Ethics of privacy

Claim: A therapist's duty to keep a patient's words confidential should yield only in the narrow situation the law already defines, when a patient makes a serious, specific threat against an identifiable person.\nEvidence: Therapy records are normally protected, and patients are told their sessions are private. In many states, however, the duty-to-warn rule requires a mental-health provider who hears a credible, specific threat of violence against a named or identifiable victim to take reasonable steps to protect that person, such as warning the target or notifying police.\nReasoning: This exception is limited on purpose. It applies to a concrete threat against a particular person, not to vague statements or ordinary private feelings, so confidentiality stays the default in almost every session. Keeping the exception narrow protects the trust therapy depends on, because if patients believed anything they said could be reported, they might hide the very thoughts a therapist needs to hear in order to help them. A tightly drawn duty to warn lets the provider prevent a specific, foreseeable harm while still honoring privacy everywhere else.