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.

DeeAnna

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.

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.

Hope that is of interest!

Kate