Scope of Malpractice

Introduction

“Scope of practice” is a legal term that requires healthcare professionals to stay within their training and education to ensure that people are getting the services that they need by someone who is properly ethically trained and morally educated enough to know the difference between the right and wrong (moral-ethics) of what they are doing (O’Brien, 2024d). While this may seem obvious to most readers, what we present below will challenge the very foundation of the systems that uphold such industrial legal/ethical standards yet do not have to follow them to the degree that they ethically and morally require us to, as citizens and licensed professionals (O’Brien, 2024b).

What is presented here is the case to start treating professions like they are people because, if corporations are people, then the professions that maintain the addicted status quo must be sick themselves because they cannot be ethical and moral with unjust laws. They could be morally-ethical (O’Brien, 2024d), if they were able to be legally moral. Our main example of an illegal law is all laws pertaining to psychedelics because they have been shown to have medical and psychological value; therefore, the law is no longer required or needed to regulate such common weeds, plants, fungi, molds, roots, or amphibians that provide a psychedelic experience. Psychedelics are our birthright as human beings alive on this planet because they are our ancestors (O’Brien, 2024a).

Data

Data presented here varied in their implicit source, but readers will have to figure that out for themselves.

In Figure 1 below, we offer the State of New York’s “Moral Character Clause” renewal form for all licensed professionals who are qualified by the state to practice their profession. One can observe that all the questions pertain to matters of law which, according to psychological research (e.g., Dr. Lawrence Kohlberg’s work on moral development says that the law is the 4th developmental state), is less morally developed than ethics or morals. This also relates to Piaget’s stages of development, which demonstrate that concrete (i.e., black and white, logical, linear, and language-based) thinking is developmentally appropriate for ages 7-11. What this suggests to us is that since the State of New York has equated laws to ethics, then the ethics are bound to law as equals, which is false according to established research (e.g., Kohlberg) and our own findings (O’Brien, 2023a). The issue with this is, what if the laws are wrong, illegal, and morally on the wrong side of history?

Figure 1.

Discussion

As we all know as educated citizens, one has to be unethical in order to be moral and that is because if ethics are equated to law, then we are developmentally and psychologically following the pre-teenagers in our culture and not the adults (O’Brien, 2023c). In order to understand implicit bias, we must understand the implicit memory system and dissociation (O’Brien, 2023a). This memory system and the dissociative process is based on what has been learned from lived experience and since lived experience informs our worldview, then our biased worldview becomes unavailable when we are not connected to our body. If there is not a connection to the body, then who are you and where do you live? The only way to obtain pure objectivity is to be dissociated, but even then, dissociation is not a final destination, but a stage in healing or energy transformation (O’Brien, 2024a). If the reader does not understand that dissociation is a phase or stage in the process of life/healing and death/abuse/trauma, then one cannot understand the importance of having an accurate definition of a word being used/sold, because they do not know what that word symbolizes and ultimately means.

Another examples of systemic scope of malpractice:

1) By the letter of the law (unless they have a medical card), any licensed professional who personally uses cannabis is acting immoral, unethical, and illegally because it is not federally legal, so therefore they are not in compliance with the moral character clause of their profession.

2) There are no trainings or education on psych medication management for LMHCs, LSWs, Psychologists, LCATs, and LMFTs; therefore, none of these licenses are legally allowed to talk to someone on psych medications because that would be out of their scope of practice.

3) If any licensed professional “treats” someone for developmental or attachment trauma, is treating anything other than substances and gambling as an addiction (e.g., sex, shopping, Internet, work…), or is treating chemical “imbalances,” they are committing fraud, which would be illegal according to current research and law. Fraud relates to false advertising as well since these are not diagnoses.

4) There is a legal category that allows for licensed professionals to be charged with being “morally unfit” by the NYS DOE despite there being no moral considerations in our ethical codes. The moral-ethical question here is: Are you curious as to their legal measures?

5) Although ketamine has been used as a treatment since 2012, they repeated the same mistake that they made in the 1960s once again by failing to attend to “set and setting” and not providing sitters or guides. Some clinics today are still administering ketamine while missing key information and lacking proper support for clients. Is it ethically moral or morally ethical to remain silent as they continue to repeat these same errors in 2024? Also, medical professionals who administer drugs like ketamine (e.g., for pain or anesthesia) and are not qualified to psychologically screen, assess, or prepare people before administering… this would be them practicing out of their “scope of practice”.

6) In 2012, the NSA (National Security Agency) was shown to be illegally spying on the American people. How are professionals and citizens supposed to take HIPAA seriously in light of that knowledge?

7) Benzodiazepines (e.g., Valium, Kolonopin, or Xanax) are chemically a pill form of alcohol, which they label as an anti-anxiety medication but alcohol is a depressant because that is what it does to the central nervous system. Is this morally-ethical?

8) The half-life of most benzodiazepines is 36 hours. Which means that if you take a pill 24 hours later, you will have half in your body. This compounds over time.

Morally Ethical Questions…

1) A licensed professional sees a client over state lines illegally. Should they morally turn themselves in?

2) Why are there no campaigns to end white collar crime?

3) Industrialized counseling services are questionable with data, according to the Federal Trade Commission: HERE Recent discussions have these type of business throttling or prioritizing certain professionals over another.

4) Many States offer free lifelong psychological services for innocent victims of crime, but with proper care PTSD is not a lifelong diagnosis; so, how can they receive services for life, if it is not a life-long diagnosis?

5) Did you know that there is a payout sum for every sexual act that someone is forced to commit? Is this morally-ethical or business?

6) Neuroscience shows that the brain is fully developed at the age of 25 but the law holds people to be an adult at 18 years old. Morally or ethical to not follow the science?

7) Professions or professionals who do not pay moral share of taxes? Legal, but is it morally ethical?

8) State funded lottery? Morally-ethical?

9) Death Penalty? Morally-ethical?

10) The USA has not legally declared war in the Congress since World War II? Morally-ethical?

11) Weapons of mass destruction from 2002 in Iraq?

12) Land Back Movement?

Relating these observations to the field of psychology and the legal minds that may read them, we must advocate for common sense to return to these addicted professions because if they cannot stop, then psychedelics may ironically be their only way out or the only treatment left. The issue with this is that “the system” who does not apply accurate definitions to the words they use, will create more problems then they know. They may be okay with this because they know they stand to profit, but is it morally-ethical to know and not address why? This is why we are educating professionals and citizens on how to use psychedelics to heal. “They” (i.e., the powers that be and the quantitative mindset) cannot provide this type of healing because they do not have it based on their actions and inactions.

From a legal Code of Ethics preamble: “The continued existence of a free and democratic society depends upon recognition of the concept that justice is based upon the rule of law grounded in respect for the dignity of the individual and the capacity of the individual through reason for enlightened self-government. Law so grounded makes justice possible, for only through such law does the dignity of the individual attain respect and protection. Without it, individual rights become subject to unrestrained power, respect for law is destroyed, and rational self-government is impossible.” 

If the laws are illegal and unjust (as well as unscientific, ungrounded, outdated, unenlightened, and privileged), as the right side of history has pointed out on the topic of psychedelics and is currently manifesting in our culture with their legalization, the legal professions’ implicit bias has been identified as the drug (e.g., power and control because there is financial, altruistic, and ambition value), which means that they are addicted (O’Brien, 2023a) to power and control (known for century as “absolute power corrupts absolutely”). Our individual sovereign rights are being subjected to unrestrained power and abuse of control because your professions’ common sense has been lost to your own greed and clinical disorder (O’Brien, 2023a). Van der Kolk, Greenberg, Boyd, & Crystal (1985) (O’Brien, 2023a) presented that people can become addicted to their trauma and drama (e.g., drauma) (O’Brien, 2023c), which means that anyone can become addicted to anything emotion and memory related (O’Brien, 2023a). This means that perfectionism, altruism, and ambition addictions stand to reason and that the DSM and our current pathology is incomplete (O’Brien, 2023c). This is what professional privilege and professional pathology looks like in our modern day age, but it really just another form of slavery (debt), oppression, and tyranny.

Conclusion

Logos comes before logic; therefore, morals come before ethics and law. In the wake of our doctoral research (O’Brien, 2023a), we offer our solutions to people who want to learn the power of healing with psychedelics and adaptive dissociation. While oversight, regulation, and laws are not inherently bad, punitive measures and justice are two different things. In the wake of our enlightened societies being given absolute power and control over us as citizens (e.g., Patriot Act, removal of religious exemption), we must call attention to such governmental oversight and overreach, particularly around the separation of church and state secured in our Constitution and Bill of Rights. What we also need now is the separation of medicine and psychology OR we need their marriage to be renewed. We need to have accurate terms for the words used before we can regulate anyone else’s choices or bodies. What we observe in the healthcare field is concerning and we want to provide an honest portrayal of our lived experience of working in an addicted field. It is impossible to calculate the damage done by those who have experienced what we have lived through as a result of moral-ethics (O’Brien, 2024d) not being legally available during the “War on Drugs”, but the reason why so much has been damaged is because ethics are equated to law because the law made laws that were constitutionally illegal.

The moral character clause matters, particularly from a population who was once seen as having a moral failing. Who has it and who doesn’t? For us, the difference between ethics and morals is action and recovery has had to capture our moment to accurately define all addictions as dissociative responses to traumatic and stressful events. The law needs to start setting a new precedent and it is time for the law to do their psychological work, not just their altruistic careers. Our psychedelic science, research, and evidence is clear enough to make the right moral decision on the legalization of all classical psychedelics without prejudice. As the scope of malpractice settles in, maybe our readers should consider a new direction or profession. Consider becoming a Healer with us.

With the recent introduction of a protocol to reduce implicit biases to decision making, we believe that it is time to start with the law, governmental policies, and practices. We need to be demanding evidence-based law, policy, and repercussions to help us combat professional pathology.

We have to wonder if they need a protocol on how to identify the primary conditions that create adverse childhood experiences because professionals all know that the circumstances would be poverty, social disparity, governmental incompetence, lacking educational system, our illegal legal system (e.g., imprisoning citizens for a disease, illegal shutdown during COVID, removing religious exemption, making safe and healing medicines illegal), Big Pharma ad selling directly to consumers (because their research has been flawed time and time again, all of which the FDA has approved [e.g., non-addictive opiates or cigarettes, mental health as a result of chemical imbalance, safe vaccines for all]), the Standard American Diet (legally allowed to be sold to the public), experimental vaccines, giving flu shots to children OR guidelines to assist in recognizing signs of abuse or maltreatment.

Common sense and common consensus mean different things to the herd running off the cliff. To conclude, let this weekend’s outdated daylight savings ritual remind us all that the government and the law cannot even follow the science, evidence, research, or common sense on something as low-risk as a time change (e.g., daylight savings).

References

O’Brien, A. (2023a). Addiction as Trauma-Related Dissociation: A Phenomenological Investigation of the Addictive State. International University of Graduate Studies. (Dissertation). Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/courses/addiction-as-dissociation-model-course/

O’Brien, A. (2023b). Memory Reconsolidation in Psychedelics Therapy. In Path of the Wounded Healer: A Dissociative-Focused Phase Model for Normative and Pathological States of Consciousness: Training Manual and Guide. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/courses/addiction-as-dissociation-model-course/

O’Brien, A. (2023c). Path of the Wounded Healer: A Dissociative-Focused Phase Model for Normative and Pathological States of Consciousness: Training Manual and Guide. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/

O’Brien, A. (2024a). Healer and Healing: The re-education of the healer and healing professions as an advocation. Re-educational and Training Manual and Guide. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/

O’Brien, A. (2024b). Diagnostic Privilege: Meta-Critical Analysis. In Healer and Healing: The re-education of the healer and the healing profession as an advocation. Re-educational and Training Manual and Guide. Appendix 2. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/courses/addiction-as-dissociation-model-course/

O’Brien, A. (2024c).  Meta-Critical Analysis: The “Science” of Pseudoscience. In Healer and Healing: The re-education of the healer and the healing profession as an advocation. Re-educational and Training Manual and Guide. Appendix 3. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/courses/addiction-as-dissociation-model-course/

O’Brien, A. (2024d). Moral-Ethics. In Healer and Healing: The re-education of the healer andhealing professions as an advocation. Re-educational and Training Manual and Guide. Chapter 14. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/

O’Brien, A. (2024e). Path of the Wounded Healers for Thrivers: Perfectionism, Altruism, and Ambition Addictions; Re-education and training manual for Abusers, Activists, Batterers, Bullies, Enablers, Killers, Narcissists, Offenders, Parents, Perpetrators, and Warriors. Re-Education and Training Manual and Guide. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/

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