Safeguarding Your Privacy as a Mental Health Professional

It’s every therapist’s nightmare: opening the door of your home to find a client standing on your doorstep. In Rebecca’s case, it was not just any client - this was a woman that had raised the young Psychologist’s internal alarms since day one. As they worked together, Rebecca had struggled to keep her client at arm's length and maintain strong boundaries. The client asked about her personal life, desperately sought her attention outside of their sessions, and expressed romantic interest in her. Finally, Rebecca had taken the difficult step of referring her to someone else. She thought that was the end of it. Almost two years from the day of the end of their therapeutic relationship, the former client showed up at her house. It wasn’t pretty; in the end, Rebecca was forced to file a restraining order to protect herself. (Rebecca’s name has been changed to protect her identity).

Stories like this are not uncommon. The nature of our field requires that we work with people who may have issues with boundaries, dependence, emotional regulation, or self-control. Not only that, we must develop a relationship with them that is like no other. Every therapist is familiar with the balancing act of fostering a deep level of trust and familiarity while maintaining appropriate professional boundaries. Unfortunately, sometimes our clients can test those boundaries. And sometimes, like in Rebecca’s case, they can blast right through them like a wrecking ball.

It’s important that you take preventative steps to protect yourself in case of clients like this. A client falling in love with you is at the mild end of the spectrum - imagine an angry spouse who blames you for their partner’s decision to leave the relationship. Would you want that person to show up at your home? Safeguarding your privacy is an essential step to keeping yourself and your family safe.

You would be horrified to learn how much information there is about you online. Obviously, some of this has been created by you on social media. If you haven’t done your research and locked down your social media profiles, your clients could be tracking your location, observing your hobbies, and looking at pictures of your kids. If you have done your best to minimize your social media footprint, you would still be surprised to see how much information someone can find about you on those platforms. The rules change without notice, so you need to keep up to date on the best ways to keep your personal life safe on social media. 

The truly scary part is that there are over 40 popular data broker websites that can reveal your age, address, phone number, relatives, court records, financial records, employment history, and more. There is more information about you out there than you can imagine, and all of it can be had by anyone for a price. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent to the national “do not call” list for these data broker sites - you cannot stop them all from gathering information on you. But there are steps you can take to remove yourself from as many of them as possible. You can also pay subscription services to help you get off of these sites and to monitor them for more information about you.

Shockingly, there is no law preventing your internet service provider (ISP) from storing and selling your browsing activity and location. There was one, but congress repealed it in 2017. At that time, all major ISPs denied selling or sharing their users' browsing histories and other sensitive information. But since then, it has been discovered that T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T were selling their mobile customers' location information to data brokers despite promising not to do so. And even if they just use this information for marketing purposes, the prevalence of data breaches proves that you can’t guarantee that your information is safe with anyone.

Fortunately, there are steps you can take to make your personal information harder to mine in the first place. You can eliminate tracking of your browsing activities. You can mask your email address and credit cards. There are free and paid services that can protect your personal information and keep watch for breaches of your privacy.

As a therapist, it’s definitely worth taking some steps to minimize your online footprint and the amount of information available about you. Doing this will protect you and your family and help separate your professional life from your private one. Failing to do so could result in anything from minor annoyances like your clients getting a hold of your personal phone number, to major problems like a person who intends you harm showing up at your door. Don’t wait to take this essential safety measure - start safeguarding your privacy before it’s too late!