Is it ok for a therapist to google you and find out information on you?

I just started online therapy with a new T who was in the next state. In the email he sent me as a reply to my email to him, he knew where I lived and other private stuff that would only have been available to him through the net. I re -checked the information I sent him and there was nothing to say where I lived
This kind of unnerved me as I would have thought it was unethical for a T.
What does everyone think?

I don't know what to think. It's really hard to tell who is who business wise these days, and I kind of think that if I was going to work with someone via the web I would check them out first.

I think that if there's stuff about me on the web that's public, then I kind of expect anyone to have seen it. I keep close tabs on my online identity and keep privacy settings locked down all over the place.

And luckily, I have a fairly common name, so nothing about me shows up in google till about 10 pages into the search results.

yes, I can see where you are coming from. Everyone google's everyone these days! but I thought they weren't supposed check information on us unless it was for our health benifit, or if they were worried about their own personal safety. I mean I would have told him, if I thought he wanted to no, I liked the idea of online therapy because I thought I still had my privacy.

As far as I can tell, everybody googles everybody else. It seems to be standard practice, although there does seem to be a certain amount of shame about it. No one wants to admit that they do it, but seriously .... I think everybody's doing it!

Plus, in your case it's not really personal - it's business. When my physician recommended my current T, the first thing I did was to google him. I needed info to be able to decide if I wanted to set up an appt. For this online T, it makes sense that he would want some feel for who he would be dealing with. But I know ... it FEELS creepy.

There's something to be said for that privacy we used to have and have now lost.

The only real way to achieve anonymity is to create a yahoo email under an assumed name.

(and even then your IP is logged)

The question I see here is how do you really know who you are dealing with if this is on-line therapy. I'm kind of wary of the whole on-line therapy thing; too many people out there doing underhanded things via the internet.

Anyway, sorry, just had to say that. There are plenty of people here who say as long as the information is out there on the internet, it is fair game for anyone to get to and use however they choose. (This discussion comes up in reverse all the time around here.) I don't particularly subscribe to that belief, but so be it. Personally, I would prefer someone ask me directly for that kind of information, particularly someone who I am in a relationship involving trust with on at least a semi-personal basis. I'm certain there is no "law" against googling clients but that doesn't make it on the up and up or very straight-forward. Have you asked him where/why he found the information? Might be interesting to hear his answer.

you have NO privacy online, as this online T has just shown you. why would you trust someone you can't even see? say as compared to someone on staff at a hospital or clinic? I don't understand your concept of privacy.

I see nothing wrong with anyone looking at information on the web. And I can see in some ways it might be easier for certain kinds of trust to be with a web person. There are unscrupulous people all over -even in hospitals and therapist's offices. Be careful of them all.

I really don't know what to say since its online therapy. I mean everyone here talks about googling their T, etc. I would think my T has better things to do than google her clients. But maybe the online T wanted to check you out. I dunno. I have my all my online stuff marked as private as the individual websites allow-however its the Internet. Stuff leaks out. And IP addresses are traceable.

It aint the searchin that bothers me, it's the idea of how it was brought up that strikes me as a little off.

By the way, what is an IP address.

i don't mind him doing a little backround information, or even homework- thats perfectly normal and acceptable but to let it slip out so early on... thats what worrys me. he must have known i would wonder how he found the information out.

internet protocol address? like the "home address" or "phone number" for your computer to interface with the internet. how the great Yahoo knows where to send mcl mcl's messages, and hankster, hankster's messages.

yes...it's a number mcl. Just for ha ha's visit whatismyip.com it will show you your ip.

Why do you think it "slipped out", as I think this was an emailed response to you? It seems to me that it was an intentional disclosure, not an accidental one. Perhaps he is modeling that it is okay to google him or he is otherwise trying to communicate a trust of you. I think it would be great to reply back and ask him about it, especially if you are curious about why.

Would it be okay to Google a face-to-face client?

Whatever the answer to that question may be: why would the answer be any different for an online client?

I think you are right, listen more and talk less! It was intentional but why choose to disclose that you did your homework on someone! All he had to do was ask and I would have told! I wasn't keeping anything from him! It just caught me off guard that's all! I will ask him how he knew, there was also other things that if asked about that only someone who knew you would know! Like course I had done, its all on my facebook

This doesn't bode well for your future therapy with this person. You're already suspicious and mistrustful of him, and the therapy hasn't even started. Do you have any other options?

Is this a licensed therapist? What do you know about his training? It sounds pretty unprofessional to me, which is why I question his background.

There are so many horror stories about online therapists and you need to be really careful. In fact, if it were me, in order to be careful, I would drop him. It feels like a hint of things to come. If he is comfortable crossing this boundary (right away) what else would he do?

And why would he need to do this? Why could he just ask if he wanted to know!?!?

Let us know how it turns out!

EJ

Online therapy really has totally different boundary issues than regular therapy. As others have said, it can be hard to know this person is definatey who you think they are. There is also a lot lot connection wise via internet therapy, however for some people it works.

Anything put onine these days is available to anyone unless you have it under a private setting. I can understand why this is unsettling though.

Therapists have such rigid boundaries in place for themselves (God damn barriers) most of the time but this does not give him the right to cross my boundaries just because he is the therapist. I have other options but I wanted to try online therapy because the whole face to face thing is a bit unsettling for me.
Friends wouldn't invade your privacy like he did, I pretty much told him everything he needed to know in the first email, I dont see where I live and what qualifications I have matter.

I totally agree with you that it's unethical. For a stranger who you met in a bar, I wouldn't say it's necessarily unethical- the info is out there on the free internet- but for a professional therapist I think it's different.

I also think it's pretty weird that someone getting paid only for the time they talk with you would have the time to google all their clients. So I wonder if the software he uses or company he works with might get that information about your state automatically from your IP address. Is that technically possible Hankster or anyone? If that's how he knows your state, then he probably doesn't know anything else about you.

I don't know about getting info from your ip address, but if he has your real name, he can probably find out stuff. I tracked down my high school class members for the 40 yr reunion. how are you paying him? this just seems a little creepy-stalkerish to me, why would he tell you he knows where you live?

I just reread your post and realized you said he knows where you live. Somehow I misread it before and thought he only knew the state where you live. Knowing exactly where you live is a lot freakier. I didn't think someone could your exact address from your IP address, or at least not easily and legally.

Finding out an address from a name is really no different from looking someone up in the phone book. If you're listed with the telephone company, all the online directories will have your info, too.