Confidentiality and Privacy Policy
The process of psychotherapy requires a significant commitment from the client as well as the therapist. The decision to come to therapy requires some courage as it may result in the emergence of difficult feelings in the process of making sense of the issues that bring you to therapy. Close relationships may also be affected by the changes occurring in the therapy, and this may cause some distress to those near and dear. Psychotherapy is an evidence-based treatment that has been demonstrated to be helpful in the alleviation of psychological distress.
Informed Consent
Granting informed consent to participate in any kind of psychotherapy is a legal and ethical requirement. Ensuring that you understand that the therapy is confidential, as well as the circumstances under which confidentiality can be broken, is an important part of the therapy relationship. For psychotherapy to be most effective, it must be an entirely voluntary decision. The client has the freedom to stop coming to therapy at any time, and the psychotherapist has the responsibility to ensure the client receives the care that he or she needs.
My responsibility, as the therapist, is to ensure confidentiality, manage risks effectively, undertake an assessment so as to decide with you on a treatment plan, provide ethical, professional and scientifically informed psychotherapy, refer appropriately for management of matters that are out of my scope of practice, maintain good record keeping and provide sufficient and understandable information in order for you to give informed consent for treatment.
For online psychotherapy, being informed about possible interruptions of the session due to poor connection, load-shedding and hardware and software malfunctions, is important. Some basic competencies are needed to use the relevant hardware and software for online therapy, as is a good quality internet connection. An assessment of the client’s technology skills is undertaken in the assessment phase of therapy, to ensure that should the option of online therapy be utilised, the client is able to do so effectively.
The Protection of Personal information Act (POPIA) came into effect on 1 July 2021. This act requires me to ensure I collect personal data only for the purposes of providing psychological services and that I store this data safely, ensure confidentiality during electronic transmission and ensure that personal data is destroyed after the period prescribed by the Health Professions Council of South Africa.