I'm a counsellor-if you were my client, how bad would this be?

[Counseller]

I was talking to a client, video call, from my sitting room. I have an office but often work from the sitting room if I am doing online sessions. I live alone so it isn't a problem

My dog walker brought my dog back early. I didn't expect this, my client wouldn't have even known about it if I was sitting somewhere different but they'd have seen the door open and the walker take the dog's lead off and the dog come in. Dog walker didn't come in-never does after a walk as the lead hangs up right next to the door.

This is a long-term client who is very comfortable with me. I apologised-dog walker didn't do anything other than literally drop the dog off so it was a few seconds at most, I paused the session and I gave her a couple of minutes longer, she did not seem at all bothered about it.

If you were my client, how bad would you think this would be? I am confident they weren't at all perturbed by it but I feel it was so unprofessional! Nothing like this has happened before.

I’d just have a word with your dog walker about not returning early unless pre arranged. This client was fine, but if you’d been working with a client who had just begun to describe something very traumatic and difficult and was thrown off their train of talk by seeing an unexpected person, that wouldn’t have been great.

It would depend on what we were talking about, if it was something very personal I might be embarrassed and/or horrified tbh.

I wouldn’t be bothered on the confidentiality. I would not be keen on the dog staying in the room as I’d be concerned about noise or you being distracted- you would know your dog behaves I wouldn’t.

I could also use askibg about the dog as an excuse to get out of talking about something difficult or painful - I’ve done deflection before so maybe watch for that (That’s a general point if it wasn’t the dog it could be your hairstyle/the weather or latching on to someone else having been around like the dog walker)

Good point @ComtesseDeSpair ! That would have been awful.

@WorriedMillie
I must tell this story now-when I was in therapy as part of my training-the counsellor also worked from her sitting room (I think she had two reception rooms) and had a dog. (Obviously) I love dogs, but her dog CONSTANTLY scratched at the door and whined to come in. Then she'd get up and say 'Oh sorry, I dont know what's wrong with this dog!' and go and see to it, then come back in. Every session I'd say 'let him come in, I'm not bothered!' but she'd insist on leaving him outside the room to scratch and carry on-I didn't understand it! And I never did ask if the dog was like this with all her clients or just me-if the former surely something needed to be done...

Well it depends whether you held off the conversation before the person opened the door, whether the person was within earshot and whether there was a chance the person caught sight of your client on the video call. It's a bit like if you had a face to face session and someone came to the door - I mean they must surely peep in enough to check the dog goes through and then hang up the lead - was it the same room ?

It wouldn't bother me.

Eh, maybe you might want to counsel yourself for the overthinking...?

YABU to not offer in person appointments so people can cuddle the dog, and YABVVVVVVVVU not to post your dog on this thread!

I disagree. Councilling is very personal. You were distracted and unprofessional. During a session you should give your client 100 % otherwise what's the point. Just because they've been a client for a ong time doesn't mean you can be sloppy

Make better arrangements

I would be really unhappy about this, I’m not going to lie.

I think it looks unprofessional and I’d be worried about what she heard and how often someone is in the background.

This is one of the biggest reasons people don’t like doing it over zoom/teams, because they can’t guarantee that it’s just between them.

Just the dog coming in could have thrown her if she was talking about something deep.

There was a thread only yesterday about an OP having a meeting in a spa and I think it’s so unprofessional to have any sort of meeting around people who are not part of it.

But what’s done is done and I would just apologise to your client and make sure it doesn’t happen again - the best way to do this is by working from your office all of the time.

This. I think how you handled it and discussed it in the next session would be the decider for me.

So no I wouldn't like it but as long as there was no possibility that the person had seen me on the call it would probably be ok.

Honestly wouldn't have given it a second thought. You are a human being with a life, not a robot!

Not the same room but open plan,they literally just let dog in, hung lead up and left. I paused the session, and they'd definitely not be able to hear client. I will bring it up next session, thank you for that suggestion.

Thanks @TheYearOfSmallThings I am definitely an overthinker!

Just noticed I've spelt counsellor wrong in my username! not my day today.

To be fair zoom / video sessions are easy but not very good - feels like such a rip off that prices stayed the same for therapy when there were no room fees to pay !

I don’t know… a massive thing about therapy is confidentiality and feeling like you’re in a space you can talk.

Some people may feel ok with this but some people would feel this breaches the safe space they thought they had. Depends on the client.

Tbh I’d be upset by it particularly if I was talking about something deep at the time.

In future I would use your office space.

Yes it was an error I think you should have a closed office with a sign on the door.

I agree with this.

I had over two years of therapy on zoom with three different counsellors. I never really got better.

Been having two sessions a week face to face since September and omg it’s actually making the difference I think therapy should!

I've had counselling before, and CBT via video calls. Wouldn't bother me at all.

My CBT therapist, I could occasionally faintly hear her toddler crying in the background. Like clearly not in the room with her or anything just further away in the house. That didn't bother me either as I had a preschooler and a baby and worked from home myself so know what it's like. She did start wearing a headset after a few occasions of that though bless her!

And I've had a lot of therapy.

I would be asking for an in person appointment so I could have dog hugs!

I think it's one of those things, though, isn't it — that pretty much everyone will at some point fall short of the stringent professional standards some occupations have.

(I've just had a look at the BACP good practice in action guidelines for remote working, and they very much do mention ensuring the physical security of the room you work in, as did guidance for psychologists doing remote work during COVID, and I would bet every other set of home/remote therapy organisational guidelines would mention something similar — it's obviously okay that lots of people would be fine with it if it happened and for them to say so, but I disagree with people who say that it's perfectly okay in principle.)

This thing happened that you weren't expecting and hadn't prepared for, and ideally it shouldn't have. The conversation couldn't be overheard as you'd taken precautions, the client wasn't concerned, the therapeutic relationship wasn't damaged.

You consider it to be a minor lapse of professionalism, and personally I agree, well, so what? You're human and that happens sometimes. You can prevent it happening again. If it plays on your mind that you have allowed yourself to slip away from absolute professional perfection, then I guess that's something you could discuss in supervision.

I've seen a couple of therapists long-term and once or twice something has happened which didn't quite fall within the guidelines they should follow, which may or may not have bothered me personally, and for the most part I understand that that's just something that happens sometimes. Yeah, if something happened in the first session or two, I might not feel inclined to invest my time, money and effort in building a therapeutic relationship with that provider, but generally if there's been no harm then there's no purpose beating yourself up about one minor incident.

It's all good. This wouldn't bother me in the slightest.

Unless you were chatting to them about their phobia of dogs, I can't see any problem.

Yes, this would bother me (and I love dogs!).

If I am paying you for your time and potentially opening up about difficult or traumatic circumstances, then I expect 100% of your attention. No exceptions.

If you have dogs / cats / kids / gerbils, please put them in the care of somebody else for the 30 / 60 minutes of time you and I have together.

The very least you could do is relocate your laptop / sitting position or blur your background so that there is no chance of a visual interruption.

Thanks for taking the time to write that @off . It's true, we've probably all had things like this happen at some point in whatever profession we're in.

The offending article is attached.