My former client posted our sessions, and confidentiality only binds me
This account was submitted by a healthcare provider and de-identified before publication. Details that could identify a patient or practice have been removed, and it is shared with the provider’s consent.
A former client posted publicly about the content of our sessions and named their diagnosis, framing the whole thing as an expose of my failings.
In therapy, confidentiality is close to sacred, and it runs in only one direction, so the client is free to disclose whatever they wish while I am ethically and legally forbidden from even confirming they were ever a client. Watching private session material sit online while I stayed silent was one of the hardest experiences of my professional life.
The emotional weight of it, the sense of being publicly accused and professionally muzzled at once, contributed to a stretch of real burnout where I questioned how much longer I could hold this kind of work. The people who most need to trust a therapist are exactly the ones a review like this frightens away.
I consulted my licensing board's guidance and my liability carrier, and both confirmed that silence was the only defensible option. I could not correct the mischaracterizations, reassure worried prospective clients, or protect the person from their own public disclosure.