Main description:

Provides a general, supportive framework for understanding the reasons for record keeping and its parameters
Clarifies dilemmas and strategies surrounding confidentiality and privacy in order to help professionals protect themselves and their clients, patients, students, and supervisees
Contains numerous case examples that help readers with a broad range of topics related to ethical and clinical issues in record keeping and confidentiality
Helps readers plan for interruptions or closures of their psychotherapy practice
Contains a new chapter on electronic records
Appendices include excerpts from the mental health professions' code of ethics Accompanying CD offers sample forms designed to assist readers in implementing their own record system
Can be used as a reference book, a guide to establishing and maintaining sound supervisory contracts, and for teaching ethical practice in undergraduate and graduate programs
Written in a reader-friendly style
Introduces the concept of using records as therapeutic tools
Contains practitioners' experiences with implementing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act

Contents:

1. A Decade in the Making: Ethical Decision-Making, Record Keeping, and the Therapeutic Relationship in Extraordinary Times 2. Purposes of Clinical Records 3. Documenting Informed Consent 4. Characteristics and Contents of Good Records 5. Confidentiality 6. Exceptions to Confidentiality 7. Developing Policies and Procedures for Protecting Confidentiality and Managing Its Exceptions 8. Boundary Challenges: Impact of Digital Communication on the Therapeutic Relationship 9. Inactive Records: Access, Retention and Destruction 10. Using Patients' Records as Therapeutic Tools 11. Clinical Supervision Records 12. Teaching Record Keeping 13. Sailing in Choppy Waters: Therapists Navigating in the Legal System 14. Planning for Interruptions or Closures of Psychotherapy Practices 15. Using Principles of Ethical Decision-Making: Case Studies