handy wrote:
hairyben wrote:
...and doctors will be required to tip off police...
doesn't that breach patient-doctor confidentiality laws?
What about people visiting a shrink? Will they now be compromised in being carefull how much they say, and isn't this rather bad for someone with violent thoughts who's trying to get themselves sorted?
It's a worry. As a parent, if you later found out that the person who harmed your child had previously told a shrink that they had unnatural thoughts or feelings towards a child?
But as a patient, that confdentiality MUST exist, otherwise it:
A) undervalues the treatment for the individual
B) is likely to make serious issues unreported
Is the answer a guidelines one? If in the former case, a specific child (or very small group, such as "one of the children in my street") is mentioned, then it's referrable ... but before referring to law enforcement, there is a requirement for the healthcare professional to have a conference with a colleague (I assume a shrink can discuss a case / share case notes with another professional without breaking confidence?)
I would have thought discussion of cases is permitted and goes on so long as identities are kept quiet. No shrink has "all the answers" due to the subjective nature of the profession.
Thing is, someone having unatural feelings towards a child has, if they are there through their own will, identified they need help and sought it, and must be able to trust the shrink. It's up to the shrink to deduce how much af a threat they pose, whether therapy can contain the threat or if not, prefably the individual must turn themselves in. Of course there remains the option for the shrink to contact police if they feel it's the only option to prevent something from happening, but this must remain the last case scenario as it breaks the confidence that provided the information in the first place and could jeapadise such people from seeking help.
once again, we seek to provide simplistic guidelines where professional experience and case-by-case judgement is the only real option.