Confidentiality of Mental Health Providers
Before we talk about how seeking mental health can impact your case, we need to understand the confidentiality of a psychotherapist during a court-martial or investigative proceeding.
Mental health providers come in all sort of different types —a counselor, a social worker, a psychotherapist, or a psychiatrist. Generally, statements to a mental health provider are considered confidential, although that privilege is generally considered less confidential than conversations with a lawyer or priest.
Generally, there are exceptions to the confidentiality that you have with mental health providers. Exceptions include potentially mandatory reporting related to abuse of child; command directed mental health evaluations, where your expectation to privacy was not stated on paperwork.
If counseling or seeing a therapist or a social worker is going to help you through this process, it’s certainly an option that you should seek out. A mental health provider can be a resource that’s there for you to work through a difficult time, and the law is designed to keep what you tell a counselor confidential under most circumstances. Talk to your therapist about the extent of confidentiality.
Take Care of Yourself
There are cases in which talking to a mental health professional could have negative consequences, but in our experience, the only time mental health records of the accused are accessible to the Government and their attorneys are after the Accused mounts a mental health defense.
It is far more important for a client to take care of themselves than to worry about confidentiality if you are on the brink of hurting or killing yourself. We often talk to clients that are hoping to receive treatment during the difficulty of waiting for their court-martial to occur. We advise clients regularly to talk to their mental health provider but to stop short of talking about the details of the actual event. Saying something to your doctor like “I’m not comfortable talking about the details of the allegation, but I would appreciate if we can talk about my feelings while I’m managing the stress of the upcoming trial.”
