Privacy Policy

You can be sure your privacy will be respected on our site, because CounsellingResource.com does not normally share your details with third parties and will not contact you without your permission.

Overall Privacy Policy

CounsellingResource.com is dedicated to safeguarding the privacy of site visitors, and our privacy policy is very simple. CounsellingResource.com and the providers of this site will not normally share individual information about you with any third party (but please see the specific exceptions outlined below), and will not contact you without your permission. (The relationship between the site and the company which formally provides it is explained on the page “About Us: Meet the CounsellingResource.com Team”.) This commitment to confidentiality will be restricted or suspended only under direct legal requirement, and then only to the extent necessary to comply with the rule of law.

How We Use Information You Provide

Our server automatically logs all resource requests, which we use to analyse technical usage data such as visitor numbers and activity across the site. Additional information recorded in standard server logs may include, but is not limited to, device type and web browser, a device’s network connections and a device’s IP address. In addition, we may now or at any time in the future use third-party analytics services which enable us to analyse visitor activity in aggregate; we specifically configure third-party analytics services such as Google Analytics to discard information such as IP addresses.

Contact information which you provide when subscribing to our newsletter will be used only in connection with the operation of the newsletter and related site services, and all communications via the newsletter will include links to enable you to update your information and preferences, or to cancel your subscription altogether. The CounsellingResource.com newsletter is strictly double opt-in, meaning that you must both sign up for a subscription and confirm your intention to subscribe before the newsletter will be sent to you.

Contact information which you provide when submitting comments on articles published in any of our blog-based sections (such as the main site blog Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life) will normally be used only to verify the legitimacy of submitted comments (e.g., to preclude machine-generated comment spam from appearing in article comments), and the email address will be used in hashed form to retrieve any Gravatar image which you may have chosen to associate with the address. When you submit a comment, please be aware that the comment itself — but not your contact details — will ordinarily be published on the site automtically. That is the purpose of the comment form — to enable you to submit a comment to share with other users of the site. Please do not include any personal contact information (such as your email address, phone number, etc.) within the body of your comment itself.

Site visitors providing personal details to this website will otherwise not be contacted by us unless they have explicitly given their permission that we may do so, or unless they have implicitly given their permission by writing to us with feedback, suggestions, questions or comments. (Note that we may operate automatic reply systems — such as out-of-office notifiers, anti-spam verification systems, and the like — which result in replies automatically being sent in response to certain email messages.) Except in the unlikely event that we are required to do so due to legal considerations, personal details received in this manner will never be shared with any third party without permission.

Talk to a Psychiatrist or Therapist Online

Site visitors writing to Ask the Psychologist operated at AskThePsych.com will be taken to have granted permission for their letter to be published on the site and by writing to us grant an irrevocable but non-exclusive license to distribute that content worldwide in any form, without royalty or compensation of any kind.

No personal details will knowingly be accepted from individuals under the age of 13. If you are under the age of 13, please do not write to this site.

We retain personal data in an identifiable format for the least amount of time necessary to fulfill our legal or regulatory obligations and for our business purposes. We may retain personal data for longer periods than required by law if it is in our legitimate business interests and not prohibited by law.

Cookies

In some specific circumstances, this site may use cookies to support the normal operation of our publishing platform. Cookies may be placed either directly by our server, or by third parties assisting in our site evaluation and development efforts.

Most web browsers will accept cookies by default, but they can be set to reject cookies, either from all websites or from specific sites. Users can also manually delete cookies directly via the web browser. These options are generally configured through a ‘Privacy’ setting in the browser.

For more details about how we or advertisers use cookies on this site, please see our separate page specifically about Cookies and Privacy.

Sharing With Third Parties

We may share personal information with other parties for our business purposes or as permitted or required by law, including:

  • if we need to do so to comply with a law, legal process or regulations;
  • if we believe, in our sole discretion, that the disclosure of personal data is necessary or appropriate to prevent physical harm or financial loss or in connection with an investigation of suspected or actual illegal activity;
  • to protect the vital interests of a person;
  • to investigate violations of or enforce a user agreement or other legal terms applicable to our service;
  • to protect our property, services and legal rights;
  • to facilitate a purchase or sale of all or part of our business;
  • to companies that we plan to merge with or be acquired by; and
  • to support our audit, compliance, and corporate governance functions.

In addition, we may provide aggregated statistical data to third parties, including other businesses and members of the public, about how, when, and why users visit our site and use our services. This data will not personally identify individuals or their activity. We do not share personal information with third parties for their marketing purposes.

International Transfers

Our operations are supported by individual servers, cloud-based servers, and other infrastructure and information technology operated by us and by third parties. Where those third parties — including but not limited to Google, which provides our email services — are established in jurisdictions outside the EU, we have reviewed the published data handling policies of those third parties and believe that they offer suitable protection of personal data commensurate with EU law. In particular, Google is certified under the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework, which is a legal mechanism to enable the transfer of personal data from the EEA to the US, where certified organisations guarantee to provide a level of protection in line with EU data protection law.

Privacy Choices and Rights

Visitors are under no obligation whatsoever to provide personal information of any kind to this site.

Subject to limitations set out in EU data protection laws, visitors have certain rights in respect of personal data, including a right of access, rectification, restriction, opposition, erasure and data portability. Please contact us if you would like to exercise these rights.

Updates

We may revise this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes to our business, the site or services, or applicable laws. The revised Privacy Policy will be effective as of the date of publication.

Data Protection Act

The provider of this site (Mulhauser Consulting, Ltd.) is registered in the United Kingdom as a Data Controller under the Data Protection Act 1998 and is committed to meeting the requirements of the GDPR.

If you are not satisfied by the way in which we address your concerns, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant supervisory authority for data protection in your country.

All clinical material on this site is peer reviewed by one or more clinical psychologists or other qualified mental health professionals. This specific article was originally published by on and was last reviewed or updated by Dr Greg Mulhauser, Managing Editor on .

Overseen by an international advisory board of distinguished academic faculty and mental health professionals with decades of clinical and research experience in the US, UK and Europe, CounsellingResource.com provides peer-reviewed mental health information you can trust. Our material is not intended as a substitute for direct consultation with a qualified mental health professional. CounsellingResource.com is accredited by the Health on the Net Foundation.

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