Terms of service

Safety, Mental Health Crises and Emergencies

Relate is not an emergency or crisis service, and messages may not be monitored outside scheduled appointments or when we are unavailable. If you or someone else is at immediate risk of suicide, self-harm, harm to another person, or is otherwise in immediate danger, do not wait for a response from Relate. Call 111 in New Zealand, Triple Zero (000) in Australia, or 911 in the United States, or go to the nearest hospital emergency department.

For urgent mental health or suicide support where there is no immediate danger, call or text 1737 in New Zealand; call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or the Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467 in Australia; or call or text 988 in the United States. People in other countries may find a local crisis-support service through Befrienders Worldwide.

Terms of service

Terms of Use: Relate/Port Institute offers educational information and the general opinions of professionals. Website content, associated social media, and courses are created to provide general information and to augment couples and individuals growth. Relate expressly states that users should receive professional consultation with a qualified professional for their unique and specific concerns.

Relate identifies qualified professionals and provides a referral resource for these professionals. It is the responsibility of the couples/individuals and the professional to respectively accept or offer services according to their local rules and regulations.

Each team member identifies the appropriate cost of their appointments. Relate endeavors to align the cost of the initial appointment with subsequent appointments. Some providers will continue with 90 minute appointments, others will have other time periods. Some providers will utilize Relate's scheduling/billing system for subsequent appointments and others will not; clients will be notified at the first appointment. Additionally some providers will have a GST component of the bill.

The sale of courses and consultations commonly result in Relate team members being paid an administration fee for connecting customers with the respective courses and consultations.

Services and courses are meant to assist couples and individuals improve their relationships and overall life satisfaction. Services and courses are not meant to provide expert testimony, evaluation of parental fitness, evaluative or other litigious or forensic service. Requests or subsequent requests for these purposes will be declined.

 If you are in crisis, please call 911 or your local emergency number.

Relate Therapy - Terms and Conditions

By booking or attending an appointment with Relate, you confirm that you have read, understood and accepted the following terms.

Confidentiality

Therapy is a confidential process. Information discussed in sessions will be treated as private, subject to limited exceptions involving serious safety concerns, the protection of a child or vulnerable person, professional supervision, or a final legally enforceable obligation.

Where a therapist consults with a supervisor or colleague, identifying information will not ordinarily be shared unless necessary and appropriate.

Couples and Relationship Therapy

In couples therapy, the therapist has ethical responsibilities to both partners, regardless of who arranged or paid for the sessions.

Information discussed in therapy commonly relates to both people and may not be meaningfully separable. Payment does not create ownership of the therapist’s notes or give either partner greater rights to shared therapeutic material.

These responsibilities continue after the therapy or relationship ends.

Clinical Notes and Legal Proceedings

Clinical notes are confidential working records created to support therapy. They are not forensic reports, witness statements, transcripts, or objective records prepared for legal proceedings.

Relate will not voluntarily release detailed therapy notes or session material for legal, adversarial, investigative, or other external purposes.

A request from a client, former partner, lawyer, insurer, employer, agency, or other third party does not automatically result in disclosure. Nor will a subpoena, summons, application, or court order automatically be treated as overriding the confidentiality on which therapy was undertaken.

Where disclosure is sought, Relate and the treating therapist may take all reasonable and lawful steps to oppose, challenge, narrow, or restrict the request. Only after reasonable avenues for resisting or limiting disclosure have been exhausted, and a final legally enforceable obligation remains, would information be considered for release. Any disclosure would be limited to the minimum legally required.

Therapists’ clinical notes are held securely by the treating therapist and are not routinely accessible through Relate’s administrative systems. Relate may separately hold appointment, contact, billing, payment, and administrative correspondence records.

Continuing Agreement

Confidentiality is an ongoing condition of therapy.

By booking, attending, or continuing with therapy, you acknowledge that:

• Therapy is provided on a confidential basis.

• Clinical notes are created for therapeutic, not legal or evidential, purposes.

• Detailed therapeutic material will not be voluntarily released for external disputes or proceedings.

• Relate and the therapist may resist or challenge attempts to obtain clinical material.

• In couples therapy, these obligations apply equally to both partners.

• Paying for therapy does not create ownership of clinical notes.

• These obligations continue after therapy or the relationship ends.

Attendance at each appointment constitutes renewed acknowledgement that therapy is continuing on this basis. Any concerns about these terms must be raised before continuing with therapy.

Communication

Email may be used for questions, updates and administrative communication. Detailed therapeutic work will generally be addressed during sessions rather than by email.

In couples therapy, both partners should ordinarily be included in communications with the therapist to maintain transparency and avoid triangulation.

Email should not be relied upon in an emergency. In New Zealand, call 111 in an immediate emergency or contact 1737 for free, 24-hour support.

Sessions and Additional Time

Appointments are provided for the duration booked. A therapist may offer to extend a session where clinically appropriate, but will seek agreement before doing so.

Additional time may be charged in 15-minute blocks at the therapist’s standard rate.

Payment

The first appointment is paid when booking. Future appointments may be charged to the card held securely through the booking system on the day of the session.

The person making the booking is responsible for ensuring payment is made, but payment does not create ownership of therapy records.

Cancellations

At least 48 business hours’ notice is required to cancel or reschedule an appointment.

Where less than 48 business hours’ notice is provided, 50% of the appointment fee may be charged.

Where less than two hours’ notice is provided, the full appointment fee may be charged unless the appointment is rescheduled within the same week or the appointment time is filled by another client.

AI-Assisted Note-Taking

A therapist may use a secure, separate AI transcription or note-taking tool to help record themes, goals and follow-up points from a session.

Any such tool is used to support, rather than replace, clinical judgement. Recordings, transcripts and notes are used only for clinical and therapeutic purposes and are not connected to marketing or general public-facing AI systems.

Please raise any concerns about AI-assisted note-taking before the session.

Acceptance

By selecting the acceptance box, booking an appointment or continuing to attend therapy, you confirm that you accept these terms and agree to therapy being provided on this basis.