them to yourself and out of the therapeutic relationship and setting.
- If you are involved in any NeuroPhysics Therapy research, follow policy for strict adherence to the additional requirements for research ethics education and for performing any of the research protocols, following standards governing protection of research participants.
- *The primary exceptions to confidentiality concern reasonable suspicion of potential harm to self or others, e.g., that a client is likely to harm him or herself without protective measures, suspicion of child abuse or elder adult physical abuse, or suspicion of potential violence to others.
4. Respect and continually deepen one’s own, and others,’ understanding of human nervous system dynamics. (veracity, beneficience, fidelity)
- Because learning about the body’s genius to trigger its own health and healing is an ongoing process that does not stop at the end of a certification course, remain a humble student of the body’s genius, continuing to study and refer to course materials and other NeuroPhysics Therapy resources on a regular basis.
- Learn from each client’s experience and relate it to the theory and practice you have studied.
- Contribute to the maintenance of the international language to describe the phenomenon and the therapeutic practices that emerge, so that it can be spoken and understood by colleagues at all locations around the world, i.e., do not make up your own versions.
5. Work the NeuroPhysics Therapy’s exercise programs on a regular basis. (fidelity, veracity)
- Maintain and improve your health, composure, strength, and stress management in the same consistent fashion as clients are advised to do: practice what you preach.
- Pay attention to your own system’s dynamics under different conditions so you continuously build your first-hand knowledge of the body’s genius for managing its health.
6. Practise in a safe, competent, and accountable manner, offering only those levels of therapeutic service for which one has been formally approved. (beneficience, nonmaleficience, fidelity)
- Manage time, energy, and attention to ensure giving undistracted, full attention to clients.
- Make careful judgments, and when in doubt, err on the side of being conservative.
- Practise only within our defined role and level of expertise, and involve your supervisor in any instance where more expertise is needed.
- Under no circumstances work with high end disorders or injuries for which one has not been qualified.
7. Act in a professional manner that maintains the good standing of the profession and its standards of excellence. (fidelity, veracity, nonmaleficience)
- Do not accept gifts from clients.
- All of the materials available from NeuroPhysics Therapy organizations are copyright-protected. Materials provided to you for the purpose of sharing with clients are for client use, which you explain are not to be shared or copied by them.
- Ensure careful accuracy and professional presentation in advertising professional services and in representing NeuroPhysics Therapy.
- When making statements or writing articles or web-based comments, ensure you convey if they are personal viewpoints or if you make them in your role as a representative of the NeuroPhysics Therapy profession.
- Avoid exaggeration and misleading statements to clients, colleagues, allied services, or the general public, especially about your knowledge of the therapy’s dynamics and potentials. This includes avoiding making promises, because you cannot predict outcomes.
- Behave with public decorum that does not disgrace the NeuroPhysics Therapy profession.
- Demonstrate respect for others, even when you disagree with them.
- Take responsibility for continuing personal development that supports greater professionalism based on critical self-assessment, feedback from clients and colleagues, and dialogue within the APNN community.
- Stay abreast of ongoing developments, cases, and practices in the NeuroPhysics Therapy community and its public profile.
- Owners and managers of NPT locations cultivate practice environments that support professional development, lifelong learning, and excellence
- Owners and managers of NPT locations promote organizational behaviors and business practices that benefit clients, therapists, the NeuroPhysics profession, and society.
- Owners and managers of NPT locations ensure that NPT therapists and technicians who work with any research-related clients know and abide by research protocols and standards governing protection of research participants.
8. Communicate and cooperate in the best interests of clients, colleagues, the Institute, the profession, and the wider community. (veracity, beneficience, fidelity)
- Communicate clearly and fairly, contributing to a harmonious work and clinical atmosphere that is healthy for clients and employees alike.
- If a co-worker seems unaware of using unprofessional behavior, privately share your nonjudgmental observation so the person can make improvements.
- If the level of discomfort about a conflict with personnel or a client is greater than your skills to address it, see APNN policy for guidance.
- Be a humble (and wise) professional colleague who asks questions to understand others’ experience and perspectives.
- Share knowledge and questions with your professional colleagues and promote dialogue, and share your ideas so they can be critically assessed for becoming practice.
- Contribute to the NeuroPhysics Therapy community’s knowledge base by maintaining and sharing reliable, non-confidential information within the community.
- Develop and foster relationships with allied services and the general public.
9. Maintain good standing in APNN and comply with its policies. (fidelity, procedural justice)
- Understand the difference between the APNN’s Code of Ethics and its policies: The Code provides standards and guidance for ethical behavior, while policies provide rules and the procedures to follow them.
- Adhere to all APNN policies.
- Stay abreast of changes in APNN policy.
- Follow APNN Policy if violations of the APNN Code of Ethics are suspected.