Is it okay to “Google” your client?
DeeAnna Merz Nagel
So, let’s talk about this. I read an article recently: Internet Social Media Present New Quandaries for Psychiatrists published May 15th in the Psychiatric Times (http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/conference-reports/apa2009/display/article/10168/1414489). Since then, I have had a couple of provocative discussions with workshop participants. This article is geared toward psychiatrists, but clearly this is an issue that can crop up in our profession as well.
So, what do you think? I am thinking, “No.” There are exceptions. For example, I might help a client understand his or her online presence and what others could know and see by “googling” the client’s name during a therapy session. We could process the information that comes up and it may lead to a deeper understanding for the client. But to just google my clients as a matter of course, well that seems invasive. And even if a client encourages me to google what do I do with all of that information? The lines get blurred, boundaries get fuzzy and to put it simply, I enter into the client’s private world, as public as that world may be.
Your client may have a blog. You may stumble upon it or your client may email the blog link to you. Do you read it? Do you follow the client’s blog posts? Again, what do you do with all of that information about your client’s life? The information is, after all, in the public domain. One might say it would be akin to reading a client’s published autobiography. Is that okay to do? If your client announces that his or her memoirs have just been published, do you log on to Amazon and order the book?
These are but a few of the many questions that are raised as we maneuver this Web 2.0 world. Even counselors with the strictest boundaries may find themselves faced with this or a similar dilemma because our clients are bringing technology, both literally and figuratively into the consultation room. I would love to hear thoughts and experiences from you.
DeeAnna Merz Nagel is a clinical counselor, teacher, workshop presenter, sat on the ACA Cyber Technology Taskforce, and is co-founder of the Online Therapy Institute.
At the training workshops I give, this again often comes up as a dilemma that hadn’t occurred to delegates. The general consensus from them is that Googling your client outside of the session (in other words, not within a contracted relationship which has agreed on this being acceptable practice) is tantamount to following your client home post-session and peering through their living room windows.
Hope that is of interest!
Kate
These questions have been coming up frequently with trainees and colleagues with whom I consult. I believe that if you are a therapist who is using Google to obtain additional information about your clients, then this needs to be formally integrated into informed consent and become an explicit part of your treatment agreement.
Googling clients or reading their blogs without their awareness is a subtle way of entering into a multiple role with them. The APA Ethics Code cautions us against entering into multiple relationships which can impair our objectivity, competence, and effectiveness in our primary role as psychologists. While it may not seem obvious on the surface, consider how doing these things invites us to be voyeurs, investigators, or audiences to our clients outside of their sessions with us.
In my work with clients, I obtain consent when I’m going to share (or collect) information from a third party. As I recently shared in a Twitter conversation on this topic, I think that the internet is now becoming a sort of third party, with additional client data becoming so easily accessible.
I like Kate Anthony’s comment above about Googling clients being like following them home. The example I often give is that of donning a disguise and following them to a bar where you can secretly observe their behavior. It is one matter if a client invites you to view their online content and it becomes integrated into the clinical conversation in some way. But it is an entirely different matter if we do this on our own, without the client’s awareness. I expect that these types of boundary issues on the internet will soon be addressed by ethics codes.
I can tell you of one situation recently where checking the accuracy of what a client was telling the treatment team became an issue of safety. The client had no collateral sources of information mainly because of a recent transient lifestyle.
The person was reporting she had been involved in a newsworthy event and there were many reasons to doubt her story. The treatment team was considering medication for delusional thinking and evaluating her ability to care for her children. Her story was verified and the idea of a neuroleptic was dropped.
There was other information, but I ignored anything that didn’t relate to my question and can’t tell you what was there.
I think it’s important to get the permission of the client in advance of what was intended, maybe even do the search in their presence. The information is public. I think ethics committees need to think hard about forbidding MH professionals from access information available to everyone else. However, guidelines would be helpful.
I can imagine other circumstances where a history of criminal convictions might be a critical part of an assessment or determining the nature and extent of a history of domestic or child abuse might directly affect decisions involving the safety of family members. We don’t hesitate to obtain a release to access medical information, why not civil and criminal information on the internet?
Perhaps not quite the same, but there are times where internet verification of information is important for other reasons. I have googled the housemate of a client who had heard a rumor he might be a sex offender. He was and my client arranged other housing. I have googled historical event referred to in a veteran’s story of traumatic military encounter and determined his story was not accurate and it started an assessment of malingering.
Next time we find a compelling need for collaborating information involving the safety of clients or others and can’t find other sources, I’m sure we will discuss the option of a Google search again.
Hi Dave- You bring up two potentially valid uses for engaging in a google search of a client- One reason may be health, welfare and safety and the other may be in the case of forensic work. For instance, when I conducted domestic violence evaluations on mandated clients I would conduct a 911 check which does not require consent and is public record. I would, however, inform the client of all of the collateral sources of information. Thank you for sharing!
DeeAnna
I like this concept. It’s a good question to pose.
Now, if you’re in a different line of business, I say “google away!”
But with something as important as this, I think keeping it on a very personal level would help better with the relationship and counseling.