Is Jordan Peterson’s Right to Free Speech Actually Being Threatened?
A Canadian Psychologist’s Attempt to Add Clarity and Context
Since January, 2023, following revelations from Dr. Jordan Peterson that the College of Psychologists of Ontario (CPO) were demanding he take a media training course, there’s been public discussion on the issue of free speech for regulated health professionals. That discussion has occurred on social media platforms, blogs, and in the mainstream press.
A recent opinion piece in the National Post, as part of recent coverage of the court hearings on the Peterson v. CPO case, offered the following point of view:
“Professionals are entitled to private lives. A professional regulator, whether it be of psychologists, nurses, physicians, accountants or teachers, should not police its members’ political opinions.” — Christine Van Geyn
This particular idea — that regulatory bodies cannot and should not police the personal opinions of its members — is perhaps the one that is most commonly referenced among defenders of Peterson, based on my own perusal of various social and mainstream media commentary.
It’s not surprising that anyone would feel compelled to defend the right of freedom of speech given its importance in a democracy. The only problem is that the CPO is — as far as I can tell — not trying to police private opinion.
The goal of this article is provide relevant context and information on this debate from the view of a fellow psychologist holding a license in the province of Ontario. My goal is not to defend the CPO nor demonize Dr. Peterson.
It’s simply to explain the regulations and ethics of the profession in a manner that might provide a lens through which the public and the media might interpret the decisions of the CPO, and perhaps even other health regulatory bodies.
First, Some History and Context
All Canadian psychologists must adhere to laws (ex: provincial laws on reporting child abuse), standards of practice (ex: CPO Standards of Professional Conduct) and ethical principals (all psychologists must follow the Canadian Psychological Association [CPA] Code of Ethics) that are specific to the practice of psychology in their jurisdiction.
There were no codes of ethics to guide psychologists’ work until the 1950s when the American Psychological Association (APA) published their code of ethics, which was adopted by Canadian psychologists until the 1980s when our own code was finally completed in 1986. Generally speaking, the purpose of these codes of ethics are to protect psychologists, patients, researchers, students, study volunteers, animal subjects, the profession, and society at large. It’s important to point out this broad function of protection because some online commentators seem to hold the opinion that ethics only apply to simple psychologist-patient interactions.
The CPA code of ethics is explicit with regard to its inclusion of a social contract, as outlined in the following:
“Every discipline that has relatively autonomous control over its entry requirements, training, development of knowledge, standards, methods and practices does so only within the context of a contract with the society in which it functions. This social contract is based on attitudes of mutual respect and trust, with society granting support for the autonomy of a discipline in exchange for a commitment by the discipline to do everything it can to assure that its members act ethically in conducting the affairs of the discipline within society; in particular, a commitment to try to assure that each member will place the welfare of the society and individual members of that society above the welfare of the discipline and its own members.”
Two important take aways from this explicit attempt at a social contract are (1) that the profession of psychology in Canada takes seriously the impact of its functions on society in general (ie, this goes beyond simple doctor-patient relationships), and (2) when there are conflicting interests in the course of practicing psychology, more weight should be given to members of society than the licensed members of the profession. I believe this can be summed up simply as the expectation that the profession should always aim to provide a net benefit in return for the privilege of being able to autonomously operate.
Some ethical standards that reflect the need for psychologists to be mindful of their behaviour with more general members of society include (from the CPA code of ethics):
Principle 1.2: [psychologists should] not engage publicly (e.g., in public statements, presentations, research reports, with primary clients or other contacts) in degrading comments about others, including demeaning jokes based on such characteristics as culture, nationality, ethnicity, colour, race, religion, sex, gender, or sexual orientation).
Principle 1.3: Strive to use language that conveys respect for the dignity of persons and peoples as much as possible in all spoken, written, electronic, or printed communication.
It should be mentioned that the application of ethics in psychology is not always straightforward and can be quite complex given the fact that multiple ethical principals, standards and laws could be in conflict in any given scenario. For example, imagine you’re a psychologist treating a depressed patient who is working hard to reach sobriety, but their occasional relapses lead to negligent parenting. Should child protection services be notified?
Here we have the needs of children, the patient and even society to consider, such that prioritizing the needs of the children (ex: having them removed from the home until the patient is completely recovered) could cause harm to the patient (ex: they quit therapy and keep drinking to manage the loss), which leaves everyone (society included) perhaps worse off than if an alternative option were pursued.
The main point is that professional decision making can be quite complex and requires an understanding of the relevant laws/standards/principles, the parties to be affected, the various consequences to consider, and an appreciation of how alternative actions can help mitigate ethical conflict (we’ll return to this point later).
When Are You A Professional?
A reasonable question to ask in general, and certainly with regard to the case of Dr. Peterson is “must psychologists follow the code all the time — even in their private lives?”
That is certainly not an expectation of the CPA code of ethics, as it clearly states “The Code is intended to guide and regulate only those activities a psychologist engages in by virtue of being a psychologist.” The personal behaviour of a psychologist only becomes a concern to the profession “if it is of such a nature that it undermines public trust in the discipline as a whole or if it raises questions about the psychologist’s ability to carry out appropriately his/her responsibilities as a psychologist.”
This latter section could be abused by a regulatory body if they were to make exaggerated claims of harm to the profession based on the private actions of an individual. This is certainly something that professional bodies like CPO, its members and the public at large should be critically mindful of because it would be indefensible to allow the private political biases of an ethics/disciplinary committee, for example, to result in punishment of members for actions that most would agree should fall outside the purview of the profession. For example, most would agree that punishing a psychologist for voting for a particular political party would be an overreach of authority, to say the least.
However, the need for a provision that allows an ethics committee to judge and punish the private behaviour of members is still required because there are instances where it would be germane to the profession.
For example, imagine if a psychologist maintained a blog that argued for the racial inferiority of Jews while working at a Jewish Medical Center? Or what if a child psychologist is arrested for having child pornography on their home computer? These are instances where the private actions of the member should be considered by a disciplinary committee because it’s reasonable to infer that their private behaviour could have harm implications in their professional life.
Nevertheless, the code of ethics is going to mostly pertain to situations where psychologists are acting in a professional capacity. But what counts as acting in a professional capacity?
While it is often obvious (ex: treating a patient; lecturing; writing a book), there are situations that are certainly less obvious. For example, imagine being at a neighbourhood party where everyone is socializing and having some drinks. Your neighbour knows you work as a psychologist and they’re telling you about some behavioural problems with their child. You respond with “sounds a bit like ADHD.”
Is this a situation where your comment should be considered an educated guess (the equivalent of any other neighbour and therefore not considered a professional opinion) or have you communicated a professional opinion — perhaps even a diagnosis? There is ambiguity here. Things can become even murkier in the realm of social media.
When a health professional is active on Twitter and they (a) list their professional title in their bio and (b) communicate opinions publicly, are they acting in a professional capacity? If so, does the CPA code of ethics and other laws and standards apply? These are important questions for a few reasons, not the least of which is the fact that information takes on very different meaning depending on who is doing the communicating.
For example, imagine you read the following opinions on Twitter:
- “I’d never eat raw fish.”
- “I’d never allow my children to be vaccinated.”
- “Statins are useless.”
If the Twitter bio states that the user is a licensed physician, there may be very different and possibly significant consequences of expressing such opinions than if the user were an electrician for the obvious reason that readers will likely make different interpretations of such comments depending on their source.
I think it’s fair to say that one of the lessons of the COVID pandemic is that medical professionals (among others) offering opinions on Twitter can have profound effects on society, causing anxiety, anger and confusion among the general public. Social media is a powerful medium that can quickly sow uncertainty, at best, and actual harm, at worst, when health professionals are careless or incompetent with the information presented on platforms like Twitter.
The examples above are more medically related, but their counterparts in other health professions such as psychology exist as well. Endorsing an empirically unsupported treatment (ex: primal scream therapy for PTSD) or offering an untrue opinion that could have serious mental health implications (ex: stating there are no good treatments for OCD and so sufferers just have to bear it) are some obvious examples.
The point being made here is that if you (a) identify yourself as a health professional and (b) communicate an opinion to others, there is a risk of harm. And when there is a risk of harm from the actions of a regulated health professional, it’s probably a good idea to have such behaviour regulated. So yes, when one identifies as a health professional to the public and then communicates to them, it’s reasonable to refer this as operating in a professional capacity.
The alternative option of treating the social media realm as the equivalent of international waters, in terms of there being a lack of law and law enforcement, would allow psychologists to act in ways that could harm the public with impunity, which runs directly counter to the social contract at the heart of our code of ethics.
Another way to frame this issue is to note that it should be irrelevant whether harm caused by a self-identified professional occurs to a patient or a stranger online — is the act of professionalism, and the associated potential benefit of reduced harm, only worthwhile for paying customers? As such, it should be obvious to most readers why regulating the social media behaviour of licensed health professionals is necessary, not only for the protection of the public, but also to help maintain public trust in these health professions.
What About Bad Manners and Freedom of Speech?
The examples discussed thus far have mostly fallen in the realm of giving advice or offering professional opinions online. This was done to make some important points about professionalism and social media behaviour in general.
More relevant to the Dr. Peterson case are situations where a professional identifies themselves as such and behaves in ways that could be deemed rude or offensive. Again, I’m less interested in offering specific opinions on the examples from the Dr. Peterson case and more interested in broadly discussing this issue and relevant factors that must be born in mind to properly understand the function and position of a regulatory body like the CPO.
So, should self-identified psychologists on social media have their speech regulated with regard to things like respect and professionalism? Let’s start by addressing this question with another question — what is the steel man argument in favour of letting psychologists’ act disrespectfully and unprofessionally? I find it difficult to imagine anything of substance to be said here outside of an appeal to free speech.
Indeed, it’s at this point that we should probably return to where this article started, with the claim made by many commentators that psychologists should maintain their right to free speech while communicating online. The problem here — as far as I can tell — is that there is no restriction being placed on freedom of speech. If Dr. Peterson or any other psychologist wants to express skepticism or even criticism of gender affirming surgery, the ruling government, or anything else, who’s stopping them?
In terms of our code of ethics, the central issue here is not the personal beliefs of psychologists, but how those beliefs are communicated to the general public. If one wanted to express concern or criticism of gender affirming surgery is there any possible way of communicating this opinion in a professional manner?
How about - “I have concerns about how these surgeries might affect the youth having them”? Expressing such an opinion might result in backlash from others, but I’ve not seen evidence that the CPO is trying to repress speech of this kind. They seem more concerned with psychologists violating the first Principle in the code of ethics — have respect for the Dignity of Persons and Peoples, whether those persons be a patient in your office or members of the general public to whom you’re communicating.
The other aspect of using offensive and disrespectful language is that it can genuinely cause emotional harm. I appreciate the fact that there is much hand wringing these days over people being ultra sensitive and easily offended, and how such qualities can be problematic. I agree. But the solution is not to discard completely the idea that words will never hurt people. I’ve been a practicing psychologist now for close to 15 years and work regularly with military veterans suffering from PTSD. The same men and women who engaged in and witnessed horrific violence on tours and can describe these experiences without being overwhelmed with emotion, are the same individuals who will break down in tears because of something their spouse or child said to them.
Words can hurt. Badly. I would speculate that most people could brush off and easily recover from a psychologist on Twitter calling them a “narcissist” or “crazy asshole”* or whatever, but there is a subgroup of people who would probably struggle with these comments. They may carry additional weight and significance for reasons that are deeply idiosyncratic and personal. If such harm could be avoided with respectful language, why do anything else?
The other option for those psychologists not wanting to treat others with respect and conduct themselves professionally in public interactions would be to simply not identify themselves as psychologists. If one were so adamant in maintaining a strict conflict between the ethical demands of the CPA code versus the need to uncompromisingly express oneself, then simply removing the title of psychologist from your bio would suffice.
So to recap, psychologists wanting to communicate online in a manner that doesn’t get them in trouble with their regulatory body and allows them to maintain free speech have multiple options to consider, including the radical path of using respectful language.
Not exactly the equivalent of living under an authoritarian regime.
