No-Secrets Contracts

No-secrets contracts are confidentiality agreements designed to help define the roles of couples [Page 1163]and families participating in therapy. These contracts are utilized to eliminate problems that may occur when a client who sees a therapist along with a partner or family members is also seeing the therapist in one-on-one sessions and discloses information that he or she wants the therapist to keep secret from the partner or one or more of the family members. No standardized contract exists to address secrets; therefore, it is advised that a therapist be proactive in creating and implementing his or her own contract. These efforts help to ensure that all those seeing the therapist together (a) are informed of the therapist’s policy regarding disclosure of secrets and (b) ...