Okay, I am one of these "shrinks" that you're talking about. Specifically, I am a licensed mental health professional with the authority to place someone on the 72 hour hold.
Thank you for responding. My question is serious. Do you extend a 100% money back guarantee if a "customer" is dissatisfied with your service.
Legally and ethically, I cannot breach confidentiality except in very specific circumstances. These circumstances are very narrowly defined. Prior to Tarasoff, if a client came in and expressly told me that once they left my office we were going to go shoot a very specific person and that they have the gun in their car, I legally could not breach confidentiality. In other words, I had to sit there, knowing full well that might an action would cost someone their life, and do absolutely nothing because if I called the police or warned their intended victim, I was violating my client's confidentiality. The same would go if they told me that they were walking out of my office and would be immediately committing suicide.
Not talking about before. The op is focused on now and my comments address the laws now and going forward.
The above dilemma is exactly what Tarasoff was about. The clinician did nothing and it cost someone their life.
Is that the kind of "liberty" you're looking for?
Hmm...
As was pointed out above, Tarasoff established the requirement that if I know of a specific threat against a person's life that I have the authority to detain the individual until such time as that person can be evaluated to determine that they are not a threat to themselves or others. Don't want to be detained? Don't tell your therapist you are going to kill yourself or someone else.
And what facts, other than only your word, substantiates that I communicated such a threat?
All the new legislation does is broaden the ability to breach confidentially and the definition of a threat to others to include narrowly defined, non-person-specific threats.
No, breach of confidentiality is but a minor inconvenience, and in this age of computers and computer hackers, any data you gather and place on a computer (database) may very well be public knowledge already. But, this is a minor concern. And you, obviously, are dodging. You have the power to deprive a law abiding citizen of his liberty...based only on your word.
Back when it was my full time job to do these evaluations of whether to place someone on a hold, I did everything in my power to help them come up with a plan that would keep them from being put on that hold and placed in the hospital. But, as the duke said, "your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins." And if you were telling your therapist or anyone else that you have every intention to go out and blow someone's nose off your face with a gun, expect to be stopped just as I would hope that anyone overhearing someone discussing specific plans to murder someone would call the cops.
Again, you avoid my point. You allege I communicated a threat, have me arrested, I state I did not, yet I remain locked up until I prove 9prove innocence) that I did not communicate a threat.
As for prosecuting the therapist, prosecute them for what? The therapist will have documented the entire session and interaction where you made the specific threats. It's impossible to prove something that never happened so expecting the therapist to be able to prove that you actually would have followed through is an impossibility. But they will be able to prove your threats and your stated intents. What more do you want from them?
Again, you avoid my point. You state I communicated a threat, have me arrested, I state I did not, yet I remain locked up until I prove that I did not communicate a threat. What documentation? A audio/video recording?
If this has or does happen to you and you feel it was done improperly, file a complaint with their licensing board. If you can prove that they acted unethically, they will be sanctioned up to and including the revoking of their licensed practice. And if you had a therapist unethically and illegally place you on a hold, then they deserve to lose their license.
If you, for example, had me picked up and I prove that you lied, a stiff criminal penalty, felony, is to be applied not a mere revocation of your license. There are criminal statutes in Missouri for folks who falsely implicate a law abiding citizen in a crime alleging felonious criminal acts.
Do you agree with this legal premise?
If you agree with the laws as they are in Colorado, that are written to protect you, and will not work to hold your fellow professionals to a higher standard under the laws of Colorado (if such laws exist), as do cops when cops violate the law, then your protestations are meaningless, and any further response from you is pointless.
My points stand. Do you extend a 100% money back guarantee if a "customer" is dissatisfied with your service.
