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Government
and insurance regulations vary, but providers and
practitioners are generally required to maintain patient/client
records for seven years, after which they may be destroyed.
A
hallmark of professional practice in personal service
is “The Confidentiality Ethic”.
The ethic of confidentiality provides you, the client,
with a level of privacy and safety that supports positive
change in your life and work with your therapist,
counsellor, or other alternative / complementary practitioner.
What you share with us, is safe with us.
The
Code of Ethics confidentiality principle for APPLIED
AROMATHERAPY is this:
Therapists and counsellors must keep confidential
all information about clients obtained in the course
of treatment and counselling service. They are responsible
for informing clients of any legal limits to confidentiality
prior to obtaining personal information or providing
service. Personal information is shared with others
only with the client's written consent or, in rare
circumstances, where there is clear and imminent danger
to the individual or other persons.
Counsellors,
therapists, and many other personal service providers
are required by law to report to authorities when
they have reason to believe that a client presents
a serious danger to self or another. The same legal
requirement holds when a minor child and, in some
jurisdictions, a senior person, is being abused or
may be abused. For that reason, it is fair, respectful,
and very important that your practitioners inform
you of the legal limits to confidentiality before
obtaining any personal information from you or providing
you with service.
You
may find that some practitioners hesitate, or simply
forget, to outline the legal limits to confidentiality.
Some feel that speaking of such limits will raise
your “caution quotient,” making you less likely to
open up and share your concerns. Fortunately, that
usually does not happen. In fact, informing you in
a clear, straightforward fashion of the legal limits
to confidentiality is more likely to have a paradoxical
or opposite effect. It will impress you positively
and make you feel more safe. When practitioners outline
the limits to privacy, you know that they value safety
above all and they will not knowingly allow harm to
you or anyone else if they can prevent it.
Client
confidentiality guarantees that your secrets are safe...
as long as they pose no clear and present danger to
yourself or others. But when they do pose a serious
danger, to yourself or to someone else, your secret
is no longer a secret.
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