Overview
According to the American Sociological Association (ASA), “confidentally generally means that private information about an individual will not be shared without his or her consent.”
Commentary
Honestly, I don’t really believe that any policy about confidentiality can really be trusted to be confidential.
Alcoholics Anonymous is explicit that communication in groups is not legally privileged in any way and relies on the trust of the fellowship, many of which resemble high school cliques in terms of gossip and drama.
A survey of 500 psychologists conducted by Kenneth Pope showed that 62% of admitted to breaching patient confidentiality at least once accidentally, with 50% believing that confidentiality is the easiest ethical rule to accidentally violate. 8% of therapists admitted that they talked about their clients by name to outsiders. The American Psychological Association reports that 15% of the complaints tracked by the Ethics Committee concerned confidentiality issues. The Association of Marital and Family Therapy Regulatory Boards (AMFTRB) publishes state licensing board data that reveals confidentiality violates and failure to maintain records as the most common reasons therapists face official repercussions for their conduct.