Is online counselling confidential?

This is the question people most often want to ask and most often do not, usually because it feels like accusing the other person of something. It is a completely reasonable thing to want settled before you say anything difficult.

So here is the plain version, including the parts that are limits rather than reassurance.

What confidentiality means in practice

What you say in a session stays between us. It is not shared with your family, your partner, your employer or anyone else, whoever is paying for the session.

Sessions are not recorded. There is no video file, no audio file and no transcript sitting anywhere afterwards.

No report is produced. You will not receive a document describing you, and nobody else will either. If you ever need something in writing for a genuine reason, that is a separate conversation we would have first, and nothing goes anywhere without you knowing exactly what it says.

I keep only what is needed to run the practice sensibly: your name, your contact number, and brief notes for my own reference so that you do not have to start again every time. Those notes are for continuity, not assessment.

The limits, stated plainly

Any counsellor who tells you confidentiality is absolute is simplifying. There are narrow situations where it does not hold, and you deserve to know them in advance rather than discover them.

• If there is a serious and immediate risk to your life or safety
• If there is a risk of serious harm to someone else, particularly a child or someone unable to protect themselves
• If a court or the law requires disclosure

In practice these are rare, and even then the aim is to keep you involved rather than act around you. Where it is at all possible, we would talk about it first and about what happens next.

Worth saying clearly: talking about a difficult thought is not the same as being in danger, and it does not trigger any of the above. People sometimes hold back the thing most on their mind because they are afraid saying it will set something off. It will not.

Privacy at your end, which is usually the harder half

In an Indian household privacy is less about policy and more about walls. This is the part worth planning, and it is the part I can only help with rather than solve.

• Pick a time when the house is quieter. Mid-morning on a weekday is often better than evening
• Use headphones. They make the biggest single difference, because only your half of the conversation is audible
• A parked car works, and so does a locked office cabin. People join from both regularly
• If you can only speak quietly, say so at the start and we will keep the pace and volume to match
• You can turn your camera off. It is not a requirement, and some people find it easier to speak that way

If someone walks in, we pause. You do not have to perform being fine, and you do not have to explain afterwards.

If someone else is paying

This comes up more than you might expect, usually with parents paying for an adult child, or a partner paying. It is worth being clear about, because it is where people quietly assume confidentiality bends.

It does not. Whoever is paying, the session belongs to the person in it. I do not report back on how you are doing, what you talked about, or whether you seemed better. If a family member contacts me directly, I will not confirm or deny that you are even seeing me.

If a parent wants to be involved in some way and you want that too, that is a conversation we would have together, with you in it, and you would decide what is shared.

What I write down, and why

Brief notes, for my own reference, so that we can pick up where we left off rather than starting again each time. They are working notes, not an assessment, and they are not written to be read by anyone else.

If you would rather I did not write something down, say so and I will not. People occasionally ask this about a specific detail and it is a completely reasonable request.

What happens on the technology side

Sessions run on Google Meet, on a private link sent to you for that appointment. There is no waiting room anyone can see into and no participant list beyond the two of us. Recording is off, and I do not use the chat for anything you would not want kept.

If you would rather not use video at all, audio is fine. Nothing about the session depends on being seen.

When it needs more than counselling

If you are in immediate danger, or someone in your home is, confidentiality is not the question that matters most. Counselling is not emergency care. Contact local emergency services on 112, or Tele MANAS on 14416, which is available at any hour.

If you want to talk

You do not have to decide how much you are going to say before you book anything. You can bring the edges of something and leave the middle for later, and that is a normal way to start individual counselling. If it helps to know the shape of the hour first, there is a walkthrough of what a session is actually like.