Writing for the Legal and Medical Contexts

This chapter explores how psychotherapists will occasionally write to communicate with people outside of the therapeutic context. The first part of the chapter describes the legal context and how it is important for therapists to know their legal obligations when writing to people other than their clients, specifically when there is a court order for information. The chapter makes the distinction between clinical summaries and clinical letters. The second part of the chapter focuses on how psychotherapists write for the medical context when their clients are experiencing medical issues. This section describes guidelines for writing to those in the healthcare system. The chapter ends with a discussion of writing gender-affirming treatment letters for clients.