What to expect
Young people see psychologists like us for lots of different reasons. You may see us for help with things in your life that are bothering you, or you may want help with the way that you are feeling, thoughts you are thinking, or the way you are getting on with other people. Sometimes young people just have some things they’d like to talk to someone about. When we meet, I will ask you (and maybe your parents) questions, listen to you, and suggest a plan for how we can help improve the things you want to improve so that you can start feeling better. You can ask us questions too if you want. Sometimes young people prefer to do something rather than just talk, like draw, play a game, or do an activity, which is okay too. We have lots of different activities and ideas.
Young people usually bring a parent to the first appointment, at least for the start, and then later come in by themselves. It is okay if you would prefer to come in by yourself for the first appointment, but it is also okay if you want to bring your parent to other appointments too. The important thing is that you feel safe and comfortable when you see us. You won’t have to talk about anything that you don’t want to talk about.
We help young people in many different ways, depending on the young person and what they would like help with. Sometimes young people come in by themselves to see us, other times we work with young people together with their parents or other family members, and other times parents like to come in to get some ideas for themselves about how to help. Sometimes it’s a combination of all of these, plus other ideas too. After the first appointment, we will let you know our ideas about how we think we can help, and you can let us know what you think about these ideas and whether or not you’d like to try them. We will work out a plan together with you, making sure that you are comfortable with it.
Privacy of sessions
As psychologists, we must keep what you say to us private, and not share this information with any other people, including your parents, unless we have your permission to tell them. This privacy, also called confidentiality, is very important to us because it helps people feel more comfortable and have more trust in us. So, as a general rule, we will keep the information you share with us in our sessions confidential, unless we have your consent (permission) to share certain information. However, there are some important exceptions to this rule. If you are involved in a court case and a formal request (a subpoena) is made which requires us to share your information then we may have to, even without your consent. Also, if we believe that you are at serious risk of harming yourself or another person, or if someone else is harming you, then we must take steps to protect you. This means that we may have to share what you have told us with other people, such as a parent or guardian, or the relevant authorities (eg., child protection), with or without your consent. If any of these situations do come up and we must share your information, we will do our best to talk to you about who we need to share the information with, what we need to tell them, and why.
Except for in the situations we’ve mentioned above, we will not tell your parents specific things you share with us in sessions, unless we have your permission. However, sometimes it is important for your parent to know what is going on in your life. In those situations, we will encourage you to tell your parent and if you choose to we can help you find the best way to tell them. Also, depending on your age and family situation, if your parents ask to meet with us, we may describe problems in general terms, without sharing any specific information that you have told us, in order to help them know how to be more helpful to you. We would do our best to talk to you about this first to make sure that you are comfortable with this.
Sometimes it may be helpful for us to talk with other people that may be able to help with your reason for coming to see us, such as your doctor, school counselor, teacher, or other health professional. If we think that this would be helpful we would first talk to you about what information would be shared and we would only share that information if we have your permission to do so. If a doctor or other professional referred you to us, we would usually write a letter back to that person to give them feedback about the reasons you came to see us and how we are going with improving these things (a summary letter). If you or your parents are claiming rebates from Medicare then we have to provide these summary letters to the doctor who referred you to us. If this is the case, we will ask for your permission to share this information with your doctor.
If you are an adolescent or adult and decide to book an appointment with us, we will send you our consent form which describes all the rules around confidentiality and privacy in more detail. We will answer any of your questions about it and will make sure that you are comfortable with it before we start.