Come back later this week for a question related to this topic!
Many states have followed California’s lead in the case of Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California by passing laws that permit or require mental health professionals to breach client confidentiality in order to warn or protect a potential victim of the client. The specific requirements vary, but in most states, the duty to warn/protect applies only when a client has communicated to the therapist a serious threat of physical violence against an identifiable victim or victims. The appropriate action to take depends on the provisions of relevant law but may include hospitalizing the client, warning the potential victim, and notifying the police.
Note that above, the law is for only when a client communicates to the therapist about a serious threat of physical violence. Therefore this would not include your client telling you about a threat that was made by a neighbor, or even a spouse/partner. In those situations, you would want to talk to the client about what he or she can do since they heard or know about the threat (such as calling the police themselves, etc.), but you have no legal requirement to report the threat. In fact, you could be breaching confidentiality if you did report this since it was not a direct threat from your client heard by you as the therapist..
The duty to warn/protect does NOT apply in the following situations:
Someone Other Than the Client is the Dangerous Party: The duty to warn/protect applies only when a therapist’s client poses a danger to others. For instance, if a client says a co-worker has threatened to murder a neighbor, the therapist would not have a duty to warn/protect. However, the therapist would want to encourage the client to report this threat to the police or take other appropriate action. In this situation, the therapist would have to obtain the client’s consent in order to contact the police him/herself.
There is No Reasonably Identifiable Victim or Victims: The duty to warn/protect covers only situations in which there is a “reasonably identifiable victim or victims,” although this does NOT mean that the therapist must know the victim’s name. For instance, if a client told his therapist that he was planning to go to a specific bar that night and shoot people, employees and patrons in the bar would, in all likelihood, be considered “identifiable victims.”) When a client seems generally dangerous but there is no identifiable victim, a therapist does not have a duty to warn/protect but may want to take action by, for instance, initiating a 5150 (involuntary hold). Certain laws allow a therapist to breach client confidentiality in this situation.
The Client Threatens Suicide: The court ruling in Bellah v. Greenson established that there is no duty to warn/protect as defined in the Tarasoff decision when a client threatens suicide. In that case, the court determined that Tarasoff covers a potential victim of a therapist’s client, not the client him/herself. However, when a client threatens suicide, the therapist would want to protect the client by contacting the client’s parent or spouse, initiating a 5150, or taking other appropriate action.