Internet Marketers: Here’s Your Ultimate Tool Faithful readers recall that my ne’er do well friend, Clem, after bouncing in and out of jail for years and doing a series of odd jobs, had found himself gainful employment as a managed care case manager. Working for Efficiency Incorporated, Clem had devised various entertaining systems to approve or deny mental health claims regardless of their merits. That, as they say, was then, and this is now. Clem is on to something big. Don’t worry, he still has his case manager job, but he has turned it into a much bigger gold mine. Here is Clem’s latest internet spam, which he sends out to a massive list of internet marketers: Internet Marketers: Here’s Your Ultimate Tool Why send mass mailings out to recipients who are not interested? How would you like to precisely target your mailings to the current life circumstances and emotional needs of your customers? Contact me, and I can sell you mailing lists of people who are currently in psychotherapy. You will be able to market according to their needs, their life circumstances and their fears. Here’s just a few examples: • Car dealers—Wouldn’t you love to know which men are going through a mid-life crisis and are finally ready to buy that red Corvette or Porsche? • Plastic surgeons-Wouldn’t you just love to know which women have body-image issues, and which of those women have the income to afford some cosmetically-induced self-esteem? • Divorce Attorneys-Wouldn’t you pay anything to know who is on the verge of divorce, and who among those has enough equity in their home to cover your fee? • Criminal Attorneys-Wouldn’t you like to know who will be facing criminal charges—even before they are arrested? • Computer sellers-Wouldn’t you just love a list of people who claim to be addicted to the Internet? • College recruiters-See how can you identify the potential students with learning or behavioral problems and make sure you won’t mistakenly accept them for admission? • Employers-Don’t you want to screen your potential hires to make sure they haven’t been in psychotherapy or treated for substance abuse problems? • Internet Viagra sellers-How would you like to market specifically to the men who need your wares? • Internet porno sites-How would you like to know where the perverts are who will happily spend money to look at your stuff? I know that my readers, being psychologists, will find Clem’s scheme a little bit on the unethical side. You will rave and rant about confidentiality in treatment and your almost holy obligation to protect the privacy of your patients. I know how you will react because I’ve been there. These are the same reactions I had when Clem first bragged to me about his scheme. “How dare you,” I screamed, but my protests only made Clem flash me his hard-core prison smile. Clem just stared at me, and in a calm voice asked me whether I had ever read all the fine print on the Efficiency Incorporated member contract. “Take a look at this,” he commanded as he handed me a portion of the 18 page contact that he had carefully highlighted. The text read as follows: “All covered lives [people] who seek treatment that is reimbursed by Efficiency Incorporated, and who are treated by providers on the Efficiency Incorporated approved panel, hereby agree that all personal information provided to Efficiency Incorporated by their psychologists shall be available for use in commercial ventures at the discretion of Efficiency Incorporated. In exchange for receiving covered mental health services, the consumer agrees to waive all claims to confidentiality.” “See,” he said, “it’s all right there, even though no one knows it because no one reads the whole contract. The really cool thing is that I have taken the personal information and branched out on my own. Why should Efficiency Incorporated get to make all the money? All I do is search therapist-reports for key words, create lists of people with the same treatment issues, and sell the lists. I began to feel faint as I grasped how thoroughly Clem had mastered the art of exploiting private psychotherapy information. Before I could pass out, though, Clem had another surprise for me. He asked me to look at his computer. It was displaying a web site called, “Clem’s Mental Health Fun Site.” It asked for your MasterCard or Visa number and then offered you a wide ranging menu of choices. Here are a few I was able to remember despite my compromised mental state: Type in your home address and see who on your block is currently in psychotherapy What school do your kids attend? Click here to see which teachers are in treatment. Click here for a list of government officials who are cross-dressers Is your husband unfaithful. Enter spouse’s name and review text of therapy sessions. In an adventurous mood? Click here to see a randomly selected set of psychotherapy notes. And from our medical files, click here for our daily updated “Herpes List.” “Clem. You truly are a psychopath,” I blurted. “Hey, lighten up, doc,” was his reply. “By the way,” he added slyly, “I’d consider some Melatonin if I were you. Your therapist tells us you haven’t been sleeping too well.” Dr. Williams occasionally takes time away from humor to practice clinical and forensic psychology in Redwood Estates, California. His current concerns include conducting Dialectical Behavior Therapy groups for patients with Borderline Personality Disorder and testifying in licensing board and civil suits involving psychotherapists. Dr. Williams can be contacted at (888) 225-9957 or mw@drmwilliams.com
	Martin H. Williams, Ph.D.