Therapist Googling Client

@Omer: According to the therapist, she said that because she was trying to expand my view because I was focused on the bad.

Help me understand why Googling my last name to find out where I'm from is not the same as Googling my full name. The therapist insists that she didn't Google something specific about me and that if she came across something specific to me on the Internet, she would close the browser.

I'm not understanding her logic. My last name IS something specific about me. Moreover, her intention look it up was because she wanted to know where I am from - something specific about me. Whether she looked up my full name or only my last name, she was looked me up to find out personal information about me.

Why didn't she just ask me directly? She knew that I wasn't ready to disclose that information to her. Pure curiosity is not a reason to look it up. As a therapist, she should wait, be patient, and hold it until trust, safety, and connection are built in our relationship and work and I eventually, naturally share it with her.

I don't think I would care much if my therapist googled me. I might even be a little flattered that she was interested enough to be honest. To me a quick google search to see something like where my last name originated is pretty different than something like trying to look for posts tagged on my friends' facebook pages. That would be too interested and a little creepy. But as far as posting an online journal such as a couple people have mentioned, I think that if a person is doing something like that under their own name, they should just consider that to be public knowledge. I'd be much more worried about an employer finding something like that than my therapist. But then again if I want to post personal stuff on the internet I do it anonymously.

I don’t think the double standard is a constructive argument. As a client who did google her therapist, I may not be the most qualified to respond to this thread, but for what it’s worth, I think many clients naturally struggle with the boundaries of the therapeutic dynamic. At least I did. I think googling is a breach of a boundary on some level, but just because the client struggles with the boundary, doesn’t mean the therapist should cross it either.

Also I’d be really confused as to why the therapist googled me. My attachment feelings would probably get triggered and I’d question whether my therapist had some underlying infatuation with me that led her to seek out more information beyond what I shared with her.

My T is far to busy the bother finding me or anyone on the internet

Personally I would not care. All he would find on my Facebook is sarcastic humor memes and of course that damn woman yelling at a white cat LOL

Our work revolves around what trouble I’m having in X area of my life.

It is a double standard. A therapist can't check you out but you can have access to the names of her children and where she lives? That's just wrong. In my opinion no one should Google anyone in a therapeutic relationship. It's a breech of boundaries. If I were a therapist and I found out a client was looking for personal information about me and my family, I'd fire the client and depending on the client get a restraining order. It's a safety issue among other concerns. Likewise, therapists shouldn't Google clients. If a client wants a therapist to know something the client will tell the therapist. Anything else is private.

I think it is okay if it is a two sided agreed upon practice. Being friends on social media is accepting they are going to know Bout what I put out there. I would also have bo problem being FB friends with my Ts, because I was consenting to it

like everything else there are bad ones out there. I however work with many. They often put in12 houses a day or more in the office, often go home to do electronic chatting, are on call over night walkabout one week a month (often receiving many calls a night) and are the on duty doctor one weekend a month. Oh and they are often the lower paid doctors in the hospital.

well, here where I live, they dont actually go to court. We set up a teleconference call with the court house. The DA and lawyer come to our facility. We have a large conference room set up.

This seems like a very extreme view regarding firing the client and possibly getting a restraining order. If T's fired all their clients who googled them, I doubt they'd have too many clients left... I think it's natural to be curious about someone to whom you tell your deepest, darkest secrets. Sure, many, possibly even most, clients might not care, but others do. I don't think they should automatically be punished for that curiosity unless they cross a major line.

I've googled quite a bit about my T (he knows much of it, and he's said some bothers him a little bit, but he certainly hasn't fired me for it), but I don't feel I pose any sort of threat to him, and he seems to agree. I think it's a natural curiosity. I'm not going to figure out where he lives and then show up at his house and spy on him (incidentally, many T's work out of their homes, though mine doesn't). I'm not going to figure out where his wife works or his son goes to school and then show up there.

I think if a client talks about Googling their T (beyond, say, checking their license or CV/resume), then that should just lead to a conversation about why the client felt the desire to Google. And if they wanted to talk about anything they found, ask questions (of course the T is not obligated to answer). Maybe some discussion about boundaries, like, "I understand your desire to google me, and that's OK, but I ask you not to look up anything about my spouse or children because I want to protect their privacy." I also think it's a T's responsibility to lock down any social media they have (like if they have a Facebook page, keeping it private) to the best they can, if they don't want any clients seeing it.

[climbs down off of soapbox]

But I still don't think T's should Google their clients.

I don’t get the double standard argument. By that same logic, you go to the doctor and tell them you have symptoms x y z and man my back is killing me. Doctor listens to you then tells you she has pains a b c and oh boy these knees of mine are a mess. So when I go to therapy to talk about my abusive ex, the therapist should also talk about hers.

By the way, here’s what the American Psychological Association thinks of the whole thing:

“How about Googling clients — should you?

In certain circumstances, there may be a good reason to do a search of a client — there may be an issue of safety, for example. In certain kinds of assessments, it might be a matter of confirming information. But again, we always need to think about how this fits into the professional relationship, and what type of informed consent we’ve obtained. Curiosity about a client is not a clinically appropriate reason to do an Internet search. Let’s put it this way: If you know that your client plays in a soccer league, it would be a little odd if on Saturday afternoon you drove by the game to see how your client is doing. In the same way, if you’re doing a search, thinking, “What can I find out about this person?” that raises questions about the psychologist’s motives.”

The Internet’s ethical challenges

They maintain that stance elsewhere on their website.

So the OP’s concern seems completely valid to me and the therapist’s poor response also seems reason for concern.

I agree that people just need to respect basic boundaries on both ends.

There are clients as seen right here on PC who bypass security measures, finding roundabout ways to get into their therapist’s social media anyway. That’s not okay and really becomes stalkerish. It is ridiculously intrusive and I don’t buy the excuses of helplessness and excuses that we just can’t help ourselves so the therapist just should put up with it.

If you behave, for whatever reason, in a manner that leaves a person, any person — client or therapist— feeling intruded upon and even victimized by boundary crossing, you — client or therapist— has the right to expect that behavior to stop and to dissolve that relationship if they no longer feel emotionally or physically safe because of that behavior. The person’s excuses, be they “professional” or due to mental/emotional state don’t change the fact that the person on the receiving end has been left feeling uncomfortable or unsafe.

MM, if this has left you feeling unable to work with this therapist, you are perfectly within your rights to get another therapist. I still personally believe it is a double standard to condemn another person for behavior we display ourselves, but the bottom line is it bothers you. So, find a different therapist if you feel this is a red flag for you.

I think the OPs concerns are quite valid based on the standards those guys set up.

I know they do this in some jurisdictions but I (and many others )have fought against it in mine. mds have to come to court just like every other litigant.

I suspect many Ts expect it on some level. My T told me she googled here providers. She googled to find if there any licensing issues, frequent complaints by clients etc. She didnt look for things like their children, person lives. etc. So I suspect clients would do that.

In our case it has nothing to do with the Dr not wanting to go to the courthouse. It is for the safety and privacy of the patient. We take very few cases to court. More often than not we either have stabilized the patient enough and discharged them or the client once on some of the medications kick in realize they need help and agree to become voluntary. The other thing we really try to do is work with the patient and all lawyers involved. Often the day of the hearing, before the proceedings start there is a lot of discussions by all those involved (Dr, DA, patient lawyer, independent medical examiner, familymembers, client outside providers, etc) to come to some type of agreement so the client is discharged as soon as possible but also safe.

Our facility hates going to court because frequently these are clients known to is from other admissions and we know it can effect the theraputic alliance.

Agree. I don't think that's the kind of googling we are talking about here generally. That's pretty normal, expected, and part and parcel to living today and shopping for services. And it doesn't sound like this therapist did much more than google location on the OP which seems pretty basic and wouldn't require any in-depth searching, but the OP is bothered by it and certainly can decide to change therapists. It may be unrealistic, however, to expect that no therapist or client would ever google a client's or therapist's name for general information, and we all have basic information about us out there.

When the searching becomes more intensive and does get into another person's private life, however, that just becomes nosey. Respect for privacy, and even the ability to maintain one's own privacy with any surety, appears to be a thing of the past unfortunately. And some of us have been on the receiving end of serious electronic and physical privacy violations so this is not a minor issue for us. Once you've had someone invade your life to the point where you've felt unsafe, that experience rather changes your perspective. I suspect many therapists, themselves, have had those kinds of experiences and that can certainly drive how they react to any perceived boundary violations, electronic or otherwise. There is some crazy stuff that happens out there when people go a bit off-rocker with their intrusion into people's private lives. Been there myself. Not something I wish on anyone.

The psychologists and psychiatrists that I knew were never THAT interested in the lives of their patients once they left the office. I remember that one of them would relax or watch tv or socialize once off the clock. He really wasn't that interested in their clients lives, and he was a very good clinician. After work, he didn't want to have to deal with anything work related. That even included looking up patients. He kept his work life COMPLETELY SEPERATE from his hours off.

That and blaming the therapists for not having locked up their pages.

I might have missed this getting clarified somewhere, but my initial read of the OP was more "where I'm from" as maybe meaning ethnic or national background. Like if the client had a name that was typically (just grabbing out of the air here) Korean or something. That seems like a more personal issue than, "OP lives in Sunnydale" or whatever. But I could be mixed up about this.

This was my understanding as well, because the T said she only googled the last name.