Ethical Considerations for the Study of Potentially Harmful or Ineffective Treatments

Within the discussion of establishing empirical support for psychotherapies and interventions, there has been a growing call to better understand which treatments may be potentially harmful or ineffective through scientific validation. In doing so, evidence needs to be obtained and compiled to imply that a specific treatment is indeed ineffective or harmful. However, it is crucial to understand the ethical dilemmas associated with this endeavor before engaging in these research practices. The purpose of this article is to review some concerns to be aware of before conducting trials or applying these treatments in real-world situations. A brief history and the current state of the empirically supported treatments list will be discussed, followed by a definition of what is meant by “potentially harmful” and “ineffective” in this article. Ethical considerations will be reviewed for research involving study designs for collecting new (in vivo) data, specifically case studies, quasi-experiments, and randomized controlled trials, and for integrating previously acquired (post hoc) data, specifically data-driven systematic reviews like meta-analytic reviews, integrated data analyses, and expert consensuses.