Confidentiality is the cornerstone of good psychotherapeutic practice. At Soham, everything discussed with your therapist is confidential to that relationship, with the notable exceptions of any material, which may cause harm to yourself or others as well as anything, which involves legal situations, child protection or serious crimes.
We have a duty of confidentiality to our clients and we meet this by:
a) Protecting information about clients from unapproved access or disclosure
b) Informing clients about any reasonably foreseeable limitations of privacy or confidentiality to the best of our ability.
We follow the ethics of the British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists (BACP). As per the dictates of the BACP ethical commitment, the fundamental principles supporting our therapeutic work are:
Being trustworthy: honouring the trust placed in the therapist.
Autonomy: respect for the client’s right to be self-governing
Beneficence: a commitment to promoting the client’s wellbeing
Non-maleficence: a commitment to avoiding harm to the client
Justice: the fair and impartial treatment of all clients and the provision of adequate services
Self-respect: fostering the practitioner’s self-knowledge, integrity and care for self.
It is accepted that a practitioner may meet circumstances in which it is not possible to reconcile all the relevant principles and may have to choose which policies to prioritise. The practitioner’s duty then is to reflect on all the related conditions with as much care as possible and to be appropriately accountable for decisions made.
Clinical supervision:
Your therapist undertakes regular clinical supervision with an experienced and qualified supervisor. This means your therapist uses the services of another psychotherapist to review her work with clients, her professional development, and often her personal growth as well. This ensures the quality of the service your therapist provides. The supervision relationship is also bound by strictest confidentiality, and no identifying factors of clients are ever discussed.
All counsellors and psychotherapists, irrespective of experience and qualification, need regular supervision. Not only do most professional bodies such as the BACP require supervision, but it is also viewed as an ethical imperative.
Soham Psychotherapy 