Can you keep a secret? When you’re in a conversation with someone in your church in your office, or chatting over coffee at Starbucks, or just passing by others after a church service, what’s your policy on confidentiality? Do you have one?
Having recently completed a counseling degree, I’ve become familiar with “Informed Consent“. You know, those papers that doctors and counselors have you sign that you barely look over. Part of the Informed Consent process is meant to explain to those with whom you work what you will and will not do when it comes to keeping secrets.
I recently came across a good blog by Tom Ascol, who pastors Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida. He writes about why and how he has started using an actual written document for people in his church to sign before they start a counseling conversation. You can see it and read it here.
Do you use a written document? I currently do not, though as an almost Board Certified Pastoral Counselor, I am considering using one. I do let people know at the start of our first session together what I will and won’t do, what the counseling relationship looks like and what my stand on confidentiality is, but I don’t have a written document as of yet.
How do you handle this?