me_irl

if you are about to kill yourself or others, your therapist HAS to get outside help - he can't just let it happen. Please note that there is a difference (and it's not even subtle) between discussing thoughts of suicide and murder vs. you are about to do the same. Calmly talking with your therapist about those thoughts will not be an issue; being severely agitated and shouting about who has it coming surely is. The specific wording is that there must be imminent or inevitable risk and that a specific victim can be identified - to be fair, if i were to be in such a state, i'd prefer a mental hospital stay over hurting someone anyway.

They also have a duty to report if you tell them you are about to commit a crime (please note that this does not include stuff in the past), and they have a duty to report in the case of a minor telling them that they are in an abusive home situation. That's the gist of it. There are some state laws like in California where, should you be in the situation where the prosecution wants to give you a death sentence, they can call your therapist as a witness; or when you admit to viewing CSAM. You can read up details here.

I've discussed suicidal thoughts, murderous thoughts, psychiatric episodes, past abuse i've experienced (passive AND active - people who get abused tend to do the same to others, especially as a child, which still haunted me nearly 30 years later), situations where i hurt others in my past (real and imagined), illegal substance abuse and addiction, theft, and a lot of other shit that happened in my life with my therapist.