Informed consent for psychotherapy

The working relationship

The therapeutic relationship is personal, and it is also an agreement. This consent is the framework for that work. You can discuss any of it with your therapist. Clients confirm that they have read and agreed to it during intake.

Clinician backgrounds are on Meet the Team. Appointment, cancellation, and contact rules are in Practice Policies.

The therapeutic process

Seeking therapy is a positive step. The outcome depends largely on your willingness to take part. The process can, at times, bring considerable discomfort. Remembering unpleasant events, and becoming aware of the feelings attached to them, can bring anger, depression, anxiety, and other strong feelings.

There are no miracle cures. Your therapist cannot promise that your behavior or circumstances will change. Your therapist can promise to support you, to work to understand you and repeating patterns, and to help you clarify what you want for yourself.

Confidentiality

Session content and materials related to your treatment are confidential unless you request, in writing, that all or part of that content be released to a named person. Limits on that confidentiality are listed below. How the practice uses health information more broadly is in the Notice of Privacy Practices.

• If a client threatens or attempts suicide, or otherwise acts in a way that creates a substantial risk of serious bodily harm.
• If a client threatens serious bodily harm or death to another person.
• If the therapist has a reasonable suspicion that a client or another named person is the perpetrator, an observer, or the victim of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse of a child under 18.
• The same suspicion when an elderly person may be subjected to that abuse.
• Suspected neglect of a child or an elderly person in the situations above.
• If a court issues a legitimate subpoena for the information stated on the subpoena.
• If a client is in therapy or being treated by order of a court, or if information is obtained in order to render an expert report to an attorney.

Your therapist may consult other professionals in their areas of expertise in order to provide the best treatment. Information about you may be shared in that consultation without using your name.

If you and your therapist see each other accidentally outside the office, the therapist will not acknowledge you first. Your privacy comes first. If you acknowledge the therapist first, a brief greeting is fine. A lengthy conversation in public, or outside the office, is not.