Confidentiality is a cornerstone of the counseling process. Confidentiality refers to the ethical principle that compels mental health professionals to hold secret all information about a client and to keep private any information revealed by a client in confidence. This holds true unless the client consents to disclose the information to a third party or the law authorizes the release of information without the client's consent. Confidentiality is the keystone of effective counseling and psychotherapy because it allows clients to freely share their thoughts and experiences without fear of unwarranted disclosure to others. Ethical standards dictate that a client is able to seek mental health services and disclose information without public knowledge of those activities. Such standards often work in cooperation with legal statutes, which help prevent mental health professionals from having to reveal material disclosed in therapy to the justice system.
TopThe Concept Of Confidentiality
As a mental health professional, maintaining confidentiality with clients is a crucial responsibility and a fundamental aspect of work. The issue of professional secrecy can be a moral dilemma that often arises in the field of helping and therapeutic work. Each interaction with someone seeking help carries ethical and moral significance, making it necessary to safeguard certain information while respecting the client's privacy. It is a duty to ensure that clients' information remains confidential and secure.
In the past, mental illness was often stigmatized and misunderstood, leading to harmful practices such as chaining individuals into insane asylums. However, with the introduction of the concept of mental health in the 19th century and the deinstitutionalization of mentally ill individuals in the 1960s, confidentiality became crucial. Clients needed assurance that their treatment and progress would remain private. As mental health has evolved throughout the 20th century, confidentiality has become essential to psychological work.
The importance of confidentiality between mental health professionals and their clients is rooted in the social belief that everyone has the right to control the information shared about themselves. It is a moral obligation for professionals to honor their clients' privacy and protect any information disclosed during therapy sessions. Furthermore, a legal concept called privileged communication ensures that clients' confidential information cannot be disclosed without their consent, even in court. The law recognizes only a few relationships as privileged, including the attorney-client, clergy-penitent, and spouse-spouse relationships.
Confidentiality is a crucial aspect of psychological work, along with anonymity and secrecy, which are introduced to safeguard the processed information. When complete anonymity is applied, the confidentiality principle is automatically enforced, as the professional does not possess any of the client's data. As a professional, upholding the ethical standard of confidentiality is crucial. Any information obtained through confidential communication with a client cannot be disclosed. However, there may be rare instances where breaching confidentiality is necessary, such as situations where serious harm may be caused to others.
Confidentiality is crucial in the mental health profession because the public trusts professionals to provide professional services while keeping personal information private. Although most people believe that mental health professionals keep all information confidential, they are obligated to break confidentiality if there is a clear and imminent risk to the client or others.
This duty was profiled by the Tarasoff case (1974) in California. Mental health professionals understood that there were limits to the confidentiality agreements with their clients and that they had a duty to warn their clients who had threatened them with a credible, serious threat. In the 1974 Tarasoff case, a young man revealed his intention to murder his fiancée to his therapist. The therapist notified campus police, who detained and questioned the teen. The young man's vow to remain away from his fiancée resulted in his immediate release from custody. However, he did not return for additional counseling. This young man fatally wounded his fiancée two months later. Following the murder, the girlfriend's parents sued the therapist, and the Supreme Court of California ruled that the therapist had an obligation to notify the girlfriend or her parents of the danger his client had posed (Siegel, 1979).