16forever posted 8/1/2020 17:28 PM

Me and my WS are doing individual counseling Iam see a therapist who deals with trauma both from the same place about 2 weeks ago he told me his councilor gave him her number so if he needed he could text her aside from there every other sessions . I have never heard of this being done Before anybody heard of this ?

apache posted 8/1/2020 17:50 PM

I have a friend whose wife is a counselor, I believe individual trama, like lost a loved one etc.
She has taken calls for years from clients at odd hours.

ct528 posted 8/1/2020 18:10 PM

My WH texts with his IC (male).

16forever posted 8/1/2020 18:31 PM

She is female I guess I just thought it was odd but if it’s something they do then I guess won’t be worried I just thought we pay 35$ Per visit for his biweekly visits and I still go weekly why would they let you just text when ever and not be paid for it

HeHadADoubleLife posted 8/1/2020 19:01 PM

I think this is pretty standard practice. From what I understand, it's not to be used frequently. It's more like in an emergency situation. For example, suicidal ideation, abusive event, etc.

My counselor has a separate cell phone number that is used for her clients, and I can text her there. I try to be very respectful of her time, and I typically only text her regarding scheduling changes.

But for example, my daughter had tested covid positive, and I was undergoing testing to see if I was positive, but we didn't have another session for 2 more weeks. So my therapist asked me to text her to let her know what happened with my test so she wouldn't be concerned.

I have a friend who is a therapist who also has a separate cell for her clients and responds to them frequently. Again, I think it's more for clients who are enduring some sort of active crisis, not for just random thoughts and musings.

Darkness Falls posted 8/1/2020 19:32 PM

My IC says either text her or FB message her if I need her between sessions.

OwningItNow posted 8/1/2020 20:12 PM

I have never had an IC offer texting as a manner of working through issues. It's used for scheduling only. It is very surprising to me as advice is indeed their monetary livelihood. During a crisis, my IC says to go to the E.R.

sisoon posted 8/2/2020 10:23 AM

My experience has been that infrequent phone calls for 10-15 minutes have not been billed.

standinghere posted 8/3/2020 03:33 AM

It depends upon where you are and the counselor. Some of it can definitely be problematic.

In some fields, the providers are very open about their numbers and texts for simple questions. Phone calls are reasonable.

However, in the United States, texting is a HIPAA violation unless it uses an end to end, user to user, encrypted method. So general texting on phone is NOT compliant, nor is gmail or any other general email system, and I know this for a fact. The company I work for has had this battle for years with our providers, and they simply don't get it, yet you can sit at a McDonalds with software on your computer and harvest every single text sent by everyone in the building, and read them in real time, unless the users are sending and receiving encrypted messages.