New Definitions of Therapist Confidentiality
| Publication year | 1989 |
| Pages | 251 |
1989, February, Pg. 251. New Definitions of Therapist Confidentiality
In 1981, a previous column article reviewed the status of confidentiality between mental health professionals and their clients in Colorado.(fn1) The article noted that many situations in which the patient's right to confidentiality conflicted with the courts' need to know were governed by case law. Recent additions and amendments to the Colorado Revised Statutes have given greater definition to the limitations on the privilege of confidentiality. These changes are summarized in this article.(fn2)
When a patient threatens to harm a third party, a mental health professional must assess whether to take the patient into involuntary treatment, issue a warning to potential victims, notify the authorities or do nothing. Such a situation is often an example of a conflict between the patient's right to confidential treatment and the rights of members of the public to be protected from individuals who may cause them harm. In the initial Tarasoff case, Tarasoff v. Board of Regents, the seminal case law finding was that, when a clear prediction of dangerousness had been made, a therapist must warn potential victims.(fn3)
By legislative action, the duties of Colorado therapists are now clearly defined. A broad category of mental health providers is laid out in CRS § 13-21-117, including physicians, social workers, psychiatric nurses, psychologists or other mental health professionals and the staff of any mental hospital, community mental health center, clinic or institution. When a patient makes a serious threat against a reasonably identifiable victim, mental health providers have a duty to warn or protect by taking one of two types of action. The provider is required either to make reasonable and timely efforts to notify any "person or persons specifically threatened," as well as "the appropriate law enforcement agencies," or to take "other appropriate action including but not limited to hospitalizing the patient." Thus, where a provider effects an involuntary hospitalization, Colorado statute does not require a Tarasoff warning.
Immunity from liability is granted to therapists who make warnings to third parties. However, therapists are not immune from action for a failure to initiate a seventy-two hour hold nor for the negligent release of a hospitalized patient.
The question of who "owns" mental health evaluations of...
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