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Re:confidentiality/ privacy of records & the least amound of info recorded
William Reid · 02/06/04 at 4:23 PM ET
"Been there" has a point that deserves some discussion. Two things come to mind. (1) Upon re-reading Kathy's post, it seems conceivable that someone from her clinic might wonder if this is her patient. Although it seems very unlikely, given the number of similar people in the generic U.S. and Canada (and maybe Kathy is from Borneo), I have, out of an abundance of caution, edited her first post and deleted the second. If you want to re-post, Kathy, please leave out any items, events, or series of events that might make the case unique OR, better, disguise everything (and let us know they're disguised).
Let's be careful out there.
(2) The patient might recognize himself/herself, perhaps by the therapist's first name (which may well not be Kathy) if he/she discovered the post, and be distressed even without any real chance that someone else would identify him/her. (Note That doesn't mean you have breached confidentiality, Kathy, and doesn't mean you were obligated to discuss it with her beforehand, so long as the identity is really obscured. But it becomes a therapy issue, a therapist-judgement issue, and perhaps one of countertransference behavior). More grist for the supervisor's mill.
Kathy, just for grins, would you email me at reidw at psychandlaw.org and tell me what information, if any, you disguised? I don't want to know the identifying data, but rather what you have changed for the purpose of posting. Thanks.
BTW, as most of you know, the reason I wrote the email address that way was to prevent its being "harvested" by spammers. I hate when that happens.
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