When speaking of ethical principles in psychology, undoubtedly the confidentiality of the data offered by the patient (s) is one of the elements with the greatest implications and importance in this framework..
Psychology as a science has maintained a maxim regarding the defense and the fight for strict compliance with the principle of confidentiality, influenced by its object of study. As the subject and his conscience constitute the body of work of the psychologist, the responsibility that his work demands then takes on greater complexity and importance..
Today professionals can update their knowledge and obligations of this beautiful profession through postgraduate degrees in psychology, with the aim of providing these patients the best possible care.
The use of private information plays an important role in all scientific and training activities of the psychologist. Confidentiality should be given the highest possible priority and self-determination: Before using personal or identifying information for educational purposes, psychologists must obtain the person's consent or a coded identity of the information.
The work carried out in psychotherapy is closely linked to the patient, or rather, depends almost exclusively on the patient. It demands a high level of preparation of the professional, not only in the skills they possess to face the therapy itself, but also also of an ethical commitment that gives the patient the possibility of placing absolute trust in the therapist to express the setbacks that led to the demand for specialized help.
The principle of confidentiality goes hand in hand with that of privacy, even when both concepts have different meanings.. Confidentiality is not just a matter of information disclosure. This term designates the quality of the reserved or secret data and information. Among other aspects, it applies to the individual's data that should not or cannot be disclosed in public or transmitted to third parties without the approval of the interested party..
The Royal Academy of the Spanish Language defines confidential as what is done or said in confidence or with reciprocal security between two or more people and confidentiality as the quality of confidential.
In this way, the psychotherapist has the freedom and the duty to classify as confidential any document or information that, in his opinion, directly or indirectly influences the proper functioning and future recovery of the patient in psychotherapy..
When starting a psychotherapy it is extremely important that the psychologist guarantees, as a duty oriented to doing good, the confidentiality of the antecedents and data offered by the patient. You should be concerned with handling them through procedures and methods that protect them from the knowledge of unauthorized persons and record them in a way that prevents access and knowledge of third parties to that information to avoid possible personal harm..
Meanwhile the privacy constitutes the set of thoughts, perceptions, decisions, behaviors, conducts, and attitudes. Ideology, religion or beliefs, personal tendencies that affect sexual life, certain health problems that we want to keep completely secret. In privacy there are no defined borders and it has different meanings for different people. It is the ability of an individual or group to keep their lives and personal acts out of the public eye or to control the flow of information about themselves..
At the same time, privacy should not be reduced to the fact of not being bothered by others, to not being known in some respects by others, but rather encompasses the right to control the use that others make of information regarding a specific individual.. Intimacy could be summarized as a reserved area, free from mediations and interference that surrounds the individual..
The inner part that only each one knows about himself is also called intimacy. The intimate is protected by the feeling of modesty. For its part, in the expression of intimacy, the ability to give and the possibility of dialogue with a different intimacy are put into play.. The ability to give consists of giving something of the intimacy and having another person receive it as their own.
It is in this capacity to give, in which something intimate is given, where the confidentiality that the person who receives that intimate something can win plays an important role. In the case of psychotherapy, the dignity of the patient and the success of the therapy in general will be guaranteed to the extent that the therapist is able to achieve, through ethically professional work, that the patient feels in a favorable environment to deposit the aspects of your privacy that can help you with the future resolution and the shortest possible term of your conflict.
In psychotherapy much of the work moves in the field of the subjective: it deals with attitudes, spirituality, self-discipline, value system and beliefs. When the therapist does not confront or review his own ethical principles, he can hardly do so with the patient. The therapist is expected to make an effort to separate his personal belief system from the clinical need of the patient..
Violating the principle of confidentiality in a psychotherapy for addicted patients brings with it adverse consequences and contrary to the objective of the therapy of rehabilitating and reintegrating the patient in their social environment.
The results can come from the total or partial discrediting of the psychotherapist, as well as the institution that provides the service.
Treatment centers or places go through changes in the quality of their professional services. Although you work with a structured program, how you work and the treatment that patients receive has to do with the personalities and leadership in the institution. When there are periods when a good team relationship does not exist, patient care weakens and with it the chances of success in treatment. It is when an entire institution can ethically fail because the good of the patient can no longer be protected.
This may be one of the causes that causes the loss of confidence of the patient who is receiving treatment to rehabilitate from an addiction. Extremely serious for the prestige of the institution and the personnel that work in it, but more dangerous and delicate for the patient who realizes how he has been ridiculed by the person in whom he once trusted by revealing certain and certain very confidential information.
Another of the sequelae that derives from the lack or loss of confidence in the professional (psychotherapist) focuses on the conflict that the patient will present from that moment to join a treatment again. This leads to new relapses and, most likely, the rehabilitation process will never be resumed, not to mention that this experience is transmitted to another group of addicts, people at addictive risk or healthy people who have not been in rehabilitation. and from this moment on it will be unlikely that they can be inserted in any.
The chain of effects due to the breach of confidentiality it also extends to the family of the addicted patient who was once under treatment. When leaving the therapy, the individual in a short time returns to the zero point from where the therapy began, that is, he relapses again into addiction. This relapse not only affects those who suffer from it for convenience or pleasure, but also directly influences the family causing undesirable effects for all members of the same who are in constant, direct or indirect relationship with the addict.
For society there are also negative effects resulting from the transgression of this ethical principle of psychotherapy, which is sometimes undervalued. The result is the adhesion of an individual who at some point acted and influenced public disorder, was absent for a long or ephemeral time while undergoing treatment, but when his integrity was violated, he resumed the path that gave him satisfaction and solution to his problems. and not family or social welfare.
Due to the diversity of personalities, the therapeutic work of the psychologist is very complex. It demands a high level of professional preparation, not only in the skills you have to prepare for therapy., but also an ethical commitment that gives the patient the possibility of placing absolute trust in him.
Confidentiality is a vital aspect in any environment in which human relationships are to develop, but it acquires importance when it is treated in both the psychotherapeutic and care-giving approach to addictions..
The principles of privacy and confidentiality are necessary, but not sufficient to preserve the integrity of the patient. It is essential that the moral integrity of the psychologist respect the nuances and subtleties of the patient's right to confidentiality.
Therefore, the psychologist must be a person who has the virtue of integrity, a person who not only accepts respect for the autonomy of others as a principle that will lead him to respect their privacy and confidentiality, but also a person in whom can be trusted to interpret your responsibility with the utmost moral sensitivity.
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