Confidential topics and your child's therapist

by Trish Robinson (Subscribe to Trish Robinson's posts) Jan 31st 2008 9:30AM

Categories: Kids 8-11, Love & Sex, Divorce & Custody, Development, Education, Gadgets & Tech

Is it ethical for your child's psychologist not to tell you something to do with the other parent, even if it affects you?

My son began seeing a child psychologist when he was 8 and was diagnosed with ADHD. I was blogging on a site that is now non-existent and discussing some of the challenges I was facing as a mother. I did not know that my son's stepmother had discovered my blog and was saving all the entries and printing them out. She sent those entries to my son's therapist, who did not tell me she was actively reading my blog. I found out while sitting in the courtroom that my son's therapist had been reading my blog and had not told me.

After the trial was over, I asked her why she had not told me that they were all reading my blog. She claimed it was not her place to betray that confidence and that she had stressed to my son's father to tell me he was reading. What I did not understand was that my blog entries were causing my son's father to exhibit a lot of hostile behavior and negative feelings towards me. I was unaware of why there was constant tension, and I now feel like if I had known my entries were basically pouring gasoline on a forest fire, I would have stopped blogging.

It bothered me a great deal that this professional who was working to help my son was not telling me that she was aware of something I was doing to make the problem worse. In my opinion, she should have told me she was reading my blog and that it was causing a problem, but she felt like she was ethically unable to do so. I still disagree, because she was hired to treat my son, not his parents, so I feel like she owed no confidentiality to either one of us, only to my son. We were going to her for family counseling to try to learn to work together, cooperate, and co-parent. That was not possible when my son's father was reading the things I wrote in my blog about him and my personal feelings about the situation. I wish I had known so that I could have removed something that was making an impossible situation worse.

What do you think? Should a therapist treating your child tell you if you are doing something that might be causing problems with the other parent to the point of negatively affecting your child? Is that therapist bound by confidentiality and ethics if it is told to her by the other parent?

Comments (17)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Amanda 1-31-2008 @ 9:51AM

I have to say that I agree with you on this point, she could have made mention of it without really telling on him. but, if it bothered him so darn much then he should have been man enough to talk to you about it. And, with that said, unless you have joined the witness protection program and this is not your real name, then you can bet that he and his new wife are reading this blog too!
Good luck to you and your son.

trish 1-31-2008 @ 10:10AM

Amanda, I agree that he should have talked to me about it. My point during my custody trial was that if they were so concerned about it then why not try to discuss these issues instead of gathering evidence for a year to use against me in court? In my opinion, that showed their intention was not to do what was best for my son and it seemed like we wasted a lot of time and money on family therapy.

I do know that my son's stepmother used to follow me around the internet when I would comment on other blogs, so she has probably discovered this site. However, since I no longer face the fear of my blogging adversely affecting my son, I feel free to write online.

Adrienne B. 1-31-2008 @ 9:59AM

I'm not sure what the ethics are in that situation. Perhaps she didn't understand the effect that public blog postings about private matters can have on people and relationships? Maybe you didn't fully realize it either, at the time. Please don't think that's a condemnation because it's not. A lot of people fall into the trap of believing that when they send words out into the ether that they won't come back to haunt them. I've done it myself, to my everlasting regret. I'd say chalk it up to experience and don't make the same mistake again.

trish 1-31-2008 @ 10:14AM

Adrienne, you are right, I did not realize it at the time and I regret it very much. Blogging was new then and I never expected people I knew to be reading what I wrote (very Very VERY stupid assumption). I hate that venting online contributed to what my son went through, and I feel terribly guilty about that and will never get over it. I know now that the internet never forgets and anything you put "out there" can some day come back to haunt you.

trish 1-31-2008 @ 10:17AM

I wanted to also add that some of the stories I share about my own experiences will hopefully cause another person who might be going through a similar situation to think twice before making some of the mistakes I did. I wish someone had slapped me around a little or broken my keyboard when I was being so careless with what I said online. :-)

Joy 1-31-2008 @ 11:05AM

A few things about this are bothering me. One thing is that the step mother sure seems sneaky. To hunt you down on the Internet and then read AND print out what you were writing about and then to “send” them to the therapist. Seems a little juvenile to me. But, I know a lot of people like that. Sad but true. The second thing that bothers me is that the therapist says she stressed to his dad that he should tell the mother (you) that he was reading your blog. WHAT??? Unless I’m reading this wrong, why was she talking to the dad and not to you? I feel you both should have been informed about “some” things. It was unfair to talk to the father and step mother and leave you out in the cold when you, knowing, could have fixed it or stopped something that was bothering everyone. You can’t change what you don’t know.

Bottom line, your son was the first priority. If your blog was causing this kind of commotion, all confidences aside, your son was the most important person. Had you known, all this unpleasantness would never have occurred. Her first obligation was to your son and keep his confidences but this could have prevented a lot of the hard feelings that were being created.

EskimoPie 1-31-2008 @ 11:39AM

Uhhh... Am I missing something here? How is reading your blog sneaky or underhanded in any concievable way? I mean you are posting these thoughts on the INTERNET for the very purpose of getting random people and perfect strangers to read them. Why would you NOT expect your ex or his wife or anyone connected to you to read it?

I mean if your son had borrowed your private diary and the step mom had snuck it and was reading it then that's another matter entirely, but you're putting this stuff out for the world to read... not exactly private thoughts.

Joy 1-31-2008 @ 1:31PM

I do agree with you to a point EskimoPie. But as others have stated, this was a lot of years ago and so much has changed with the Internet. Should she have known, maybe, but sometimes you need to unload and no matter how Trish did it, she didn’t mean to and the bottom line was helping her son. Who cares about the grown ups? I’m thinking of Kyle.

Everything in hindsight is easy isn't it?

Erin - ExpectingExecutive 1-31-2008 @ 1:08PM

Oh, I am so sorry about this situation. I believe that the therapist did the entire family a disservice by not promoting healthy interpersonal communication between individual family members. I also agree that if there was some action or activity that the therapist believed was harming (physically or emotionally) the child, that behavior/action should be addressed immediately, not set on the back burner to simmer until blindsiding you during a court appearance. Unhelpful, unprofessional and unnecessary in my opinion.

You may want to check with the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapists (www.aamft.org) to review this situation with them and identify if your child's therapist followed the correct protocol.

Nancy Toby 1-31-2008 @ 12:09PM

At least I hope other people learn from this! Moral of story:

If you don't want it on the front page of the New York Times, don't type it on your computer.

SKL 1-31-2008 @ 12:50PM

At what age is your child's mental health no longer your business? Is a therapist really prohibited from telling parents of even young children anything someone else said or did? I think that is ridiculous.

And I would agree that the therapist's duty of confidentiality, if any existed, should not have extended to every person she ever spoke to with respect to the child. The person paying the bill should be the one deciding who has a right to confidentiality.

Another thing. This sounds like it was an important factor in the child's mental health. After her recommendations were ignored for a period of time, the therapist should have truly forced the issue, i.e., refused to continue therapy until the father did the right thing. Was she motivated by the money a longer therapy period would have promised? Maybe. I have seen cases of this. Though I hope nobody would intentionally mess with a child's mental health.

All that said, let's all be mindful of what we post about our kids (or ourselves) on the internet. It truly can be dangerous, hurtful, and embarrassing to our children, in addition to being potentially used as a weapon against us.

Meagan 1-31-2008 @ 1:05PM

The easiest solution would have been for the therapist to tell you SHE'd been reading your blog (which is no way betraying a confidence) and to maybe mention that some of the things you'd been writing could cause contention if other parties found them.

It's tricky though, mainly because this all happened several years ago and internet protocol, not to mention the legal status of things that appear on the internet, is changing all the time. It's hard to say how a blog ought to have been treated six years ago (is that about right?) which is like, I dunno fifty years in computer age. I can see why the therapist would have been concerned about how she was legally obligated to treat it... I think it would still be confusing today.

aprilw 1-31-2008 @ 2:04PM

"We were going to her for family counseling to try to learn to work together, cooperate, and co-parent."

Sounds like you were ALL going to her, not just your son. And this was obviously a big issue among you! She should have brought it up as a problem between you all, not just let it fly as something "she had stressed to my son's father to tell me".

Ugh, with her and that judge you were dealt a bad hand! It just makes me sad to think about.

Eva 1-31-2008 @ 3:06PM

I agree with Aprilw--you had a lot of rotten luck in this. The therapist was negligent not to deal with this issue upfront.

CLM 1-31-2008 @ 5:13PM

I'm a little confused. If the therapist was treating only your son, where is the confidentiality issue in telling you the step mother and/or the father were reading your blog? The therapist wasn't treating them. Further, isn't it a breach of ethics for the therapist to read your blog and not advise you? I know blogging was new then, but she had to know reading it was going to impact her view of you and alter her treatment of your son. Ok, let's forget ethics for a moment - how about a little common sense?

trish 1-31-2008 @ 7:15PM

CLM, you are repeating everything I said at the time, it just made no sense to me. Well, hopefully my experience will prevent this happening to another mother.

Ann Adams 2-01-2008 @ 2:55PM

It makes no sense to me either.

So why post it on your blog? Because, as you said, when we're new to this we don't know better.

When I first started commenting over here, I'd just bought the computer and I didn't know about user names. They asked for a name, I gave them mine.

Now it's out there for the entire world to see. If I had it to do over, I'd probably be more careful.

On the other hand, if someone wants badly enough to find us, they will.