Confidentiality Policy

Building a trusting therapeutic relationship is key to therapy, so it is important that clients can feel able to trust their counsellor in order to talk freely and openly about the issues they are bringing. This means that in general, what we talk about in therapy sessions is strictly confidential and in accordance with the BACP Ethical Framework. As such ordinarily, anything we talk about in sessions, will not be disclosed to anyone for any reason.

Limits to Confidentiality

There are certain limitations to confidentiality in counselling, and there are circumstances where I may need to break confidentiality. This may be due to a legal obligation or safety / safeguarding requirement where I have an ethical obligation to disclose to the relevant authorities including as follow:

· Risk of Serious Harm:

1. Risk of serious harm to self – if you expressed intent to end your life, I may be required to contact the relevant authorities, in order to help keep you safe.

2. Risk of serious harm to others – including children or vulnerable adults, I may be required to contact the relevant authorities, in order to keep others safe.

Where possible I would work with you to let you of my intention to do this.

· Legal Limitations:

1. I have a legal obligation to make a disclosure to the police and/or other authorities if you reveal to me that you are involved in activities relating to the child protection act, human or drug trafficking, money-laundering, terrorism or if I believe you are at risk of being radicalised.

2. I would be legally obliged to release client notes under a court order / subpoena, however I would aim to notify you in these circumstances.

· Supervision:

1. All counsellors working ethically, use supervision to help ensure the best possible outcomes for their clients. As a member of the BACP I work within the BACP Ethical Framework, which requires all counsellors and psychotherapists to have regular supervision.

2. Supervision is to support me to explore and identify different ways of working with you, as well as supporting my own professional development.

3. Confidentiality applies to all supervision sessions. Your identity will not be revealed, and you would remain anonymous, identified only by your first initial or client code.

4. Should it emerge that there is a boundary issue, for example my supervisor knows you, I will make you aware of this and if necessary, seek supervision from an alternative supervisor.

Confidentiality may need to be broken for reasons of public interest in the area of public health e.g., if there is a risk in the spread of Covid 19, I may need to share your name and contact details with the NHS, if either myself or you as a client, contract Covid 19 and we have had a face-to-face session.

· Other reasons:

I may wish to use your case information to support training course requirements for my Continuing Professional Development (CPD). The use of case information for training purposes would be completely anonymous, and any recordings to support case studies, will be stored in a password protected device and destroyed immediately after use.

If there are any other concerns regarding confidentiality, I will be open, honest and discuss these with you in a timely manner.

In addition, if at any point during the counselling you needed emergency support, I may need to contact your GP or recommend alternative avenues of support other than counselling.

If I felt that there was an immediate health emergency, I would contact the emergency services by calling 999.

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