6.C.2
Expanding practice into new areas and technologies
ASPPB's competency statement 6.C.2: Obtain additional knowledge, training, and supervision when expanding one’s scope of practice, including the use of evolving technologies
Moving into a new population, method, setting or technology means building competence before the first case, not after it. APA Standard 2.01(c) calls for relevant education, training, supervised experience, consultation or study, and Standard 2.01(e) asks for reasonable steps even where no recognized training standards exist yet. The 2024 telepsychology guidelines add specific duties when technology is part of the expansion, and clients should know when a treatment is still developing.
Key ideas
- New areas
- Standard 2.01(c): psychologists planning to provide services, teach or conduct research involving populations, areas, techniques or technologies new to them undertake relevant education, training, supervised experience, consultation or study.
- Emerging areas
- Standard 2.01(e): where generally recognized standards for preparatory training do not yet exist, psychologists still take reasonable steps to ensure the competence of their work and to protect clients, students, research participants and others from harm.
- Consent for developing treatments
- Standard 10.01(b): when generally recognized techniques and procedures for a treatment have not been established, tell clients about its developing nature, the potential risks, alternative treatments that may be available and the voluntary nature of their participation.
- Technology duties
- The 2024 telepsychology guidelines begin with competence and end with emerging technologies, and in between address consent, data security, data disposal, documentation, interjurisdictional practice and emergencies, all relevant when a new tool or platform enters practice.
- Competent supervision
- Supervision or consultation during an expansion should come from someone competent in the new area; APA's guidelines for clinical supervision, revised in 2025, open with supervisor competence as their first domain (Domain A).
Worked example
A psychologist who has offered individual therapy by video for five years plans to start a video therapy group for parents with postpartum anxiety. She has never led a group and has not worked with perinatal clients.
- List what is new: the group format, the perinatal population and a video platform with several clients at once. Each counts as new under Standard 2.01(c).
- Build competence first: training in group therapy and in perinatal mental health, and consultation with a clinician experienced in both for the early sessions.
- Plan the technology: consent that covers privacy when others are on screen, a no-recording rule, secure settings, and an emergency plan that includes each member's location, following the telepsychology guidelines.
- At the first meeting, explain each member's role and the limits of confidentiality in a group (Standard 10.03), and confirm that members' locations fall within where she is legally able to practice.
List everything that is new, get training and consultation for each part, and plan the technology before the first session.
Check yourself
Under APA Standard 2.01(e), what is expected when no recognized training standards yet exist for a new technique?
Sources
- American Psychological Association (2017), Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, Standards 2.01(c), 2.01(e), 10.01(b) and 10.03
- Perle and colleagues (2026), A compendium for the 2024 APA Guidelines for the Practice of Telepsychology, American Psychologist 81(2), 270-282 (PMID 40875352), Abstract: the 11 guidelines, from competence of the psychologist to emerging technologies
- Grus, Falender, Goodyear, Tao and Jordan (2026), The revised American Psychological Association guidelines for clinical supervision: Rationale, revisions, and implications for practice and scholarship, Psychotherapy (PMID 42821409), Abstract: the 2025 revision's six domains, beginning with supervisor competence (Domain A)