Privacy Policy

PSYCHOTHERAPY is a confidential process designed to help you address you concerns, come to a greater understanding of yourself, and learn effective personal and interpersonal coping strategies. It involves a relationship between you and a psychotherapist who has the desire and willingness to help you achieve your individual goals. Individual therapy involves sharing sensitive, personal, and private information that may at times be difficult emotionally and psychologically. During the course of individual therapy; there may be periods of increased anxiety or perplexity. The outcome of individual therapy is often positive; however, the level of satisfaction for any individual is not predictable. You therapist is available to support you throughout the therapeutic process.

CONFIDENTIALITY:

All interactions with Thriving Minds Health Services (TMHS), including scheduling of or attendance at appointments, the content of your sessions, progress in individual therapy, and your records are confidential. No record of individual therapy is contained in any academic, educational, or job placement file. You may request in writing that a clinical staff release specific information about your individual therapy to persons you designate.

EXCEPTIONS TO CONFIDENTIALITY:

• The clinical staff works as a team. Your therapist may consult with other clinical staff to provide the best possible care. These consultations are for professional and training purpose.

• If there is evidence of clear imminent danger of harm to self and/or others, a therapist is legally required to report this information to the authorities responsible for ensuring safety.

• Nevada state law requires that staff of TMHS who learn of, or strongly suspect, physical or sexual abuse or neglect of any person under 18 years of age must report this information to county child protection services.

• A court order, issued by a judge, may require the TMHS staff to release information contained in records and/or require a therapist to testify in a court hearing.

SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY:

In order to maintain clarity regarding out use of electronic modes of communication during you treatment, TMHS have prepared the following policies. This is because the user of various types of electronic communication is common in our society, and many individuals believes this is the preferred method of communication with others, whether their relationships are social or professional. Many of these common modes of communication, however, put your privacy at risk and can be inconsistent with the law and with the standards of our profession. Consequently, this policy has been prepared to assure the security and confidentiality of your treatment and to assure that it is consistent with ethics and the law.

Email Communication

TMHS uses email communication only with you permission and only for administrative purposes unless we have made another agreement. That means that email exchanges with our office should be limited to setting and changing appointments, billing matters, and other related issues. Please do not email [or text] out psychologist about clinical matters and other related matters because this is not a secure way to contact us. If you need to discuss a clinical matter with us, please feel free to call our office so we can discuss it on the phone or wait so we can discuss it during the therapy session. The telephone or face-to-face context simply is much more secure as a mode of communication.

Email and/or text should not be used to communicate with us in an emergency situation. We make every effort to respond to emails and phone calls within 24 hours, except on weekends and holidays. In case of emergency, please call our phone line at (702) 483 - 8017. If we are not immediately available by phone, please call 911, or go to your nearest emergency room.

Text Messaging

Because text messaging is a very unsecure and impersonal mode of communication, we do not text message to nor do we respond to text messages from anyone in treatment with us. Please do not text message us unless we have made other arrangements.

Social Media

TMHS does not communicate with, or contact, any of our patients through social media platforms like, but not limited to, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. In addition, if we discover that we have accidentally established an online relationship with you, we will cancel that relationship. This is because these types of causal social contacts can create significate privacy risks for you. We participate on various social networks, but not in our professional capacity. If you have an online presence, there is a possibility that you may encounter us by accident. If that occurs, please discuss it with the psychologist during the therapy session. We believe that any communications with patients online have high potential to compromise the professional relationship. In addition, please do not try to contact us in this way. We will not respond and will terminate any online contact co matter how accidental.

Website

TMHS has a website that you are free to access. We use it for professional reasons to provide information to others about our practice. You are welcome to access and review the information that we have on our website and, if you have questions about it, we should discuss this during a therapy session.

Web Searches

TMHS will not use web searches to gather information about you without your information without your permission. We believe that this violates your privacy rights; however, we understand that you might choose to gather information about us in this way. There is an incredible amount of information available about individuals on the internet, much of which may actually be knoen to that person and some of which may be inaccurate or unknown. If you encounter any information about us through web searches, or in any other fashion, please discuss this with us during session time together so that we can deal with it and its potential impact on you treatment.

Recently it has become common for patients to review their health care provider on various websites. However, mental health professionals cannot respond to such comments because of confidentiality restrictions. It is also generally preferable for patients to discuss their concerns directly with their health care provider. If you have concerns or questions about any aspect of our work together or about any previously posted reviews of out practice, please let us know, so we can discuss them. We recommend that you do not rate our work with you on any website for several reasons. If you rate out work on a website while you are in treatment with us, it has the potential to affect the therapeutic relationship. If you choose to post an online review about our or another health care provider either while you are in treatment or afterwards, please keep in mind that you may reveal confidential information about your treatment.

Thank you for keeping this policy in mind and for letting us know of any concerns. (Oregon Board of Psychology, 2018)