Your Professional Will

Sara Williams, M.D., EEM-CLP

I was entrusted to contact Louise Neale’s clients following her totally unexpected death. My experiences have raised a number of issues that seem important for us all to consider, whatever our age.

If you were suddenly unable to practice due to unforeseen circumstances, who would inform your clients? Would anyone know where to find your records? Could they then find the key, code, or computer password? Would they even know that you kept client intake forms or confidential notes? And would they understand the concept of confidentiality?

Louise’s son, in a state of shock, had no idea what to do, or even how to contact clients before they arrived at the house for sessions. And even if he could make contact, he was not equipped to deal with their shock and upset while trying to come to terms with his own. He needed someone to step in who is accustomed to listening to others who are in distress. Ideally this would be an Energy Medicine practitioner who could bridge Louise’s clients toward the next step in their healing journey.

I offered to help. I was provided with Louise’s client information and session notes but was on my own from there on. Fortunately, my professional background prepared me for much of what was required, but I also had a number of questions, which I sent on to Innersource. This was the start of some very useful dialogue with David, where we spoke of “Professional Wills,” a “Professional Executor,” and the challenges around confidentiality when a stranger steps into what had been an intimate, confidential relationship. David suggested that some of the ethical challenges I was having to field around confidentiality could have been circumvented if the following paragraphs were in the Confidentiality section of each client’s Informed Consent statement/form:

In the light of my experiences, both these paragraphs should definitely be in the documents we have new clients sign. That way your clients can see and will have agreed to the steps you have taken for unforeseen possibilities, the provisions you have put in place to address their needs, how confidentiality will be maintained, prepayments refunded, debits collected, etc.

Not surprisingly, a model already exists for addressing the issues that arise following a practitioner’s death or incapacitation, first introduced to health care professionals by the psychotherapy community. Known as a “Professional Will,” it is a signed document that tells our family and executor how to proceed with our professional practice, who will deal with informing our clients, provide them with support, handle the disposition of confidential client records, and recommend alternative EEM practitioners. The key piece is to select a competent “Professional Executor” who has agreed to step in if it ever becomes necessary. It is also a good idea to have an alternative in case the original individual is no longer available. Some licensing boards consider it an ethical obligation to have a Professional Will. No one likes to think about worse case scenarios, but my experience with Louise’s clients underlines the wisdom of taking this action.

I began with my own personal ritual, lighting my EEM candle and tuning into Louise. With Louise’s current clients, I decided to inform those I had not spoken to at her funeral with a personal handwritten letter so that they could absorb the shocking news in their own way and in their own time. My letters provided a contact phone number with an invitation to call me if they wished to talk, gave details about their nearest EEM practitioners, and suggested some supportive homecare exercises. All but one of Louise’s current clients responded to the letter by phoning me. These calls felt important. They also gave me a way to address the question of what each person wanted done with their case notes. It is advisable not to appoint a close friend as Professional Executor as they may find it difficult being effective whilst in the midst of grief themselves. Fortunately my background in psychotherapy helped me. The client who didn’t call me did call her new EEM practitioner. After a long emotional chat with that person, she sent me written permission to release her notes to the practitioner.

Your Professional Will can state how far back in time you want clients informed if they have ceased to see you. I decided to go back 18 months with Louise’s clients. I also decided not to include people who only came for a single “taster” session. I sent Louise’s previous clients a printed letter incorporating all the relevant information, and included a form for them to complete and return telling me what they wanted me to do with their notes. Of all Louise’s clients that I contacted, half wanted the case notes returned to them, half of the others wanted the notes forwarded to a new practitioner, and the remaining individuals wanted their notes destroyed.

I also learned some practical guidelines from my experience with Louise’s client records: 1) if you keep your Intake Forms separate from your Session Notes, be sure to cross-reference them clearly; 2) even if you have a client’s contact details in another location, be sure they are also on the intake forms; 3) keep contact details up to date; and 4) be sure that anything that is hand-written is legible.

Let us hope we are happily retired long before a Professional Will is ever needed, but “To Be Professional Is to Be Prepared!”

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