Ethics by Spiderman.

"What gives you the right to change people's lives?"

This question was posed to me (and others) in my Ethics class this morning. It's interesting because one of the answers was that psychologists have societal prestige and assumed competence. Even as graduate students in training, people often assume a lot about our abilities to assess and practice. At practicum, we often question whether we know enough or are trained enough to really be doing what we're doing (this is especially true for placements where we are doing treatment -- read: therapy -- in my program), but clients rarely question our competence.

Basically, the message boiled down to a favorite line of mine (yes, from none other than our favorite superhero - Spiderman!) "with great power comes great responsibilty." The message was not a shock, but the idea of how much power we really have as psychologists was something that really started to hit home. I've obviously considered it before, but I think that this Ethics class is going to actually make me think about a lot of things more deeply than I have before.

Let's just say this is a welcome opportunity at the moment and really couldn't have come at a better time...