Do you ask clients to sign release forms for using telehealth? As a psychoanalytic therapist, I find release, and other forms challenging.
I’ve had five therapists/analysts in my life. Not one of them ever asked me to fill in any paperwork, to sign any form.
When I was starting out, not all that long ago, I had people fill in forms. But, increasingly, it felt wrong to me.
The way I think about things, forms don’t in any way advance the work I hope to do with my patients, and they don’t protect me in any meaningful way from anything about which I have any meaningful concerns (and they do muddy up the transference a bit). If a patient with borderline features decides I’m all bad and comes after me in litigation? I’m going to be in a world of hurt, and the absence of a form or two is going to be the least of my troubles. And none of the “communication” that’s done by form feels to me like anything I can’t do better, and more meaningfully, in person.
So I don’t see the value of forms of any sort, other than, very occasionally, a HIPAA release, which serves a very specific purpose and occurs in a very specific context.. And even there, I don’t worry too much about them….
[Please don’t report me to the authorities.]
