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Originally Posted by Soldier Boy
People who work at things like Samaritans and crisis lines do talk to their partners (or even their therapists) about things that they've been told or have happened during their work I'm afraid Redway. They can't say anything identifying or any names but if you're in a role where you're having other people's trauma conveyed to you all day, not talking about it at all to anyone would be a VERY bad idea.
Also worth remembering that even in a professional context there is no thing as 100% strict individual confidentiality; people on a crisis line will be talking to (and taking advice from) colleagues and supervisors constantly.
Plus safeguarding trumps confidentiality e.g. if you "in confidence" disclose a viable intent to kill yourself, or harm others, a professional confidant will absolutely break confidentiality, and in fact, are obligated to do so.
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Volunteers who don’t have sense of discretion do that, yeah. For others, there’s no way that they would go home and tell their spouses or boyfriends anything. That’s what the Samaritans in-house support for volunteers is there for. You seem to have a logical foundation for wanting boundaries to be subtly pushed in conversation but not everyone operates on that premise, and thank God they don’t.
The only times Samaritans breaks confidentiality when safeguarding’s concerned is when there’s a minor or an adult deemed particularly vulnerable in a certain fundamental way is involved. They have a self-determination policy over at Samaritans, which means that you can choose to subject a volunteer to your last conversation on Earth being with them and commit suicide on the other end. So long as you’re deemed as having the intellectual capacity to make that decision, they can’t stop you, and even if they think you’re vulnerable in that regard, there’s nothing they can do without you providing them identifying information because they really don’t have access to any of that information at all otherwise. They don’t know where you’re calling from in t’UK or Ireland, they don’t know your number, they don’t know anything about you whatsoever other than what you tell them. It wouldn’t work otherwise. So you get down that high horse about safeguarding right-this minute. Maybe that’s how it is at other organisations (undoubtedly) but not Samaritans.
I know strict confidentiality is something you struggle to get your head around but it does exist. You shouldn’t put people off ringing Samaritans because you expect them to all be just like you and breaking confidentiality because “there are no secrets in an ideal marriage”. You leave your Samaritans work at Samaritans. No offence but good Samaritans are not people like you. Always trying to find loopholes in confidentiality and a reason to tell your wife things that other people told you in confidence. You’re extensively trained at Samaritans not to be like that. And if that mentality can’t budge or you’re naturally the sort of person who worse-yet likes to gossip, being a Samaritan is obviously not for you.