Chapter twelve – Careers and Ethical Issues in the Traumatic Stress Field

Publisher Summary There are several career paths within the traumatic stress field, including ones that are primarily focused on clinical service or developing and administering clinical services as well as ones that are more oriented toward research or teaching—and combinations of all of the above. For the sake of illustration, this chapter presents five general career paths, using the careers of actual clinicians, scientists, educators and program administrators in the traumatic stress field to show how each path actually has been taken and the contributions that can be made by taking that path. Following the description of career paths, the chapter concludes with a discussion of the core ethical (value) issues that confront traumatic stress professionals on all of these career paths.