Contact
Get in touch with Deborah Sweet, Psy.D.
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Policies
Confidentiality – Everything that you share with me will remain confidential. There are a few reasons, however, I am required to break confidentiality by law. The first would occur if you were of danger to yourself and had an active plan to harm yourself. In this case, I would contact the hospital to place you on a 72-hour watch. Another reason would occur if you were planning to seriously harm another person. I would be required to contact the person threatened if possible as well as the police department.
Confidentiality will also be broken if I learn of child or elder abuse and will contact protective services immediately. If I learn of a child abuser from a person’s past who is actively still around children I am mandated to report him or her. If you are a minor, I am required to share important information with your parents regarding your emotional health. This is not the case if the information you share would put you at extreme physical risk from a caregiver.
Breaches in confidentiality will occur along with the same guidelines for adults above but include a report if you are having a sexual relationship with an older peer or an adult if you are under 16 years of age. With the wonders of technology, we will be able to meet online. Please know that, although it is very unlikely to be hacked, online communications are never fully secure.
Phone Calls and Emergency Contacts – Calls will generally be returned within 48 hours during regular working hours Monday – Friday unless I am out of town. I will generally tell you when I will be away from the office. I provide nonemergency service. If you have an immediate emergency you may call your local emergency hotline or 911. For phone calls over five minutes, you will be charged $5/min.
For some clients, one check-in message and response can be helpful or necessary at certain times. Please keep these messages to one message cycle and let me know if you want a callback or if we can wait to discuss the issue at our next session. I will not accept texts as forms of communication other than for scheduling. One short email per week is permitted. We can discuss the contents during our next session. I will not respond via email and will only do so in person.
If this level of contact in between sessions is not enough we can discuss the possibility of biweekly meetings until you feel ready for once-a-week meetings. These limits are important so that I can be fully available to you professionally and can have thoughtful, resonant, and meaningful interactions with you.
Cancellations – If you decide that you need to cancel a session, please call or text me 48 hours before. If you do not cancel, I will expect you to pay for the missed session in full. This means that if you have an appointment at 11:00 am on Wednesday, you would need to cancel by 11:00 am on Monday.
This will allow me time to reschedule other clients who could benefit from the availability. Also, if we are able to reschedule during that week, there would be no charge. True emergency situations that cannot be foreseen can be negotiated (sudden illnesses, accidents, or unpredicted loss of childcare).