Have you ever googled your therapist?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m Facebook friends with mine

With your psychotherapist? This is actually something of an ethical violation on his/her part.

I’m a therapist and this comes up for me bc my prior career was pretty public facing. Sometimes I wish there wasn’t so much out there.


FYI, it’s unethical for us to google you.

[Anonymous]

Yes. Any therapist worth a dime will have little or no public profile, or will at least have taken steps to minimize and hide it. Mine did pretty well, but I’m tenacious and reasonably good at research. Found her home address, husband (picture and some work stuff), and pictures of her kids. Of course, I was sort of trying to bang her, so seeing her husband wasn’t ideal. Though it did confirm she was straight.

[Anonymous]

I find it an uncomfortable thought. Seems a bit creepy.

[Anonymous]

I briefly googled them but didn't use Spokeo and find out where they live and everything.

[Anonymous]

If someone asks me “Have you googled ______” my reply is yes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m Facebook friends with mine

With your psychotherapist? This is actually something of an ethical violation on his/her part.

I’m a therapist and this comes up for me bc my prior career was pretty public facing. Sometimes I wish there wasn’t so much out there.


FYI, it’s unethical for us to google you.

I'm another therapist and agree with this. I had a public facing prior career and ALSO have a memorable name and put a lot of thought into locking down my social media to the extent possible. I did not go so far as to try to scrub anything, but I did do my best to remove things I would prefer not to discuss and also spent time thinking about how to talk about internet boundaries. Particularly as someone who works/worked with a lot of teenagers, you have to have rules and SOPs for how you handle it. For example, one of my teenage kids was in a band and they asked me to follow their Spotify because they were trying to boost their followers. At that time, I was advised not to, if only because it was a fuzzy area. I was fine not following the band, but because my client asked me to listen to the music, I did listen to it.

I think clients are curious about us as people. It's a weird relationship. Sometimes it's helpful to know something personal about someone in order to be comfortable sharing personal things with them. Not in a 1:1 ratio, but it is often really helpful to give a little. There is almost always a way to address the curiosity or at least normalize it so that you don't feel bad about doing something that everyone either does or wants to do. I don't Google my clients, but that's truthfully because I know it is a boundary that I'm ethically unwilling to cross, not because I'm not curious how XYZ presents in the real world rather than with me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I google psychologists and psychiatrists before asking for appointments for my very suggestible family members. I usually don't find much but was about to call one psychiatrist to ask if she was taking new patients recently. She had a divorce or custody case document online and holysh!t, she took some actions with her own children that show she would have serious antagonism toward institutions that are very important to my family.

Does she dislike your church???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Any therapist worth a dime will have little or no public profile, or will at least have taken steps to minimize and hide it. Mine did pretty well, but I’m tenacious and reasonably good at research. Found her home address, husband (picture and some work stuff), and pictures of her kids. Of course, I was sort of trying to bang her, so seeing her husband wasn’t ideal. Though it did confirm she was straight.

That is CREEPY, PP. You stalked someone who was providing care for you, invading her personal life, while you were also hoping to have sex with her, which violates at least 2 pretty obvious ethical rules.

It sounds like it is you who is not worth a dime. What is wrong with you??

[Anonymous]

My name is along the lines of “Jane Miller” or “Jane Smith” so extremely common; I hope nobody is writing me off because of something they saw under my name on online!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Any therapist worth a dime will have little or no public profile, or will at least have taken steps to minimize and hide it. Mine did pretty well, but I’m tenacious and reasonably good at research. Found her home address, husband (picture and some work stuff), and pictures of her kids. Of course, I was sort of trying to bang her, so seeing her husband wasn’t ideal. Though it did confirm she was straight.

That is CREEPY, PP. You stalked someone who was providing care for you, invading her personal life, while you were also hoping to have sex with her, which violates at least 2 pretty obvious ethical rules.

It sounds like it is you who is not worth a dime. What is wrong with you??

Not PP but I Google the home address of everyone I meet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m Facebook friends with mine

With your psychotherapist? This is actually something of an ethical violation on his/her part.

I’m a therapist and this comes up for me bc my prior career was pretty public facing. Sometimes I wish there wasn’t so much out there.


FYI, it’s unethical for us to google you.

I'm another therapist and agree with this. I had a public facing prior career and ALSO have a memorable name and put a lot of thought into locking down my social media to the extent possible. I did not go so far as to try to scrub anything, but I did do my best to remove things I would prefer not to discuss and also spent time thinking about how to talk about internet boundaries. Particularly as someone who works/worked with a lot of teenagers, you have to have rules and SOPs for how you handle it. For example, one of my teenage kids was in a band and they asked me to follow their Spotify because they were trying to boost their followers. At that time, I was advised not to, if only because it was a fuzzy area. I was fine not following the band, but because my client asked me to listen to the music, I did listen to it.

I think clients are curious about us as people. It's a weird relationship. Sometimes it's helpful to know something personal about someone in order to be comfortable sharing personal things with them. Not in a 1:1 ratio, but it is often really helpful to give a little. There is almost always a way to address the curiosity or at least normalize it so that you don't feel bad about doing something that everyone either does or wants to do. I don't Google my clients, but that's truthfully because I know it is a boundary that I'm ethically unwilling to cross, not because I'm not curious how XYZ presents in the real world rather than with me.

Same, as a fellow therapist. I have minimal social media presence; what I do have is set on private. I completely understand the curiosity and it’s on us as professionals to demonstrate good boundaries, if nothing else. Not using basic privacy settings is problematic, frankly. Being thoughtful about self-disclosure matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Any therapist worth a dime will have little or no public profile, or will at least have taken steps to minimize and hide it. Mine did pretty well, but I’m tenacious and reasonably good at research. Found her home address, husband (picture and some work stuff), and pictures of her kids. Of course, I was sort of trying to bang her, so seeing her husband wasn’t ideal. Though it did confirm she was straight.

That is CREEPY, PP. You stalked someone who was providing care for you, invading her personal life, while you were also hoping to have sex with her, which violates at least 2 pretty obvious ethical rules.

It sounds like it is you who is not worth a dime. What is wrong with you??

Not PP but I Google the home address of everyone I meet.

Okay. But how much do you Google them. I just Googled myself and "home address" and found nothing. In that situation, would you continue investigating, change your search terms? At what point does it become invasive, if you think that it's not invasive just to look for an address?

Also, what do you do with the information?

[Anonymous]

I Google EVERYONE

[Anonymous]

Yes. Most therapists would have anything they don't want you to know locked down on the web. If they don't, it's not a good sign.

[Anonymous]

And, I do nothing with the information. It's basically just to check to see if someone is who they say they are. I google.most people I deal with professionally. Doesn't everyone?