Graciously You Psychological Services
Social Media Policy
As a Psychologist registered with AHPRA, I have certain rules and ethical obligations when conducting myself on the Internet. This information will outline my social media policy and how you may expect me to respond to any interactions between us on the Internet, especially if you are, or have received therapy sessions with myself in person or via telehealth.
Friending/Following/Adding as a Contact
I maintain an online presence on several social media sites. I use my full name, Natasha Kiemel-Incorvaia, or Natasha Kiemel. I also use the usernames graciously.you.psych, or Graciously You Psychological Services on these sites so that it is clear it is me representing my business and myself. I do not want you to see a pseudonym and think you are following someone else only to find out later that it is me.
I don’t accept friend or contact requests either from current or former clients on any social networking site. I believe adding clients as friends or contacts on these sites can compromise your confidentiality and our respective privacy. It may also blur the boundaries of our therapeutic relationship and make it feel like a friendship, a type of patronage, or simply encourage voyeurism. If you have questions about this, please bring them up when we meet and we can talk more about it.
You are welcome to view my public Instagram and Facebook page in which I share psychological information, news and updates regarding work. There is no expectation for you as a client to follow, download or purchase resources or courses, or read information on my blog, or listen to my podcast. You may also run across my information in other settings. You may see online ads that I post, you may discover that we have friends or contacts in common on social media. You may see me quoted or published in the media or see my published writings or research.
It is at your discretion if you choose to follow my public accounts or access these resources. You are welcome to discuss any content from these sources with me by bringing it up in our sessions. Please be mindful if you use an easily recognizable name online I may happen to notice that you’ve followed me.
I will not ever knowingly follow you on social media, although it’s possible that if you use a pseudonym, I may accidentally follow you. If this happens, you are welcome to let me know when we meet. My reasons for not following current or former clients on social media are described above.
In addition, viewing your online activities without your explicit consent and without a specific clinical purpose could have potential negative effects on your treatment. I might learn things about you that you have chosen not to discuss in therapy. It is your right to choose what to share in our work. But if I see these things outside of our sessions, then I will have to figure out how to tell you I have become aware of these things. If there are things from your online life that you do want to share with me, I encourage you to bring them into our sessions where we can view and explore them together, during the therapy hour. The best way to do this is to print things out and bring them to your session or show them to me on your devices. Please don’t forward me emails or screen shots that involve other people as anything you send me does become part of your legal record.
Interacting
Please do not use SMS (mobile phone text messaging) or messaging on Social Networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Slack, Instagram, or LinkedIn to contact me. These sites are not secure and I may not read these messages in a timely fashion. Do not use Wall postings, @replies, or other means of engaging with me in public online if we have an already established client/therapist relationship. Engaging with me this way could compromise your confidentiality. It may also create the possibility that these exchanges become a part of your legal medical record and will need to be documented and archived in your chart.
If you need to contact me between sessions, the best way to do so is by phone or email at admin@graciouslyyoupsychology.com.au. I prefer that we only use email for administrative issues such as changing appointment times. See the email section below for more information regarding email interactions. I also have a blog in which may allow moderated comments. Please don’t comment on the blog as it creates another public forum in which we may be interacting. I would much prefer that if you read something on my blog and you have a reaction to it, that we talk about it together rather than having a public exchange in my comments.
Use of Search Engines
I do not search for clients on social media or using search engines. I don’t do this is because I see it as a potential breach of your privacy and the trust between us. I believe that viewing your online activities and postings can alter my impressions of you and change the relationship we are mutually developing in our meetings, as described in the section on Friending/Following. It can also create confusion in regard to whether I’m looking at your online activity as part of your treatment (for assessment or diagnostic purposes) or to satisfy my personal curiosity. If you do have online activity that you want me to know about, please talk to me about it during our work together, when we are meeting.
My Writings About Psychotherapy
I occasionally publish stories in which I may reference my clinical work. When I do so, I use broad examples regarding common themes and do not reference any specific client. I won’t be writing about your therapy.
Business Review Sites
You may find my psychology practice or business from which I sell my online courses on sites such as Yelp, Healthshare, Yahoo Local, Bing, or other places which list businesses. Some of these sites include forums in which users rate their providers and add reviews. Many of these sites comb search engines for business listings and automatically add listings regardless of whether the business has added itself to the site. If you should find my listing on any of these sites, please know that my listing is NOT a request for a testimonial, rating, or endorsement from you as my client.
The Australian Psychological Association’s Ethics Code states that it is unethical for psychologists to solicit testimonials from therapy clients: “Psychologists do not solicit testimonials from current therapy clients/patients or other persons who because of their particular circumstances are vulnerable to undue influence.”
Of course, you have a right to express yourself on any site you wish. But due to confidentiality, I cannot respond to any review on any of these sites whether it is positive or negative. I urge you to consider your own privacy if you choose to write a review on such a site. You should also be aware that if you are using these sites to communicate indirectly with me about your feelings about our work, there is a good possibility that I may never see it.
In our work, I hope that you will bring your feelings and reactions to our work directly into the therapy process. This can be an important part of therapy, even if you decide we are not a good fit. None of this is meant to keep you from sharing that you are in therapy with me wherever and with whomever you like. Confidentiality means that I cannot tell people that you are my client and my Ethics Code prohibits me from requesting testimonials. But you are more than welcome to tell anyone you wish that I’m your therapist or how you feel about the treatment I provided to you, in any forum of your choosing.
If you do choose to write something on a business review site, keep in mind that you may be sharing personally revealing information in a public forum. Please consider creating a pseudonym that is not linked to your regular email address or friend networks for your own privacy and protection.
If you feel I have done something harmful or unethical and you do not feel comfortable discussing it with me, you can always contact the Australian Board of Psychology, which oversees registration, and they will review the services I have provided. Note that if they open an investigation into my actions, and you have given your name, they may request your records to pursue the investigation.
Location-Based Services
If you have used location-based services on your mobile phone, you may wish to be aware of the privacy issues related to using these services. I do not place my practice as a check-in location on various sites such as Foursquare, Places, etc. However, if you have GPS tracking enabled on your device, it is possible that others may surmise that you are a therapy client due to regular check-ins at my office on a weekly basis. Please be aware of this risk if you are intentionally “checking in,” from my office or if you have a passive LBS app enabled on your phone. Also, if you and family members or partners use Find My Phone to track your whereabouts, and they do not know you are in therapy with me, another potential risk of them seeing your location is that they may discover you are in psychotherapy.
I prefer using email only to arrange or modify appointments. For telethehealth, I may also send you handouts. Occasionally, we each may share a link to something we discussed in-session. You should be aware that all exchanged emails become a part of your legal record and I keep a copy in your notes. All emails will be seen by our admin team who screen emails. Although we use an encrypted email account, all emails are retained in the logs of your and my Internet service providers. While it is unlikely that someone will be looking at these logs, they are, in theory, available to be read by the system administrator(s) of the Internet service provider. Typically the admin team will reply to emails within one to two days. However, emails are not checked or replied to on weekends.
Conclusion
Thank you for taking the time to review my Social Media Policy. If you have questions or concerns about any of these policies and procedures or regarding our potential interactions on the Internet, do bring them to my attention so that we can discuss them.
© Keely Kolmes, Psy.D. – Social Media Policy – 2020
Amended & Updated with permission by Natasha Kiemel-Incorvaia August 2023