Confidentiality in Counselling and Psychotherapy

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Confidentiality is incredibly important in counselling and psychotherapy.  For many people, confidentiality is among the top reasons they choose to speak to a therapist. 

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Confidentiality includes the policies of GDPR but goes further than that too. In addition to not sharing your identifying information, confidentiality in therapy means that I will not share details of what you discuss in our sessions with anyone other than my personal supervisor who supports me in providing quality and ethical care for you.

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The only exception to this is if you share something that concerns me about your safety or that of others. In this case, I'd speak with you first about how you'd like to proceed. On rare occasions, I may need to break confidentiality in order to be sure you and others are safe and that I'm following the law. This is covered in our contract and in the terms and conditions in detail.

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In addition, sometimes clients ask me to share specific information about their time in counselling with others (ex: church leaders, local council, GP, solicitor, Home Office...). We will first discuss whether it is appropriate for me to share the information or if it something that I can help you to do on your own. If we agree for me to share the information, you will need to make the request in writing and we will agree together what you need communicated and what not. Depending on what information needs to be shared and the format, this may incur an additional fee (ex: court reports, legal letters, etc). 

 

I will not share notes of our session with anyone without explicit written consent from my client or a court order.

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If you have any question about confidentiality in counselling, please feel free to ask.