New Informants: Betrayal of Confidentiality in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy

Confidentiality is one of the cornerstones of psychotherapy, and yet this confidence is betrayed with increasing regularity. This text attempts to answer three questions: how did this loss of privacy come about?; what does it mean for clinical practice?; and what can be done about it?

About the Author :
Christopher Bollas is a member of the British Psychoanalytical Society, the Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies, and Honorary Member of the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. He is a member of ESGUT, the European Study Group of Unconscious Thought.

Review :
'Passionate, historically informative and well reasoned, The New Informants is a timely call to arms for therapists. Many of us regret that state reporting requirements, legal demands for testimony and managed care review have created unwanted intrusions on the privacy of therapeutic space. But we feel helpless. Bollas and Sundelson ask us to realize that we are responsible for allowing this erosion of privilege in the therapist-patient/relationship and that we must stop it.'You will not necessarily agree with all the authors' controversial arguments as to why the therapist-relationship has been betrayed or with their working blueprint for restoring confidence, but you will be informed, impelled and empowered to enter the discussion. Surely this is essential reading for all therapists and analysts who care about the patient's right to speak about mental life in a private relationship of absolute trust.'- Jill Savage Scharff'The New Informants succinctly describes how social pressures have eroded the confidentiality that is the foundation of the patient - psychotherapist relationship. Bollas and Sundelson suggest a course of action for resurrecting absolute confidentiality in psychotherapy that is thought provoking for any professional who engages in confidential communications with a client or patient.'- Donald J. Ayoob'The New Informants is a courageous and important study. The authors are painfully clear and thorough in their explanation of why effective psychotherapy absolutely depends upon a guarantee of confidentiality for the patient, and in their account of how that guarantee has been increasingly abdicated by the mental health professions over the past thirty years. After offering a shrewd analysis of the psychosocial determinants of this tragic failure, Bollas and Subdelson offer specific, practical suggestions about what can be done.'- Owen Renik'In an era which psychotherapy and psychoanalysis have been under siege, perhaps the most disconcerting development is one that slipped through our fingers with barely a whimper of protest. Patient/therapist confidentiality, once a cornerstone of intensive psychoanalytic treatment, has been progressively eroded by a confluence of judicial zeal, third party intrusiveness, and media essentialism. In this compelling new book, Bollas and Sundelson recount in chilling terms the how, why, and when of this crucial loss of privacy affecting psychotherapeutic and psychoanalytic practitioners. We ignore this book at our own peril.'- Glen O. Gabbard