‘I would be violating my professional secrecy by warning my girlfriend’

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As a psychologist, Lena (40, mother of two daughters aged 6 and 4) hears the deepest emotions of her clients.

“Of course I understand the importance of professional secrecy for psychologists. Clients must be able to share everything with their practitioner without fear that this information will be shared with others. It is often about very personal details, their biggest pain points and vulnerabilities. So my lips are sealedI know the rules all too well.

In the fifteen years that I have been doing this work, I have never been tempted to violate my professional secrecy. And if you had asked me a year ago, I would have sworn that this would never happen. That was really my belief, until my girlfriend’s well-being was jeopardized. Then I had to tell her what I should have kept to myself.

Wolf in sheep’s clothes

For three years I had been treating a lovely woman. She suffered from a bad marriage. I didn’t treat her husband so I can’t make an official diagnosis, but from her stories I could see that he had strong narcissistic traits. He kept her small, humiliated her, made her dependent on him by isolating her from her family, and caused her self-confidence to be nil.

To the outside world he was charming, but he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He made it almost impossible for my client to leave him, but in the end she dared to take that step. She stayed with me in therapy to work on her self-esteem.

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Confidential information

A few months later my girlfriend told me she met a nice guy online, they texted non stop and she was going to go on a date with him. His name, the company he worked for, how she described him: no doubt about it, this was my client’s nasty ex. I was in a huge dilemma. I wanted to warn my girlfriend about him, but then I would be violating my professional secrecy by sharing my client’s confidential information.

It kept me awake at night, my stomach ached. Finally, I decided to inform my girlfriend. From the way she talked about him, I could tell he was manipulating her. She is quite insecure after her divorce and he showered her with compliments – also known as love bombinga tactic used by narcissists to win over their new partner.

“I couldn’t watch him destroy her”

My girlfriend floated on a cloud and was like wax in his hands. I couldn’t watch him destroy her and I was sure this would happen if she moved on with him. So after much hesitation I called her and told her not to meet him. I briefly explained to her what I knew about him. Fortunately, she immediately took me seriously and did not meet him again.

Telling her this was extremely difficult, because I knew very well that I was doing something that wasn’t supposed to be done. But I had to intervene, even if it remains double. Intuitively I know that I did the right thing, professionally this was not acceptable.”

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