Social Media and Electronic Information Policy
This section outlines the policy of Obnatus with regards to the use of social media and electronic information. If you, as a client, have questions about any aspect of this policy, please ask. The technological world is constantly changing, and policies are regularly updated. For the latest version of the policy, please visit our website.
Friending
We do not accept friend or contact requests from former or current therapy clients on social networking sites as this cannot only compromise your confidentiality but might also blur the boundary of the therapeutic relationship.
Following
We share content on an occasional basis as a business to provide general information and articles of interest which you may follow. As a therapist client, we would suggest not following your therapist’s personal account and you will not be followed by your therapist either for confidentiality or boundary reasons discussed above.
Interacting
As a therapy client, please do not use public ways of contact (e.g. @replies or #tagging) because of the potential for this to compromise your confidentiality. You may use Facebook messenger (through business and not personal pages), WhatsApp or text to discuss appointment times or other logistics but not therapeutic issues. The latter cannot be kept secure.
Use of Search Engines
We do not routinely conduct online searches of our clients but may very occasionally do so if there is an urgent/critical demand. For example, if you had failed to attend a session and we were concerned for your safety, we may use search engines as a source of information. If we did so, you would be informed about it during the next session.
Business Review Sites
You may find our company name on business review sites. Clients are free to post whatever they wish and due to confidentiality, we cannot comment on anything that is posted and is related to therapy clients. Anyone can post anything on review sites, so please be aware that any positive or negative reviews may not reflect the views of genuine clients.
Our professional bodies, the National College of Hypno-Psychotherapy (NCHP), and the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) consider the practice of publishing testimonials to be unethical. As such, no therapy testimonials will be published on our website or social media channels. We do welcome private messages from clients who have completed their therapy as useful feedback.
Location-Based Services
If you use location-based services on your phone, please be aware that others may deduce that you are a therapy client if you are locating yourself at our premises (e.g. using “checking in” features).
It is preferable to use email only for logistical contact (e.g. for appointment times and address information) due to the inherent insecurity of email. If you wish to engage in “email therapy” or share highly sensitive and confidential information, please use a password-protected word processing document to contain whatever you wish to communicate. We can set this up for you if needed.
Telephone
As above, texting may be used for contact about appointment times/address details. We will not be able to answer the phone if we are with another client, therefore, texting is preferable. Whether phoning or texting, please only do so between the hours of 9.00 am and 6.00 pm.
Ending
I would ask that you give notice to end our work together, we ask all our clients for 30 days or more. From a therapy perspective, this is to ensure we have sufficient time to respectfully and safely close any areas of exploration, and to give due attention to the ending of the therapeutic relationship.
Client’s Rights
From a therapeutic perspective, we abide by the code of ethics of the UKCP, CNHC (Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council), a copy of the codes is available to you as the client.
From a coaching perspective, we abide by the code of ethics of the Association for Coaching.