Privacy, Confidentiality and AI — Jenny Wellwood Counselling Therapeutic counselling online across the UK and in person, in Exeter city, £50 a session. Together we can meet life's challenges with support, finding a way through to living well, however that is for you.

Privacy Statement

Last updated: 23 September 2026

In accordance with UK General Data Protection Regulation, this ‘Privacy, Confidentiality and AI’ statement explains what data and information I collect as a counsellor, how I use it, and the choices and rights you have, including your right to complaint. It's written to be clear rather than legalistic— if anything isn't clear, please just ask me. This information is also shared as paper copy, and as a PDF with my clients when we begin our work together.

Jennifer Wellwood, Counsellor
Registered member of the NCPS : NCS23-03638

ICO registration: ZC178079

The information I collect

When you make contact or begin working with me, I may collect:

• Contact details: your name, email address, phone number, and (if relevant) emergency contact details.

• Session information: I take brief notes after each session to support your therapy and my professional practice, including anything relevant to risk or safeguarding.

• Health information: which is treated as "special category data" under data protection law and given extra care.

• Payment information: details needed to invoice and process payment, handled through Monzo Business.

• Website and enquiry data: if you contact me through my website, I'll hold whatever you include in that message just long enough to transfer that information to my secure filing. No client information is stored on my website. The site is hosted by Squarespace, which uses only essential cookies needed for the site to work. I don't use analytics or tracking cookies. If you contact me and decide not to proceed with counselling, I will immediately delete your contact data from my device.

I only ever collect what I genuinely need to work with you safely and well.

Why I hold this information

Data protection law (UK GDPR) says I need a clear reason to hold and use your information. Mine are:

To provide your counselling. When we agree to work together, I need some information to do that well, such as your contact details and session notes. (Legal term: contract.)
To run my practice. This covers everyday admin like sending invoices and keeping basic records. (Legal term: legitimate interests.)
When the law requires it. In rare situations, such as a serious safeguarding concern, I may be legally required to act. I'd always try to talk this through with you first wherever it's safe to do so. (Legal term: legal obligation.)
To look after sensitive information about you. What you share in counselling often includes things about your health and wellbeing, which the law treats as especially private. I'll talk with you about this at our first contact or session so you know exactly how it's handled. (Legal term: special category data.)

Confidentiality

What you share with me in our work together is confidential. I include this information here, as concern about privacy is one of the most common concerns about counselling and therapy. My Confidentiality policy is standard within counselling.

I am bound by, and guided in my work by the National Counselling and Psychotherapist’s Society’s Code of Ethics. Respecting my client’s privacy and autonomy are central to my counselling work. I will not disclose information about you to anyone outside of our counselling without your consent. Full confidentiality will be maintained, except in the following circumstances, consistent with my professional and legal obligations.

I will break confidentiality only if :

• I believe there is a serious and imminent risk to your life or safety

• I believe there is a serious and imminent risk to the life or safety of someone else, including a child

• I am legally required to, for example by a court order

• Disclosure is required under counter-terrorism or money-laundering legislation

Where possible, I will:

• Discuss my concerns with you first, and explain what I need to do and why

• Share only what is necessary, with the people who need to know

• Continue to work with you afterwards wherever appropriate

Clinical supervision

I discuss my client work regularly in clinical supervision, in an anonymised form, as required by NCPS ethical practice. This protects the quality and safety of your therapy— it is not a way of discussing you by name with a third party.

Where your information is stored

Your information is stored securely, with access limited to me alone. Digital notes are kept in an encrypted, password-protected system. Paper notes, where used, are kept in a locked cabinet, with contact details stored separately from clinical content. Notes are anonymised or pseudonymised where practical.

Financial records are handled through Monzo Business.

Your details are never sold, and are not shared with third parties for marketing purposes.

How long I keep your information

I retain client records for 7 years, in line with NCPS guidance and my insurance requirements, after which they are securely destroyed.

Your rights

Under data protection law, you have the right to:

• ask what information I hold about you, and receive a copy of it

• ask me to correct anything inaccurate

• ask me to delete your information (which i can decline if I am required to keep it for legal or professional reasons)

• ask me to restrict or object to how I use your information

• withdraw consent at any time, where consent is the basis for processing

To exercise any of these rights, please contact me at jenny@jennywellwoodcounselling.co.uk.

If you're unhappy with how I've handled your information, you also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).

Complaint

I hope that within our work together, we can address and repair any difficulties that we might encounter. If something in our work together does not feel right, I'd genuinely like to hear about it. You're welcome to raise it with me directly, either in session or in writing at jenny@jennywellwoodcounselling.co.uk, and I'll respond openly and with care, aiming to resolve it together.

If we can't resolve it between us, or you'd rather not raise it with me, you have the right to make a complaint to my professional body, the National Counselling & Psychotherapy Society (NCPS). I'm a registered member (NCS23-03638), and my practice is bound by the NCPS Code of Ethics and Complaints Procedure, both available at ncps.com. The NCPS can be contacted at conduct@ncps.com.

My approach to AI

I think you have a right to know exactly what's present in the room with us— and what isn't. AI is both a wonderful tool, and a concern if not used conscientiously. This statement is my attempt at the kind of transparency I want to provide, and you might legitimately expect, regarding the use of AI within a counselling relationship.

Within our work together: no AI, ever

When we meet— whether in person or online— it is just the two of us. No AI tool will record, listen to, transcribe, summarise, advise on, or in any way mediate our sessions.

This isn't an oversight or a gap in my training or my technology. It's a deliberate choice, rooted in what I believe therapy actually is, and where I see a need to ring fence our meeting from AI assistance which is as yet a rather unknown and untested 'tool'. I make it part of my commitment to professional competency to keep abreast of academic studies on this subject: and whilst I appreciate the good AI is both doing and can do, I do not think it is a appropriate tool within the counselling room context.

One of the foundational conditions of therapeutic work is an experience of being seen and heard- also known as co-regulation- a caring, focused, real and human meeting between two people present to each other without filters and without interference. Counselling is a time and space we can meet without anything coming between us that might dilute, distract from or distort that contact.

Introducing an AI system into that space, however useful it might be elsewhere, appears to risk compromising that very thing that makes the therapeutic relationship able to hold and help: its realness. You deserve a therapist who is fully, humanly there— not one whose attention or process is shared with a computer. Person to person therapy has been making positive difference in client's lives for decades and AI in the therapy space strikes me as a complication and potential risk I am unwilling to entertain.

I know that for some people, especially if past experiences have involved being monitored, recorded, analysed, or spoken about rather than with, the idea of a therapist quietly running things through a piece of technology can feel unsafe— even if the intentions behind it were good. I want you to be able to trust that won't be how I work with you.

Outside of sessions: where I do use AI

In the interests of being completely honest with you, I do use AI tools in my practice— but only outside of client contact, in my own time, for administrative and organisational work. This might include things like within my clinical research, with assistance in drafting copy for professional communications or organising my continuing professional development.

Some important boundaries around this:

• Nothing about you goes into an AI tool. No names, no identifying details, no session content, no clinical notes.

• AI never informs a clinical decision. Any judgement about your care, our work, or what happens in the room comes from me, informed by my training and my clinical supervision, never from an algorithm, AI or Chatbot.

• My AI use sits entirely in the "running the business" part of my work, which is separate from the confidential, relational space you and I share.

If anything about this changes

If I ever consider using an AI tool in a way that touches your data or our work more directly (for example, an AI-assisted booking or note-taking system) I would tell you plainly and update this page, and ask for your explicit consent before using it in relation to you.

And if you use AI yourself....

As with many aspects of modern life, AI use is a personal choice, and can be complicated! Your thoughts, ideas and relationship with AI are so welcome in the counselling room. Lots of people now use AI chatbots for support, or to make sense of things between sessions: I respect this as a positive addition to how we can explore and manage our inner life. You're very welcome to bring anything that comes up to therapy, and I will respect your choices.

As AI companies state in their own safeguarding policies: AI can't replace human, relational care, and it should not feel like the only place you have to turn to if in distress.

Out of Session support :

If you're in distress now, or between sessions, the crisis contacts listed here are there for you :

Samaritans
116 123
They're free, they're anonymous, and they're always open. These services are for anyone who's struggling. They won't judge you.

Mind support line
0300 102 1234
Open 9am to 6pm, Monday to Friday (except bank holidays).
This is a safe space for you to talk about your mental health. Their advisors will listen and help you work out your next steps. They also have an Infoline, a legal line and a welfare benefits line.

Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM)
0800 58 58 58 · thecalmzone.net
Open 5pm to midnight, every day.
For anyone over 18 affected by suicide or suicidal thoughts. Helpline, online chat and WhatsApp chat.

If you have any questions about this privacy statement or how your information is handled, please contact me at:

jenny@jennywellwoodcounselling.co.uk

This statement will be reviewed every 6 months, and may be updated from time to time. The most recent version will always be available on this page. Last updated: 23 September 2026