If you get in touch, you are trusting me with something personal. This page sets out plainly what I collect, why I collect it, who else can see it, and how long I keep it.
I collect only what I need to reply to you and, if we work together, to provide your sessions. I do not sell your information, I do not pass it to advertisers, and I do not keep it once it has served its purpose.
The contact form on this website opens your own email app with the message ready to send. Your enquiry is not stored by the website itself; it reaches me as an email.
Lisa Branch Counselling & Psychotherapy is the data controller for the information described here. To ask a question about your information, email lisabranchtherapy@gmail.com.
Postal address for data requests: 38 Campfield Road, St Albans AL1 5JA.
I hold your contact and financial information in order to perform our contract for therapy (Article 6(1)(b)) and to meet my legal obligations, including tax records (Article 6(1)(c)).
Information about your health is special category data. I hold it under Article 9(2)(h) — the provision of health or social care and treatment by a professional bound by a duty of confidentiality — and, where I ask separately for it below, on the basis of your explicit consent under Article 9(2)(a). Where a safeguarding concern arises I may rely on Article 9(2)(b) or 9(2)(c), and on the substantial public interest condition for safeguarding in Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018.
This site uses Google Analytics, which sets a small cookie so I can see which pages people read and how people found the site. This tells me things like whether the Grief & Bereavement page is useful, and whether people arrive from a search for counselling in St Albans.
The data is aggregated and is not used to identify you, build a profile about you, or show you therapy adverts elsewhere. If you would rather not be counted, you can install Google's browser add-on, which stops Analytics running on any site you visit: opt out of Google Analytics.
Session records are held in Cliniko, a password-protected system used by practitioners to keep client notes securely. Paper notes are kept securely. I do not share your information with anyone else, and I never sell it.
I would only ever need to go beyond that if I were asked to by law, or if I had a professional duty to protect someone from serious harm — and if that ever applied, I would tell you first wherever it is safe and possible to do so.
I have registered with the Information Commissioner's Office and paid the data protection fee. My registration number is ZC238889.
You can ask me for a copy of the information I hold about you, ask me to correct anything that is wrong, ask me to delete it where I am not required to keep it, or ask me to stop using it in a particular way. You can also withdraw consent at any time where consent is what I rely on.
To make a request, email lisabranchtherapy@gmail.com. I will reply without unnecessary delay and usually within a month.
If you are unhappy with how I have handled your information, please tell me first. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office: ico.org.uk.
I may update this page as my practice or the tools I use change. Any changes will be posted here.
Last updated 10 November 2026.
