Pope’s Ruling For Psychologists

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28559, 12 April 1958, Page 13

Pope’s Ruling For Psychologists

(Rec. 7 p.m.) VATICAN CITY, April 10.

The Pope today warned Roman Catholic psychologists that they may not penetrate, without a patient’s freely given consent, into the interior domain of his personality.

The Pope explained the limits .placed by the Roman Catholic Church on the methods used by psychologists when he granted audience to 600 specialists from 30 countries, attending a congress on applied psychology in Rome. The Pope said: “Just as it is unlawful to take another’s goods, or by surgical operation to affect the integrity of a patient’s body without his consent, so it is not permissible to enter against his will into his interior domain, no matter what the techniques and methods used.

“If consent has been unjustly extorted, any action by the psychologist will be unlawful. “If the consent is vitiated by a lack of freedom (because of ignorance, error or trickery), any attempt to penetrate into the depths of the patient’s soul will be immoral.”. The Pope warned against the use of truth serums or lie detectors as liable to lead a psychologist beyond the' bounds of moral law. .

He said that the aims of psychology, the scientific study of the human personality and the cure of maladies of the psyche deserved nothing but praise. But the methods used sometimes aroused justified reserves.