Effective Date: July 25, 2025
At Good Words, your privacy and trust are paramount. This Privacy Policy outlines how we, as a hypno-psychotherapy practice in Ireland, collect, use, and protect your personal data, ensuring compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Irish data protection laws. Our aim is to build a system with your privacy always in mind, ensuring you feel safe and listened to.
Our website address is: https://goodwords.info
1. Our Commitment to Your Privacy
We are committed to maintaining the highest standards of confidentiality and data protection. We only collect data that is necessary for providing our services, improving your experience, and fulfilling our legal obligations.
2. Personal Data We Collect
During Sessions (Online & On-Site)
- Notes on Sessions: We take handwritten notes for our own use only during and immediately after sessions. These notes are concise, focused on key therapeutic themes, and are kept strictly confidential. They are stored securely and are not shared with any third party.
- Information You Provide: During your sessions, you may share personal information, health details, and other sensitive data. This information is integral to providing effective hypno-psychotherapy and is treated with the utmost confidentiality.
Online Consultations & Website Usage
- Anonymous Usage Data: When you use our website for online consultations or access our digital products, we collect anonymous data on how the website functions, and to improve general suggestions. This includes general usage patterns, technical performance, and aggregated statistics. This data does not identify you personally and is used solely to improve the general suggestions within our services and enhance your overall website experience. We do not track individual user behaviour in a way that identifies you.
3. How We Use Your Data
- To Provide Services: The primary use of your data is to deliver personalized and effective hypno-psychotherapy sessions and provide access to our digital self-help resources.
- For Internal Professional Use: Session notes are for our internal reference to track progress and inform future therapeutic interventions.
- To Improve Services: Anonymous data helps us understand general trends and areas for website and service improvement.
- For Commercial Use (Tests & Commercial Data): Data collected from tests (excluding any personally identifiable information from individual client sessions) and other non-sensitive commercial data may be used in aggregated and anonymized form for marketing campaigns, statistical analysis, and to develop new offerings. Your individual session data or personal details will never be used for commercial purposes without your explicit, informed consent.
- For Medical Studies: In our commitment to advancing the understanding of hypno-psychotherapy, anonymized and aggregated data derived from sessions may be used for medical studies or research purposes. We will always do our utmost to protect your identity and personal details, ensuring that any data used is fully de-identified so you cannot be recognized. Your participation in such studies is always voluntary and subject to separate, explicit consent if individually identifiable data were ever required.
4. Confidentiality of Sessions & Referrals
- Private & Isolated Environment: All on-site hypno-psychotherapy sessions are conducted in a private and isolated therapy room to ensure your comfort and confidentiality.
- Online Session Environment: For online sessions, we conduct them from a private and secure location. We strongly recommend that you ensure you are in a private, isolated, and quiet space yourself before beginning an online session to maintain your confidentiality and allow for full immersion in the therapeutic process.
- Creating Your Safe Space: To optimize your session, we suggest you are:
- Relaxed in comfortable clothing.
- Warm enough.
- Have a glass of water nearby.
- Above all, it is your moment to feel safe, listened to, and fully present in the session.
- Client Referrals: Should we deem it beneficial to refer you to another professional, only the minimum necessary information will be shared to ensure a smooth transition and to help the next practitioner understand your primary needs. This will always be done with your explicit consent.
5. External Assistance & Professional Supervision
We may, from time to time, seek external professional assistance or engage in clinical supervision as part of our commitment to ethical practice and continuous professional development. In such instances, we will ensure your anonymity and that you are not recognisable. Discussions will focus solely on the therapeutic topic, using the information received and understood, without revealing your identity.
6. Data Security
We implement robust technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data from unauthorised access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction. This includes secure storage of notes and adherence to best practices for online data handling.
7. Data Retention
We retain your personal data for as long as necessary to provide our services, maintain business records for audit purposes, comply with legal obligations (e.g., professional guidelines for record keeping), and resolve disputes.
Unless a specific retention period is legally mandated or ethically required for professional practice, data may be retained indefinitely or at our discretion. However, you always have the right to request the erasure of your personal data in accordance with your GDPR rights (see Section 8).
8. Your Data Protection Rights (GDPR)
Under GDPR, you have the following rights concerning your personal data:
- Right to Access: You have the right to request access to the personal data we hold about you.
- Right to Rectification: You have the right to request that we correct any inaccurate or incomplete personal data.
- Right to Erasure (‘Right to be Forgotten’): You have the right to request the deletion of your personal data, subject to legal and ethical obligations (e.g., maintaining records for professional accountability).
- Right to Restriction of Processing: You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.
- Right to Object to Processing: You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.
- Right to Data Portability: You have the right to request a copy of your personal data in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format.
- Right to Lodge a Complaint: You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Commission (DPC) in Ireland if you believe your rights have been violated.
To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at contact@goodwords.info.
9. Cookies
Our website, https://goodwords.info, may use “cookies” to enhance your experience. Cookies are small data files placed on your device.
- Purpose of Cookies: We primarily use cookies for:
- Essential functionality: To make our website work correctly (e.g., remembering your login, if applicable, or preferences).
- Anonymous analytics: To understand how visitors use our website, which pages are most popular, and to identify areas for improvement. This data is aggregated and anonymous, meaning it does not identify you personally.
- Improving general suggestions: As mentioned in Section 2, to gather anonymous data to refine our general suggestions and website performance.
- Your Choices: You have the option to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. However, declining cookies may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website. For more detailed information about the specific cookies used and how to manage them, please refer to our separate Cookie Policy [Link to your Cookie Policy – you will need to create this].
10. Third-Party Service Providers
We may use reputable third-party services (e.g., website hosting, payment processors) to support the operation of our business. While we take reasonable steps to select service providers who also adhere to data protection standards, we cannot be held responsible for the privacy practices or data handling policies of these independent third-party service providers. We encourage you to review their respective privacy policies.
11. On-Site Sessions at Your Chosen Location
If you request an on-site session at your home or a location of your choice, it is your responsibility to ensure that the environment is set up appropriately for the session to be delivered without problems. This includes providing a private, quiet, and comfortable space conducive to a therapeutic session.
12. Our Responsibilities & Your Responsibility
- Our Responsibility: We are responsible for implementing appropriate data protection measures for the data we collect and process directly, maintaining the confidentiality of your sessions, and adhering to our ethical guidelines. We build our system with GDPR in mind to minimize the data we collect and maximize its protection.
- Your Responsibility: You are responsible for the privacy and security of your own environment during online sessions and for ensuring suitable conditions for on-site sessions at your chosen location. You are also responsible for reviewing this Privacy Policy and our Terms & Conditions. Please note that we may ask certain questions repeatedly to ensure we have the most accurate and current understanding of your needs. Your patience and willingness to provide information helps us tailor our support effectively.
13. Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or legal requirements. Any changes will be posted on this page with an updated effective date. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.
14. Contact Us
If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please do not hesitate to contact us:
Email: contact@goodwords.info spam detection service.