Apparently Ts do look us up on social media

The idea of not googling clients touches a nerve for me because it's emblematic of an extreme paternalism that runs through all of therapy. I couldn't get thru that Keely Kolmes "policy" without choking on bile. So patronizing and parent-child. Also, indicates lack of self-awarness. Therapists who think everything they do is some great gift to the infantile client are bound to make messes. Was the underlying dynamic behind my own warped therapy.

I don't think there is anything wrong with Googling people, but that doesn't make it ok to keep looking/revisiting a clients' facebook someone uses for friends and family. Just like it's technically ok to park your car on the street and sit there and look into someone's window all night as it's a public road, but that doesn't mean it's ok to do it.

The Twitter policy made me laugh out loud. Would like to see a spoof on this guy's policy on SNL or Daily Show. Very funny.

I realize there is background to each situation, but this seems way too contradictory.

Here a therapist thinks it's a good idea to go to their client's facebook page, a public place, while if a client drives by their house on a public road, another therapist thinks the relationship must end.

I wish my therapist would look at my social media because it would help him get to know me better and we would cover ground faster. I dislike that googling clients is seen as unethical. If I don't want something to be public for everyone to see, whether my therapist or my boss, I don't post it publicly.

agreed...unfortunately there is a lot of hypocrisy and contradictions in the 'wide world of psychotherapy'. enough to make anyone's head spin trying to make sense of it all but if one cares to examine things a bit more closely, the bulk of the trend is that many of the rules and ethics are there mainly to protect the therapists, not necessarily because they are therapeutic or beneficial to the client and their well-being. sadly, the later is an afterthought and used as the underlying excuse in many cases.

If you want to make a fair comparison, you have to compare apples to apples, not apples to oranges.

If you are a client and your therapist drives by your house on a public road not accidentally but intentionally, I really hope you'd end therapy with them. The same applies to therapists. So, in this situation therapists and clients are also on the equal level, there is no contradiction and no hypocrisy here. Whether you are a client or a therapist, if you decide to check out where your therapist/client lives and if you do it more than once, it's officially considered stalking. It's not like people "choose" to put their houses out there for public view. All houses stay in public view unless you are rich enough to live in a secluded gated community. So, people don't really have an option to "hide" where they live. But they do have a choice of making their personal information public online and they do have a choice of how much they want to put for a public view. So, the rules are the same for therapists and clients. Googling is ok for both, stalking is not ok for both, so I don't see any hypocrisy here.

Driving past your T's house is a terminating offence? I don't agree with that at all.

Simply driving past someone's house, even more than one time, is not of itself stalking under any state statute that I know of. In the jurisdictions I am aware of, there needs to be an element of ill intent.
For example Pennsylvania's statute defines stalking as:
A person commits the crime of stalking when the person either:

(1) engages in a course of conduct or repeatedly commits acts toward another person, including following the person without proper authority, under circumstances which demonstrate either an intent to place such other person in reasonable fear of bodily injury or to cause substantial emotional distress to such other person;  or

(2) engages in a course of conduct or repeatedly communicates to another person under circumstances which demonstrate or communicate either an intent to place such other person in reasonable fear of bodily injury or to cause substantial emotional distress to such other person.
18 Pa.C.S.A. Crimes and Offenses § 2709.1. Stalking

I drive past the woman's home every time I go to the university where I teach, or if I go to visit friends, or to a major bookstore in our area or go to the restaurants in the neighborhood where she lives. I have walked past it with friends on my way to a major park in my area. I have friends and work in that same neighborhood.

Did you point?

Not if you do it when you need to be in the area for the reasons other than just staying on the street and staring at your T's house. If you drive there specifically to stay there and stare and if you do it more than once, that's a cause for having a serious conversation about it at first, then, if you continue this behavior, we'll have another conversation about it, and, if you don't "get" it..yeah, you'll be terminated, sorry. Because at this point it is official stalking which is a criminal offense.

It is not a good idea to take legal advice advice from a psychotherapy forum

I don’t think all therapist/client relationships are alike, so I don’t think a blanket statement like “you’ll be terminated, sorry” is accurate. My therapist tends to be wildly curious about any kind of negative behavior. He also lives on a main street in his town, and he sees clients in his home, so I suspect this may not be an area of great sensitivity for him. Everyone is different.

I am laughing at myself a bit, because while I would never even consider driving to or by my T's house, if he did the extra work/ thought to drive by mine I would be so flattered and happy . That alone means therapy is required

I don't agree at all that it is applies and oranges. They are both public places that one party chooses to come close to. A therapist has to make the effort to seek out the client's Facebook profile in the same manner that a client makes an effort to drive by their residence. I think these are similar scenarios.

A person's choices to use Facebook can be as limited as where they choose to live-if they wish to use all of Facebook's features and use the social media as it was intended, and likely as they did before they entered therapy, they have no choice but to make public disclosures. And people can buy a house that is secluded either surrounded by trees, far back from the road, or they can choose to have no windows that can looked through.

There's nothing unusual about people disagreeing, i just happen to think this is ridiculous. How would a person even know it's the therapist's boundary that they will terminate the therapy if you drive by their house? I know I'd be a little freaked out if a therapist drove by my house purposely, but all the same for most therapists overly interested in me in other ways. It's interesting; almost in an entertaining way; just speaking as someone not caught up in any of this stuff IRL and so have no stake in this.

I didn't say that every therapist will terminate a client who stalks them. I said it's a legitimate ground for termination and I certainly would do that if the behavior doesn't stop. And, by the way, I didn't give anyone a legal advice here.

It sure does

Who said there was something unusual about it?

Because it's every normal person's boundary to protect themselves from those who stalk them. Again, driving once doesn't qualify as stalking, but if it becomes a regular occurrence, that does fall under the definition of stalking and if you are a victim of it, you have the right not only to end the relationship but to report this behavior to the police and ask for a restraining order. If you wouldn't do that, that's fine, that's your choice, but many people would, therapists or not, and they have the right to do that.

As to the rest of your post that speaks about the comparison, the bottom line is that it is culturally acceptable in this day and age to google people and it's not considered stalking, but regular appearance next to someone's house does fall under the definition of stalking, which is an unlawful behavior that could get the stalker in trouble. Like it or hate it, this is our reality. Your opinion will not change the current law and the current cultural norm. This norm may or may not change in the future, that I don't know, but today it is what it is regardless of what you think of it.

I'm actually a victim of stalking and it was a horrific experience.

I just think when it comes to therapy relationships some clients may find it just as intrusive to be followed or sought out on social media as a therapist who feels uncomfortable about someone driving by their house. I don't consider either stalking in this context.

It's understandable there would be differences in opinion here.

Well, stalk is a strong word for the behavior of driving by a T's house to see where he/she lives.

I would never do it- it isn't in my wheelhouse of issues and I want to avoid my T's real life lol , but I don't see it as harmful or intrusive on the level of "stalking" .

I have no clue what the exact legal definition of stalking is, but I think it involves a pattern.

I do think the examples above flavor the act as more or less intrusive- like if T lives in the middle of town square or on a dead end road in the woods etc. Driving by is different from sitting in the driveway or looking in the windows or going through the mail. It is different if the client has been told no and does it anyway.

I do see your point though. I would be freaked out if a parent of a student I taught in school decided to track down my house after a parent-teacher conference. Would I call it stalking - probably not as a one time occurrence. Would I lobby to move that kid out of my class BOOM the next morning. Nope . If it happened several times, yup.

In the u.s., usually it will be defined by statute and each state will have its own such as the example I posted of the one from Penn.
The statutes do not all look alike.

I missed it, I will go look back in the thread.

This is really helpful for the other post. Thank you.

I have no problems with people, even therapists, looking anyone up and finding information that is publicly available. I also have no problem if anyone, clients or therapists, want to decide who they will and will not work with and as long as the rules on each side are clear, if one party or the other violates that agreement, I have no problem with the therapist quitting or the client quitting. I have had students who tried looking me up (I do not participate in facebook etc and have very little non-professional info on the web). I have had students drive past my house and that did not bother me.
But legally speaking, it is not stalking without more. And what constitutes stalking varies a lot state to state in the u.s.

(I take great issue with a therapist believing they get to fire a client. The client is the one who hires the therapist. The therapist may quit, but not fire.)

It would not bother me at all for a therapist to look up my social profiles. My therapist has read some things, but only because I provided links. Even so, it doesn't bug me to think that she would hunt for things on her own.

I would love it if my therapist intentionally drove by my house. While I have no inclination to drive by hers, it would mean a lot to me for her to see the s**t show neighborhood I live in, the origin of so many incidents that I have to work through in therapy. To me, it would mean she cared to get a sense for what I deal with. I mean, I've got harrassing effing satanist a few houses one way and drug dealers the other direction, neo nazis a bit further, and all kinds of other crap going on.