How To Make Your Private Practice Office Space Confidential

June 23, 2017

How To Make Your Private Practice Office Space Confidential

Once you start seeing clients at your private practice, you need to make sure that all your conversations and information are confidential. That means your office needs to provide a safe environment for your sessions. And let’s just say thin walls aren’t conducive to confidentiality. 

Therapy, no matter what niche, is usually an emotional subject. People are likely to raise their voices when they speak about topics that make then angry or sad. You don’t want your neighbors to know all that well what is going on in your clients’ lives. 

Your First Office Space 

When you get started as a private practitioner, you are probably choosing an inexpensive option for your office. That either means public spaces - such as churches or community centres - or offices that aren’t designed with therapy in mind. 

How To Make Your Private Practice Office Space Confidential

How To Make Your Private Practice Office Space Confidential

Testing Confidentiality 

To first test how confidential your office is, get a friend or relative to talk at different sound levels in your office, and make note on how the sound carries. Try different locations in your office, and detect the most confidential one. 

Soundproofing on a Budget 

If you find that neighbors are still likely to hear your conversations, there are a few steps you can take to make sessions more confidential - without distracting from the actual therapy. You can try:

  • Installing a Fan

  • Playing background sound: white noise, soft music, soothing sounds

  • Add corkroll to doors or walls

  • Install a small water fountain

Once you realised one or two items from the list above, check your office for confidentiality again. You don’t need to completely cancel out all noise, but you want to make sure that unintended listeners don’t understand specific words.

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