Privacy Notice
In short
We only collect what we need to reply to you and support your therapy. We never sell your details. What you tell your counsellor is confidential, with a few legal exceptions explained below. You can ask to see or correct your information at any time.
This notice applies to clients and prospective clients of Untangled Therapy.
1. Who we are
Untangled Therapy is a shared practice of four independent, self-employed counsellors: Marta Gaczynska, Natalie Burton, Heather Darlinton and Luvena Hadden. We share a website, enquiry form and therapy room, but each counsellor works independently with their own clients.
Enquiries: when you contact us through the website or by email, the four of us jointly are the data controllers responsible for your enquiry details.
Therapy records: once you start working with a counsellor, that counsellor is the data controller for your clinical records. The other counsellors do not have access to them.
Contact: untangledtogether@gmail.com
Website: untangledtherapy.co.uk
If you have any questions about how your information is handled, please get in touch using the details above.
2. What information we collect
Depending on your contact with us, we may collect:
Contact information
Name
Email address
Telephone number
Information needed to arrange appointments
Information relating to your therapy
If you become a client, we may collect information that you choose to share during therapy, including:
Your reasons for seeking counselling
Personal history and circumstances
Information about your emotional and psychological wellbeing
Relevant physical or mental health information
Information about relationships, family, work or other areas of your life
Therapy notes and records
Information relating to risk, safeguarding or crisis situations where relevant
Some of this information is special category personal data, including information concerning health.
Administrative information
Appointment dates and times
Attendance information
Payment records
Correspondence between us
Information relating to cancellation or non-attendance
Records needed for professional, legal, insurance or regulatory purposes
We only collect information that is relevant and necessary for the purposes described in this notice.
3. Website enquiries
When you use our contact form, we collect your first name, your email address and any optional details you choose to add, such as what you'd like to talk about, when suits you for a call, your phone number and which counsellor you'd like to meet.
You don't need to share anything sensitive at this stage. A line or two is plenty.
We use this information only to reply to you and arrange your free 15-minute call. Form messages are received through Squarespace and sent to our shared email account, which Marta, Natalie, Luvena and Heather can read.
If you don't become a client, we delete your enquiry after 3 months.
Our website uses cookies. See our Cookie Notice for details.
We provide the details you submit to Squarespace, our website hosting provider, so they can provide website services to us, and your message is delivered to our shared Google email account.
4.Visitors to our website
Our website is hosted by Squarespace. When you visit, Squarespace collects personal information, including information about your browser, network and device, the pages you visited before this website, the pages you view on it, and your IP address. Squarespace needs this to run the website and to protect and improve its platform and services. You can read more in Squarespace's Privacy Policy.
We also use Squarespace analytics to learn about site traffic and activity, such as clicks, internal links, pages visited, scrolling, searches and timestamps.
Our website uses a Google Map and Google Fonts. To display them, Google may receive information about your browser, network or device, the page you are viewing and your IP address.
5. How we collect your information
We may collect information:
Directly from you when you contact Untangled Therapy
Through our contact form
During an initial assessment
During counselling sessions
Through email, telephone or other agreed communication methods
Through payment transactions
Where necessary, from another professional or third party, where there is a lawful basis for doing so
We normally obtain information directly from you.
6. Why we use your information
We use your personal information to:
Respond to enquiries
Arrange and manage counselling appointments
Provide counselling services
Keep appropriate clinical records
Monitor and manage risk and safeguarding
Communicate with you about your appointments and therapy
Process payments
Meet professional, legal and regulatory obligations
Keep appropriate professional and insurance records
Obtain professional supervision
Deal with complaints or concerns
Protect the rights, safety and wellbeing of clients and others where necessary
We will not use your information for purposes that are incompatible with those described here without an appropriate lawful basis.
7. Lawful basis for using your information
Data protection law requires us to have a lawful basis for using your information. Depending on the circumstances, we may rely on:
Contract, including steps taken at your request before you become a client, where we need to provide counselling or manage an agreement with you.
Legitimate interests, where processing is necessary for the effective and secure running of the practice and does not override your rights and interests.
Legal obligation, where we are required by law to keep or disclose information.
Consent, where consent is the appropriate basis, such as when you choose to include personal details in an enquiry or agree to optional communications.
Vital interests, where processing or disclosure is necessary to protect someone's life or prevent serious harm and you are unable to give consent.
For health information and other special category data, we also rely on an additional condition under UK data protection law. This is usually the condition that allows health and social care to be provided by professionals bound by a duty of confidentiality, or your explicit consent, depending on the circumstances.
8. Confidentiality
Counselling is confidential. We will not normally disclose information about you to other people without your knowledge and, where appropriate, your consent.
There are circumstances where confidentiality may need to be limited, for example:
Where there is a serious and imminent risk of significant harm to you or another person
Where there are safeguarding concerns
Where disclosure is required by law
Where disclosure is necessary to prevent or detect serious crime
Where information is required by a professional indemnity insurer or legal adviser in relation to a legitimate claim or legal matter
Where disclosure is otherwise permitted or required by law
Where possible and appropriate, we will discuss any proposed disclosure with you before making it.
9. Supervision and peer reflection
Each counsellor has regular professional supervision. We may discuss aspects of our clinical work with a supervisor to support safe and ethical practice. We take reasonable steps to protect your identity, and we do not normally share identifying information unless it is necessary and lawful. Supervisors are also bound by professional confidentiality.
We also reflect on our work together as a team. When we do, we do not share names or identifying details unless it is necessary and lawful.
Each counsellor has arranged for a trusted professional to securely manage records if they become unable to work, so that clients can be informed and their records protected.
10. When information may be shared
We do not sell or rent your personal information.
Where necessary and lawful, your information may be shared with:
Your counsellor's professional supervisor
Professional or regulatory bodies where required
A professional indemnity insurer or legal adviser where necessary
Healthcare or emergency professionals where necessary to protect life or prevent serious harm
Service providers who process information on our behalf, such as secure email, website, payment or data-storage providers
HMRC or other authorities where we are legally required to provide information
Where a service provider processes personal data for us, we take reasonable steps to make sure appropriate data protection and security arrangements are in place.
11. Where your information is stored
Some of our providers, such as Squarespace and Google, may process information outside the UK. Where they do, we make sure appropriate safeguards are in place, as UK law requires.
12. Email, telephone and online communication
We may contact you by email or telephone for administrative purposes, such as arranging appointments or replying to enquiries. Ordinary email and telephone communication may not be as confidential as a dedicated clinical system, so we avoid putting unnecessary sensitive details in routine messages.
Online sessions take place on Google Meet, MS Teams or Zoom. Sessions are not recorded. We take reasonable steps to protect the privacy and security of sessions.
Our service is for adults aged 18 and over.
13. Payments
When you pay for counselling by bank transfer/card via a payment provider/cash, we keep the information needed to record the payment and meet accounting, tax, and legal obligations. We do not keep full payment card details unless the payment provider lawfully requires it.
14. How we protect your information
We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your information against unauthorised access, accidental loss, destruction, misuse, disclosure or alteration.
Clinical records are stored securely and separately from information that is not needed for clinical purposes. Access is limited to people who genuinely need it for an appropriate professional or legal purpose.
15. How long we keep your information
We keep personal and clinical information only for as long as it is necessary for the purposes it was collected for, taking into account professional, legal, regulatory and insurance requirements, the nature of the information and the circumstances of the therapeutic relationship.
Enquiries that do not become therapy: deleted after 3 months.
Clinical records: normally kept for six years after therapy ends, unless there is a lawful and necessary reason to keep them for longer.
At the end of the retention period, we securely delete or destroy information.
16. Your rights
Under UK data protection law, you may have the right to:
Be informed about how your information is used
Access the personal information we hold about you
Have inaccurate or incomplete information corrected
Have information erased, in certain circumstances
Restrict how we use your information, in certain circumstances
Object to certain processing
Data portability, where applicable
Withdraw your consent at any time, where we rely on consent
Rights relating to automated decision-making and profiling, where applicable
These rights are not absolute and may be subject to legal or professional limitations. For example, counselling records may contain information where disclosure could affect another person, or where a legal exemption applies.
To exercise a right, contact us at untangledtogether@gmail.com. We may need to verify your identity before replying.
17. Complaints
If you have concerns about how we handle your information, please contact us first so we can try to resolve it.
You also have the right to complain to the UK's data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO): ico.org.uk
You can also contact the professional body our counsellors belong to, the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP).
18. Changes to this Privacy Notice
We may update this notice from time to time to reflect changes in our practice, technology, legal requirements or guidance. The latest version will always be on our website.
Last updated: 3 October 2026