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Confidentiality & Record Keeping in Counselling & Psychotherapy
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Confidentiality & Record Keeping in Counselling & Psychotherapy

Third Edition (Updated Edition)


March 2021 | 256 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
Confidentiality and record keeping are essential aspects of everyday counselling practice. This book introduces you to the law, ethics, guidance and policy relevant to counselling records and confidentiality, using examples from practice to apply this to a wide range of counselling situations and dilemmas.

This edition is fully updated to cover recent developments in guidance, professional ethics, policy and law, including new chapters on GDPR and data protection law and online and telephone counselling practice. With an extensive glossary, checklists and useful legal and other resources, this is an essential resource for trainees and practitioners in the helping professions.

Barbara Mitchels runs Therapy Law, an online consultancy service, and is Director of the Watershed Counselling Service in Devon.

Tim Bond is Emeritus Professor at the University of Bristol and Visiting Professor to the University of Malta.
 
Part I Confidentiality and the law
 
1. Recording confidences
 
2. Confidentiality as a legal entitlement – the clients’ perspective
 
3. Confidentiality as a legal responsibility – obligations of the therapist
 
Part II Record keeping and the law
 
4. Record keeping – basic responsibilities
 
5. Data protection
 
6. Information technology, telephone and online working, electronic recordings and electronic data interchange
 
7. How long do we keep records?
 
Part III Confidentiality and disclosures: information sharing
 
8. Sharing information between professionals
 
9. Sharing information in supervision and training
 
10. Sharing information in research and audit
 
Part IV Confidentiality and disclosures: policy, practice and procedural issues
 
11. Developing agency policy and practice and evaluating organisational policies on confidentiality and record keeping
 
12. Mental capacity, vulnerable adults and consent
 
13. Children, capacity and consent
 
14. Victims, and pre-trial therapy with vulnerable adults and children as witnesses
 
Part V Practice dilemmas: checklists and scenarios on confidentiality and disclosures for reflection and discussion
 
15. Responding to dilemmas – ethical and legal practice
 
Disclosure checklists
 
Useful organisations and contacts
 
List of legal cases
 
List of acts and rules
 
Further reading
 
Glossary

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.

Mrs Annemarie Klingenberg
School of Public Health, University of Adelaide
September 23, 2021

Barbara Mitchels

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). More About Author

Tim Bond

Tim Bond is an Emeritus Professor of the University of Bristol and 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 currently a consultant to the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy on professional ethics and standards, a member of the Ethics Committee for the British Psychological Society and the Executive Council of the International Association for Counselling. He is a registered member of BACP and provides counselling supervision and training workshops. More About Author

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