Online Mental Health Group Expels Whistleblower

Summary Justice — In Absentia

Without the courtesy of any direct communication to inform me of their drastic action, the International Society for Mental Health Online has taken the extraordinary step of expelling me from the discussion list used by the organization’s members.

Why?

I can only guess, but I would imagine that it has something to do with the fact that I posted the summary portion of Thursday’s article revealing evidence of unethical behaviour at the ISMHO (“Online Therapist Avoids Censure Over Breach of Client Confidentiality”) to the members’ discussion list. When it appeared that my initial posting was censored and removed shortly after it first appeared, I took the further step of sending a single, one-off email message containing the same paragraph of information, individually and privately to the organization’s members. The International Society for Mental Health Online has now ensured that I may not take part in any further discussion of the incident by simply banning me from the list.

An Interlude to Apologize — ISMHO Probably Did Not Censor My Original Posting

Additional evidence now suggests that I was incorrect to have indicated previously that the ISMHO censored my original posting regarding the ISMHO security lapse (“Online Therapist Avoids Censure Over Breach of Client Confidentiality”), and therefore I would like to apologize in public for having said they had done so. Members’ posts may only be removed by a list moderator, and the unavailability on two separate occasions of my own post therefore led me to infer — apparently incorrectly — that a moderator had indeed removed my original post. It would now appear that the most likely explanation for the post’s apparent disappearance was simple operator error on my part: attempting to retrieve a post by unique post number, and missing or adding a character when cutting and pasting the URL for that post into my browser.

SO, once again: I apologize for having made that incorrect inference, and for wrongly indicating that the message had been censored (as well as for sending that second copy of the message). It was almost undoubtedly my own mistake.

Back to Summary Justice

What is not a mistake, however, is that I have definitely been expelled from the ISMHO discussion list. If previous experience is anything to go by, the organization may well claim that I somehow violated the rules of the ISMHO discussion list, and that this justifies their having summarily removed me from the list without warning or even the courtesy of a message informing me of the action. I’m not sure whether the organization’s board members actually read their own guidelines (given that they have previously claimed such violations where patently non existed), but I have — and I can assure you that my message did not in any way contravened the list guidelines. Here’s a brief summary of the rules ISMHO members are required to follow, along with a note of whether I have followed them:

• Always sign messages with your real name in the body of the message — DONE
• Use a clear and concise subject line — DONE
• Reply to particular posts within digests, not the whole digest — NOT APPLICABLE
• Clearly format quoted text — NOT APPLICABLE
• Do not post “mass mailing”-type advertisements to the list without explanation of relevance — My note could hardly be called an advertisement, but relevance was very clearly explained
• Be sensitive to diversity — DONE
• Be respectful of others’ perspectives, even when you disagree with them or believe they are wrong — DONE (in fact, in refraining from posting information at the board’s request for half a year, I have probably been respectful to a fault)
• Do not share passwords or access information — NOT APPLICABLE
• All messages are protected by copyright laws — NOT APPLICABLE (I was posting my own material)
• Avoid personal attacks, innuendo, etc. — DONE (my posting was 100% factual)

In the closest thing the ISMHO has to any type of disciplinary procedure, the ISMHO executive is authorized “in exceptional circumstances” to remove those whom they judge to have contravened the list guidelines without offering them the usual two chances to rectify any transgressions of the list guidelines.

SO, were these exceptional circumstances? They most certainly were! It’s not every day that evidence emerges that an ISMHO board member apparently acted unethically — and that the ISMHO board subsequently sought to prevent members from learning of the incident. But were the exceptional circumstances in any way related to the ISMHO members’ list guidelines? In my view, the answer is clearly not. You can see a summary of the guidelines for yourself above. (And by the way, no it could not have been my mistaken claim of censorship which led to the expulsion, since that did not take place on the ISMHO list.)

It appears to me that the ISMHO has violated its own guidelines in electing to expel me from the discussion list. Check out that bit about respecting the views of others, even when you disagree with them or believe they are wrong…

What else might explain the organization’s behaviour? Who knows? But based upon my other recent experience with the organization’s behaviour toward situations that might threaten the personal authority of individual board members, I’m not too shocked.

The Real Point — Informing ISMHO Members of Events Within Their Own Organization

It would be a shame if the real point of this whole exercise were lost in some fracas over expelling Greg Mulhauser from ISMHO. The real point, of course, is that evidence indicates an ISMHO board member published client information on a publicly accessible website without informed consent — and the ISMHO board subsequently sought to ensure that ISMHO members never learned of the event.

As I suggested in the original article revealing evidence of unethical behaviour at the ISMHO (“Online Therapist Avoids Censure Over Breach of Client Confidentiality”), what matters is not so much the fact that people make mistakes — we all do — it’s how those mistakes are dealt with that is really significant. Shutting down discussion by expelling the whistleblower appears to be how the ISMHO is now handling this particular mistake.