CONFIDENTIALITY
The therapeutic process encourages you to be as open and honest as possible therefore inevitably personal experiences and sensitive information will be disclosed. The content of your sessions/emails/messages remains strictly confidential except in extreme circumstances when a legal or ethical duty to disclose arises.
These include; if there are grounds for believing that an individual may cause serious harm to themselves or others or when instructed by a court to disclose information or knowledge of criminal activity. Where possible, any breach of confidentiality will be discussed with you first.
Please also note that if your particular situation is beyond my scope of practice, I am ethically bound to refer you on to a specialist or a third party for purposes of supervision. Any information about you discussed in supervision is anonymised and will not include information that may reveal your identity. You will be required to fill out a form with your personal details upon commencement of our first session and our agreement of engagement.
Online security; the responsibility and security when communication online is shared, therefore it is essential that you maintain the privacy of you communication and that you have a private space for sessions/email exchanges where you will be undisturbed. That you are not using shared or public Wi-Fi connections for our sessions/email exchanges and that you are not storing any documents/emails in files on a shared computer where they could be accessed by others; any information that is printed should be stored securely. I will take notes during our sessions and all correspondence between us will be either kept in a locked filing cabinet or in online files with a secure password that only I will have access to. All information will be deleted in 5 years.
DISCLAIMER
Please note if you are feeling suicidal or are in a crisis situation, then online counselling is not for you. However, I would refer you to someone who can help during this time. The following information, guidelines and resources will assist you if you are in need of more immediate help.
SADAG: 011-234 4837 / 0800 70 80 90 / 0800 21 22 23
Suicide Crisis Line: 0800 567 567
Life Line: 0861 322 322 / 011-728 1347 / 012-342 2222