Confidentiality is the foundation of therapy, so it is no surprise that privacy is the first worry many survivors raise. They want to know who can read their file, whether their sex life will become an exhibit and whether their name will appear in public records. Illinois law gives specific answers to each of those concerns.
None of this depends on a prior police report or criminal case. When a civil claim is filed, it looks at the employing practice or agency: what it knew, what it should have known and how it acted.
Your Right to Your Own File
The Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Confidentiality Act, 740 ILCS 110, controls access to therapy records. Section 4 gives anyone who received services, provided they are at least 12, the right to inspect and copy their own record on request.
Parents and Children
Access for parents and guardians depends on the child's age. For children under 12, a parent or guardian may inspect and copy the record. Between 12 and 17, a parent or guardian gets access if the child is told and does not object, unless the therapist identifies compelling reasons to refuse. A parent who is denied may ask a court to intervene.
Notes a Therapist Keeps Privately
The Act's definition of a record carves out a therapist's personal notes when those notes stayed in the therapist's sole possession and were shown only to a supervisor, consulting therapist or attorney. Notes circulated more broadly lose that status and become part of the record.
Limits on Exposing Sexual History
The Sexual Exploitation in Psychotherapy, Professional Health Services, and Professional Mental Health Services Act, 740 ILCS 140, contains litigation safeguards in Sections 4 and 5. A plaintiff's sexual history is off-limits in discovery and inadmissible at trial unless the defendant requests a hearing, submits an offer of proof and convinces the court that the evidence is relevant and more probative than prejudicial. If the court allows anything, it must specify exactly what. Discovery is permitted in one situation: when the plaintiff claims harm to sexual functioning.
Anonymity in Court
Survivors of therapist abuse can also seek to keep their names out of public filings. We go over the available protections before any case is filed.
The Underlying Right to Sue
Section 2 of the Act allows a patient or former patient to sue a psychotherapist for injury caused by sexual contact during psychotherapy, or afterward if the former patient was emotionally dependent or the therapist used therapeutic deception by calling sexual contact consistent with or part of treatment.
Sexual contact includes intercourse, kissing and intentional touching of intimate areas, whether or not through clothing, along with a request for such contact. Consent does not remove conduct from the definition, and holding an encounter outside a session or the regular office is no defense. Under Section 1, psychotherapists include physicians, psychologists, nurses, chemical dependency counselors, social workers and others who perform or purport to perform psychotherapy, licensed or not.
The Employer's Role
Practices and agencies are usually the named defendants, most often on a negligent retention theory joined by others as the facts support. Section 3 imposes liability on an employer that fails or refuses to take reasonable action once it knows, or has reason to know, of the therapist's sexual contact with the plaintiff or with any other patient or former patient. Supervision duties attach to employers of licensed counselors, and internal complaints get recorded. Private employers generally do not enjoy the Illinois Tort Immunity rules for public bodies in the same way, and the Act can be paired with standard institutional claims.
The Licensing Side
IDFPR licenses therapists through boards distinct from the physicians' board. Its online lookup shows license status, and its reports summarize discipline by date. An IDFPR complaint may lead to discipline but brings no compensation.
Privacy Questions We Hear
Can I keep my name confidential? Protective steps are available for court records, and we review them with you ahead of time.
I'm a parent asking about my child's therapist. Parents call often, and asking commits no one to anything.
Is a conviction needed? No. Civil claims use a lower standard and usually target the employer.
If You Decide to Call
A first call is private and carries no obligation, and you choose how much to say. With your permission, we research at our expense which practice or agency was responsible, what it knew, what records exist and whether a claim can still be filed. Then the decision is yours. If you step back, your information stays with us. If you move ahead, we handle the filings, deadlines, records and insurer negotiations and pursue protections for your identity. Deadlines turn on the facts, so a timely review helps.
How to Reach Us
Phone (708) 671-6858 at any hour to speak with the office of Ervin Nevitt, a Coplan + Crane partner admitted in Illinois in 2014. Mail and visits go to 60 W Randolph St, Suite 333, Chicago, IL 60601. Nothing you tell us is passed on to anyone else.
RAINN's free hotline, 1-800-656-4673, provides confidential support every hour of the day. In danger? Call 911. Talking with RAINN leaves your legal choices untouched.
Attorney advertising. Content is for general education and is not legal advice.
