Something occured to me the other day, as a sort of follow-up to the review thing... someone mentioned, in the comments on that site, that I had better hope I wasn't her psychologist because... now, wait, let me go copy it verbatim because I want to get it right... "I tell ya what, if you were MY psychologist and I read about myself on your blog? I’d kick your ass first and then look into suing. Cuz I’d be a crazy person and all..."

And she's got a point, and I just want it covered here because... well, because.

So, if she were reading about herself on my blog she'd be making stuff up. I don't plug disclaimers in every post - maybe I should, actually - but I'm afraid of HIPAA (don't click on that link, please. It's really boring - the short version is, HIPAA is a bunch of rules about privacy and confidentiality and it scares the bejeezus out of anyone in the health field who is interested in not losing their job or all of their money). Anything you read on here, case-wise, client-wise, even sometimes hospital-wise, is not accurate. I change ages, genders, locations, details, and so on, so that I still get my basic point across but am not risking anyone's privacy.

Now that I think about it, I'm almost godlike in my ability to shuffle around basic demographic information on a person without them feeling a thing.

Seriously, though - even if I wasn't concerned about people's feelings (and, um.... being a psychologist, isn't that part of the job requirement? Actually, it's not, but I do it anyway), I'd be legally obligated to protect certain information.

I'm not prepared to be tortured or extorted for this information, so let's just not push it that far, okay?

Moral of the story is, what you read here is not reflective of reality, and if I did ever slip up and give away something about a client's identity, then I would deserve to get my ass kicked. And sued. Maybe both at the same time.