Confidentiality & Record Keeping in Counselling & Psychotherapy

Dr Barbara Mitchels,  is a practising psychotherapist and a Fellow of BACP. A retired solicitor, Barbara ,  combines the professions of law and therapy in CPD workshops, providing a specialist consultancy service for counselling professionals and the BACP and contributions to the BACP’s Good Practice in Action Legal Guidance series. She led the writing of the Ethical Guidelines for Research in the Counselling Professions (BACP 2018a), and other recent  publications include Children and Vulnerable Witnesses in Court: A Practice Handbook (Wiley, Simmonds and Hill 2018).Tim Bond is an Emeritus Professor of the University of Bristol and former Visiting Professor to the University of Malta. He has a longstanding commitment to researching and writing about professional ethics for the talking therapies and promoting mental well-being. He is a former consultant to the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy on professional ethics and standards. Now retired from practice he has more time to reflect on current ethical issues for counselling when not in his studio painting or undertaking moth surveys.

The book contains many vital consideration in a new online age. Even though the book focusses on British legislation the concepts are still important to consider in an Australian context.

• Part I Confidentiality and the law1. Recording confidences2. Confidentiality as a legal entitlement – the clients’ perspective3. Confidentiality as a legal responsibility – obligations of the therapistPart II Record keeping and the law4. Record keeping – basic responsibilities5. Data protection6. Information technology, telephone and online working, electronic recordings and electronic data interchange7. How long do we keep records?Part III Confidentiality and disclosures: information sharing8. Sharing information between professionals9. Sharing information in supervision and training10. Sharing information in research and auditPart IV Confidentiality and disclosures: policy, practice and procedural issues11. Developing agency policy and practice and evaluating organisational policies on confidentiality and record keeping12. Mental capacity, vulnerable adults and consent13. Children, capacity and consent14. Victims, and pre-trial therapy with vulnerable adults and children as witnessesPart V Practice dilemmas: checklists and scenarios on confidentiality and disclosures for reflection and discussion15. Responding to dilemmas – ethical and legal practiceDisclosure checklistsUseful organisations and contactsList of legal casesList of acts and rulesFurther readingGlossary