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Do therapists look up their clients on Facebook?
Short answer: yes. A new study published on January 15 in the Journal of Clinical Psychology finds that 86\% of the therapists interviewed by the study’s authors say they sometimes do look up their patients on the Internet. A 2016 study, for example, found that most patients do indeed look up their therapists online.
🌻Your therapist has an account that’s popular on social media and you’re okay to follow that, but not their private account. 🌻 You may follow your therapist (if they feel okay), but they may not follow you back. Feeling weird about it? Talk to them, understand their boundary better from their words.
Can therapists be friends with clients?
Client-therapist friendships can be unethical, according to codes of ethics from many bodies that govern therapists, including the American Psychological Association [APA]. By becoming friends with a client, a therapist can risk disciplinary action from governing bodies or losing licensure.
Can therapists have public social media?
Most psychotherapeutic interactions are private and confidentially protected, while most interactions on social media are broadcast to the public or to a network of friends. But when psychologists interact in both spheres, they do risk violating clients’ confidentiality or crossing boundaries.
While it is fine to look your therapist up online, sometimes doing so can cause discomfort or even distress and if you find you are experiencing negative effects, I think it is especially important to discuss that with your therapist, and to consider whether the it is unhelpful to your process.
Should you friend a client on Facebook?
It’s up to you to decide if your clients can be your friends on Facebook. A good rule of thumb might be that if you wouldn’t be friends with someone if they weren’t a client, you should not have them as a Facebook friend.