Can I tell my therapist this?

[Bart_Savage]

I have been visiting Adult Book Stores and allowing other men to perform oral sex on me. I know there is a chance of contacting and STD or even AIDS, so please don't lecture, and since I don't reciprocate or perform any other sex acts the chances are slim.

 

To the point, will my therapist have to report this since I could pass something on to my wife?

 

I want to talk to my therapist since I know this is a destructive behavior but I don't want to be reported to either the authorities or my wife!

 

Bart

[whichwayisup]

Your wife deserves to know the truth..That you are getting sucked off by men and are putting her health at risk.

 

IF you DO get STD's or become HIV positive, then yes, your therapist LEGALLY has an obligation to report it. Even more so since you're married.

 

Which leads me to this.. Why not divorce or ask your wife for an open marriage? No more sex between you and your wife, only stay married for other reasons and then each of you can do whatever you please? Why should you get to do whatever you want and she's kept in the dark?

[Taramere]

Depending on whether your doctor referred you for therapy, your therapist's records might form part of your medical records generally. In which case potentially they could be obtained via court order if you were involved in a messy divorce action and your wife's lawyers could persuade the court that the records were relevant. Pretty remote possibility though, I would say.

 

I think your therapist would definitely want to explore with you the health risks involved in your behaviour...not to mention the impact of you being deceitful to your wife. Infidelity is pretty commonplace and I doubt that the risk of passing on an infection to a spouse is deemed to be sufficient for a therapist to report you.

 

It would be different if you were knowingly sleeping with somebody who had an infection because that would show intent (reckless or malicious deliberate intent) to pass on an infection to your spouse. Broadly, if you share with your therapist that you are planning to, or already have, carried out a crime in which somebody else was a victim then that is where the duty would likely kick in. Anything like child abuse or plans to harm another person...that's going to place a duty on the therapist who hears about it.

 

You have to consider that ultimately your therapist is just another person who might have their own ideas about what they must pass on. I don't personally think it would be correct for your therapist to breach confidentiality on the basis that you're engaged in infidelity which might result in an infection being passed on to your wife. Crucially there's not enough intent or knowledge there to bring in the criminal element.

 

However, your therapist might disagree with that perspective, be a law unto theirself and decide "I think I should pass this on." The obvious solution, to me, would be that you establish with the person in question what they feel they can and can't pass on.

 

Ask them, hypothetically, whether they would feel obliged to report incidents of infidelity on the basis that there's always the potential for a disease to be contracted and passed on. This wiki link will give you some overview of how the criminal offence of knowingly passing on HIV is viewed in different jurisdictions

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_transmission_of_HIV

 

the catch 22 is that as long as you don't know you're passing on HIV, you're not committing an offence...because there has to be that element of knowledge/intent. Which unfortunately can reduce people's motivation to get themselves tested. However, the more promiscuous you are, the more you're veering into that area of reckless disregard for your spouse's health and safety...and I think a lot of therapists would probably struggle ethically with this one.

 

So really, the only thing you can do is establish directly with your therapist what he or she regards the limits of confidentiality in your therapeutic relationship to be.