Social networking and therapy

I grew up in such a different world. When I was a teenager there were no computers. [And I am not even ancient] No mp3 players, DVD players or mobile phones. We were lucky to have kids programs on one of the two tv channels on wednesday afternoon for three straight hours. 

Boy what a different world it is today. Most kids have their own computer next to their other electronic toys. And for a lot of adults teenage conversations are hard to follow. Think about text message language that is finding it's way to being used on the computer as well. For therapists it poses more problems. When you start to work online, you have to think carefully about how you want to present yourself online. What do you want clients to be able to find about you? And are you going to try to find out about clients? And what about the past? The things that are already online?

Try to google your name for example and to many people it comes as a shock what is out there. Comments you made on your favorite rockband's homepage, a comment in a digital guestbook of a museum you visited 10 years ago. Those are pretty innocent, but what about those pictures of a roudy party your friend has but on facebook because they think it was funny and they were friendly enough to tag you in it and make it public to the whole world. However carefull you are yourself with 'only friends' settings, those are things you just cannot control.

What you can control is what you put online yourself from this moment and your own policy. For me this means that I will not add clients online for my private facebook and hyves pages. And I put all my settings on friends online. It is not that I don't like my clients, but I want to keep my private life and my professional life seperate. Also I am bound by my ethical code to do so. I make this very clear on my professional website. Clients are more than welcome to follow me on my professional sites, like this blog, and my professional facebook, hyves  or twitter page.Likewise I state that I will not google my clients names or look for them on social media. These things are not law yet and maybe never will. But I think it makes life a whole lot easier and friendlier if we all stick to basics like these.