To determine the likely adjudication of the Ethics Committee in this scenario, we need to consider the ethical standards related to confidentiality and informed consent in psychological practice. 1. **Understanding Confidentiality in Therapy**: - Confidentiality is a fundamental ethical principle in psychology. It ensures that information shared by a client in therapy is kept private and is not disclosed without the client's consent, except in specific situations. 2. **Limits of Confidentiality**: - There are recognized limits to confidentiality, including when information must be shared for billing purposes with insurance companies. However, these limits should be clearly communicated to the client before therapy begins. 3. **Informed Consent**: - Informed consent is an ethical and legal requirement in therapy. It involves informing the client about the nature of the therapy, including any potential risks, benefits, and the limits of confidentiality. Clients should be aware that using insurance for therapy may involve sharing certain information with the insurance company. 4. **Psychologist's Responsibility**: - The psychologist is responsible for ensuring that the client understands these limits and should not assume that the client "must understand" the protocol. This understanding should be part of the informed consent process. 5. **Ethics Committee's Likely Adjudication**: - Given these considerations, the Ethics Committee is likely to determine that the psychologist violated the confidentiality ethical standard by not informing the client of the limits of confidentiality prior to treatment. The psychologist's assumption that the client understood these limits without explicitly discussing them does not fulfill the ethical obligation of informed consent. In summary, the Ethics Committee is likely to conclude that the psychologist should have explicitly informed the client about the limits of confidentiality related to insurance reimbursement before starting therapy. This would align with the ethical standards of informed consent and confidentiality in psychological practice.