Confidentiality

Confidentiality

The information you reveal in counselling sessions will be confidential, with a few exceptions. In other words, the counsellor will not disclose anything discussed in sessions without your permission to any third party unless the following situations arise:

• If there is suspicion of child abuse or abuse of vulnerable adults
• If there is suspicion of serious and imminent risk of physically harming yourself or others
• If you reveal to counsellor that you have been sexually abused by another regulated health professional
• If the court subpoenas your records
  

The counsellor may legally share information with a third party if you direct them to do so, and you may revoke this decision at any time.

Confidentiality is limited in group therapy. Because of the number of individuals involved in group therapy, whether it is couples’ therapy or family therapy, the counsellor cannot solely control the flow of information from the group to outside of the counselling setting.

In couples and family therapy, if you or your partner decide to include individual sessions as an extension to group therapy, what you say in those individual sessions is still considered joint sessions. Please do not disclose information that you would like to be kept a secret from your partner in these sessions. Your counsellor will remind you of this policy before you begin your individual sessions.

There is also limited confidentiality when communicating electronically. Any email sent and received may be printed out, filed, and then deleted by the counsellor. If the email sent is unencrypted, it is not entirely confidential. Technically, all emails are retained by the Internet provider and can, in theory, be accessed by them.

To read more about confidentiality, please read this document What Is Confidentiality.