Confidentiality and Professional Secrecy

The therapeutic relationship is built on trust, and that trust rests on a concrete guarantee: what you share within your care will not leave that space. This is not a detail of the service, but the condition that makes the work itself possible. If you could not speak with the assurance that your privacy is protected, you would hardly be able to address what brought you to the practice.

That is why we care for what you share with the seriousness it deserves and prefer to explain to you in advance how we protect it, what scope that care has and in what exceptional cases it may yield. Knowing in advance how confidentiality works does not weaken it: it makes it firmer, because it no longer depends on a tacit assumption and becomes an explicit, shared commitment.

Professional secrecy is an ethical and legal duty of the psychologist, not a favor or a courtesy toward the patient. It obliges the professional to keep confidential everything she learns in the course of her practice, and it remains in force regardless of whether therapy continues, has been interrupted or ended long ago.

This duty rests on several sources that reinforce one another:

• The Código de Ética (Code of Ethics) of the Colegio de Psicólogos de Bolivia (Bolivian College of Psychologists), which establishes professional secrecy as one of the guiding principles of the practice of psychology.
• The ethical standards of psychology in the region, which recognize the safeguarding of patient information as a shared value of the profession across Latin America.
• The Constitución Política del Estado (the Political Constitution of the State), which recognizes the right of every person to privacy and to intimacy (Article 21) and provides for the Acción de Protección de Privacidad (Privacy Protection Action), or habeas data (Article 130), as a guarantee to learn of, object to, rectify and delete personal information.

In practice, this means that whatever you say, write or show in the context of your care is protected by a duty from which the professional cannot release herself: it yields only in the exceptional circumstances detailed later in this document.

Professional secrecy covers everything that becomes known in the context of care, whatever the form in which it was expressed. By way of guidance, it covers, among other things:

• Your reason for consultation and the reasons why you decided to seek support.
• Your personal and family history, your relationships, your life circumstances and everything you share about them.
• Your emotions, thoughts, fears and experiences, as they arise in the therapeutic space.
• The clinical impressions, working hypotheses, diagnoses and guidance developed over the course of the process.
• The very fact that you attend or have attended the practice, which is not disclosed either.

This information is not discussed with your family, your partner, your workplace or mutual acquaintances, and it does not appear anywhere that is publicly accessible. The commitment remains fully in force even after therapy has ended.

Before we begin working together, we explain to you how the process works, what professional secrecy covers and in what exceptional situations it may be lifted. We want you to decide to continue knowing precisely what each party is committing to: not through clauses hidden in small print, but through an agreement that has been discussed and understood.

That consent is the basis that authorizes us to handle your information in order to support you. It is free, express and revocable: you may ask questions at any time, request clarification and change your mind about the non-essential aspects of the process. Explaining to you from the outset both the scope and the limits of confidentiality is part of that consent, which is why we do so before we begin and not afterward.

Professional secrecy protects almost everything, almost always. There are, however, exceptional situations (recognized by professional ethics itself and by the law) in which that duty may or must yield. We explain them to you carefully and in advance, because we believe you have the right to know them before you begin and not to discover them in the middle of a difficult moment. Outside these circumstances, your information stays where it belongs: between you and your psychologist.

Serious and imminent risk to life or safety

When there is a serious and imminent danger to your own life or safety, or to that of another person, the professional acts to protect whoever is at risk. Whenever possible, we discuss it with you first, we take only the strictly necessary measures and we share only the information essential to protect the person.

Protection of children, adolescents and people in vulnerable situations

If a situation of risk, abuse or neglect of a child or an adolescent arises (or of a person who cannot defend themselves), their care takes priority, in accordance with the protection duties that the law imposes on every person and, all the more so, on health professionals.

Court order

In response to a legitimate request from a competent judicial authority, the professional responds within the framework of the law, providing exclusively what corresponds to the request and carefully safeguarding everything else.

Your own express consent

If you explicitly authorize the sharing of specific information (for example, a report for another health professional who is supporting you), we do so strictly within the limits of that authorization and for the purpose you defined.

It is worth distinguishing two kinds of information that are often confused, because they are handled in very different ways:

• Clinical information is everything that happens within the session and is reflected in the therapeutic record. It is protected by professional secrecy and by the guarantees described in this document.
• Administrative information is the minimum data needed to coordinate care: your name, your phone number and the details of an appointment. Its handling is explained in the Privacy Policy.

Clinical information is kept separate from the website’s tools. It does not reside in the contact form, in WhatsApp messaging or in the booking system. Those digital channels are administrative: they serve to coordinate care, never to replace it.

The website, the contact form and WhatsApp messaging are means intended for administrative tasks (booking an appointment, asking about available times, receiving a reminder), not for therapeutic work. By their very nature, they are less protected channels than the space of the session: they may be stored on your device, external technology providers are involved and they do not offer the same framework of protection as professional care.

That is why we ask you to take a simple but important precaution: do not share sensitive information or details of your therapeutic process through the website, the form or WhatsApp. That is what the session is for: the safe, protected space where your psychologist can support you properly. Keeping digital channels for administrative matters protects your own privacy.

To support your process properly, the psychologist keeps a record of your care. That clinical file is a working tool and is handled with special care:

• Restricted access. Only the professional in charge of your care consults it; it is not a document for internal circulation and it is not shared with third parties outside the treatment.
• Careful safekeeping. It is kept separately from administrative data and from the website’s tools, with reasonable protection measures.
• Responsible retention. It is kept for as long as necessary for the continuity of your care and to comply with the applicable professional duties, and it is then securely archived or disposed of.

The information about your process belongs to you and you have the right to know it. You may ask for an explanation of what has been recorded about your care and clarify any questions about it. This access takes place within the framework of the therapeutic work and with the support of the professional, because part of the clinical content only takes on its full meaning when it is understood in context.

Likewise, in accordance with the Acción de Protección de Privacidad (habeas data) provided for in the Constitution, you may request access, the rectification of inaccurate data and, where appropriate, the updating of the administrative information associated with your care. To do so, you may contact us through the channels indicated at the end of this document.

When we work with a child or an adolescent, the patient’s trust is as important as the support of their family. Mothers, fathers or guardians have the right to be informed about the direction of the process, but the therapeutic bond needs a space of its own to be sustained: without that space, the minor will hardly be able to open up and move forward.

That is why we share with the family what is necessary to guide and care (how the process is evolving, what guidelines may help at home, what signs deserve attention) without exposing each of the minor’s confidences. We agree on this framework from the start so that expectations are clear, always with the well-being of the child or adolescent as the priority and addressing any situation of risk immediately, in accordance with the protection duties described in the section on the limits of secrecy.

In online sessions, we protect your confidentiality with the same criteria as at the office. The psychologist works from a private space, with no third parties present, and the session is conducted with the same discretion as in-person care.

For the session to be truly private, we ask you to take some precautions on your side, which are as much a part of the treatment as the professional framework:

• Connect from a quiet, private place, where no one can hear or interrupt you.
• Use headphones if there are other people at home, to protect what you talk about.
• Where possible, use a stable connection and a trusted device, avoiding shared networks or computers.

Your peace of mind to speak freely is an essential part of therapy, and these small precautions make it possible at a distance as well.

Supervision among professionals is a recognized good practice that improves the quality of care: it allows the psychologist to think more deeply about a complex case and to review her own work with sound judgment. It is not an exception to professional secrecy, but a practice carried out under that same duty of secrecy.

When a case is discussed in supervision or within the team, those who take part are equally bound to confidentiality and, where appropriate, the case is presented in anonymized form, without data that could identify you. The purpose is always to support you better, never to expose your story.

Confidentiality does not uphold itself: it is upheld through concrete, consistent practices. To honor this commitment, the practice keeps clinical information separate from digital tools, limits access to the file to the professional in charge, keeps information for the strictly necessary periods and conducts all communication about cases (including supervision) under the same duty of confidentiality.

No safeguard is absolute, but we take on the protection of your privacy as a permanent responsibility, commensurate with the sensitivity of the information entrusted to us. If at any time you have a doubt or perceive a risk regarding your confidentiality, we ask that you let us know: addressing it is also part of our duty.