How I handle your information.

Who is responsible

White Tree Psychotherapy is the practice of Jonathan Jutsun, Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying), CRPO #23039, in Toronto, Ontario. I am the health information custodian for the practice and the person to contact about anything on this page: jjutsun@gestaltmail.ca.

The consult request form

The form on this site asks for your name, your email address, how you would prefer to be reached, and a sentence or two about what brings you here. I use it for one purpose: to reply and arrange a free 15-minute call.

When you press Send, the website emails the message to my practice inbox, sending it from Amazon Web Services in Canada over an encrypted connection. This website has no database and keeps no copy of what you send; the only record is the email in my inbox. My practice email is hosted by Google, whose servers may be outside Canada — which is one reason the form asks you not to include detailed health information.

Please keep what you write to a sentence or two, and leave out diagnoses, medications and anything you would only say in a session. Email and web forms are not secure clinical channels. If you do include health information, I treat it as personal health information under PHIPA from the moment it reaches me.

If we go on to work together, your message becomes part of your clinical record and is kept with it. If we don’t, I delete the email within twelve months of our last contact.

This website

This site sets no cookies and runs no advertising or social-media trackers. To see how many people visit and which pages they read, it uses Cloudflare Web Analytics, which counts page views without cookies or anything else stored in your browser, and does not identify you or follow you from site to site. Cloudflare is a U.S. company whose servers may be outside Canada. The site’s dark appearance follows your device’s own setting; nothing about it is stored or sent. Fonts and images are served by the site itself, not by third parties.

Like any website, the company that hosts it keeps standard server logs — the address your device connects from, the browser it uses and the pages requested — for security and to keep the site running. I do not use those logs to identify visitors.

Email and video

Ordinary email is not encrypted end to end, so I use it for scheduling, receipts and practical matters, and keep clinical content for sessions. If you would like to use email for anything more, we will talk about the risks first and I will note your consent in your record.

Virtual sessions run on a video platform chosen for its privacy and security safeguards. I will tell you which one and how it handles your information before your first session, as part of informed consent.

If you become a client

Once we begin working together I keep a clinical record, as the CRPO requires: your contact details, the consent you have given, session dates and notes, and whatever else is needed to provide safe and effective care and to account for it. I collect this from you directly, and only what is needed.

I use and share your information only to provide your care, to run the practice — scheduling, billing, and receipts for your insurer if you ask for them — and where the law requires. I do not sell it, share it with advertisers, or use it for marketing.

As a Qualifying member of the CRPO I practise under clinical supervision. That means I may discuss aspects of our work with my clinical supervisor, who is a regulated professional bound by the same duty of confidentiality. I share only what supervision needs, and keep it de-identified wherever I can.

Within your care I rely on your implied consent to use your information, as PHIPA allows. For anything beyond that — a report to a third party, a letter to your doctor — I will ask for your express consent, which you can withdraw at any time. You can also ask me to lock away part of your record so that it is not shared.

The limits of confidentiality

Confidentiality is the foundation of therapy, and the exceptions are narrow and set by law. I may have to disclose information without your consent when:

• a child or youth may be in need of protection, which I must report under Ontario’s Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017;
• there is a serious risk of harm to you or to someone else, and disclosure is needed to reduce it;
• a court orders it, or I am served with a subpoena or summons;
• I learn that a regulated health professional has sexually abused a client, which I must report to their College under the Regulated Health Professions Act;
• the CRPO, as my regulator, requires it — for example in an investigation or a practice review;
• another law requires it.

If any of these arise I disclose only what is necessary, and where I safely can, I will tell you first.

How your information is protected

Records are kept in password-protected, encrypted systems that only I can access, and any paper in locked storage. I choose services that store data in Canada wherever that is possible. If your personal health information is ever lost, stolen or accessed without authority, I will tell you at the first reasonable opportunity and notify the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario where PHIPA requires it.

How long records are kept

The CRPO requires clinical records to be kept for at least ten years from our last contact — or, for anyone under eighteen, ten years after their eighteenth birthday. When that period ends, the record is destroyed securely. Enquiries that do not lead to working together are deleted within twelve months, as above.

Your rights

You can ask to see your record, ask for a copy, and ask me to correct anything that is wrong. I will respond within thirty days, as PHIPA sets out. You can withdraw your consent to the collection, use or sharing of your information, subject to the legal limits above, and you can ask what I have shared and with whom.

If you have a concern about how I have handled your information, please raise it with me first. You can also complain to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, which oversees PHIPA: 2 Bloor Street East, Suite 1400, Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8 · 1-800-387-0073 · ipc.on.ca. Concerns about my professional conduct can be taken to the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario at crpo.ca.

Changes to this page

If I change how information is handled, I will update this page and the date at the top. The version on the site is the one that applies.

Questions about any of this: jjutsun@gestaltmail.ca.