The Ethics Committees of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Psychiatric Association: History, Process, Education, and Advocacy

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) are the primary organizational embodiments of the specialties of, respectively, general psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry in the United States. Professional organizations set guidelines and standards for the expected behaviors of their members. To those ends, ethics committees were established by both the APA and the AACAP. This article describes how each of these organizations, via their committees, produced codes of ethics, and continuously provide relevant educational materials and advocacy efforts. It also reviews the APA ethics committee's responsibility for the evaluation of ethical complaints lodged against members. In closing, the article examines ethical dilemmas lurking on the horizon, beginning to be faced by the specialties and thus likely to be addressed by the committees.