Last updated 11 November 2026

Who I am

I am Dr Jan Sammut. I operate Hypnotic Alliance and my psychotherapy practice personally from the United Kingdom. I am the data controller for the personal information I use to run the publication and provide psychotherapy. To ask a privacy question, exercise your rights or make a complaint, use the Contact page.

Contact and initial psychotherapy enquiries

The contact form requires your name and email address so I can identify your enquiry and reply. The message field is optional. If you are enquiring about psychotherapy, please keep your first message brief and avoid including detailed clinical information. If I need further information, I will arrange a suitable way to receive it.

Jetpack Forms, part of WordPress.com, sends enquiries to my email inbox and can keep a copy in WordPress. It may also process information associated with the submission, such as your IP address and the date of submission. Akismet checks submissions for spam and may process the message and associated contact and technical information.

I manage enquiries by email. I keep that correspondence while the enquiry is active and delete it once the enquiry is concluded. If you become a psychotherapy client, I keep relevant correspondence in your separate clinical file. WordPress copies are held separately from my inbox. I rely on my legitimate interests in replying to general enquiries and protecting the contact form against spam and abuse. Where you ask me to take steps towards arranging therapy, I use the information necessary to take those steps at your request.

Article subscriptions

You can choose to receive emails when I publish new articles. WordPress.com and Jetpack manage your email address, subscription and delivery preferences. I use your subscription details to send the updates you have chosen to receive. I do not export subscriber addresses to another mailing list or marketing service. You can withdraw your consent to receive emails at any time using the unsubscribe link in an email or WordPress.com subscription management.

WordPress.com may measure whether subscribers open emails and click links. Its reports can include engagement for individual subscribers as well as totals. The purpose of this measurement is to understand how readers use article updates.

Website hosting, statistics and cookies

WordPress.com hosts the site and processes technical information such as IP addresses, browser information and requests for pages or resources. I have a legitimate interest in keeping the site available and secure. Automattic, which operates WordPress.com, says it generally keeps visitor server logs for approximately 30 days.

I use Jetpack Stats to understand which articles people read and how they find the site. Jetpack can process information such as IP addresses, browser details, visited pages, referring addresses, visit times and approximate country. I receive aggregate website traffic reports. Jetpack says it keeps identifiable website Stats logs for 28 days.

WordPress.com and Jetpack may use cookies and similar technologies to operate and protect the site, manage account or subscription preferences and measure traffic. You can manage cookies in your browser. Some site or account functions may be affected if you block cookies. Automattic explains its processing and related choices in its visitor privacy notice and cookie information.

Psychotherapy and clinical information

I arrange appointments and payments directly with clients outside the website. I use the information needed to arrange and provide the service you request. I use health information where necessary for your assessment and care and subject to professional confidentiality and the additional requirements that apply to health information under UK data protection law.

I conduct consultations using Microsoft Teams. I do not routinely record or transcribe sessions. I only make a recording or transcript at your specific request, for your own reference, after agreeing the arrangements with you and obtaining appropriate consent. I supply the material directly to you and delete it from my active records immediately after successful delivery. Microsoft may retain recoverable or other copies under its applicable storage and retention arrangements. I do not intentionally keep recordings or transcripts in your clinical file.

I maintain clinical records in a separate, secure system. I retain them for ten years after therapy concludes, subject to overriding legal requirements.

Service providers, external links and international processing

WordPress.com, Jetpack and Akismet provide the website services described above. I also use email, Microsoft Teams and a separate clinical recordkeeping system. The providers handle information relevant to their services. Where you follow a link to another site or choose to share an article through an external service, that destination handles your visit under its own privacy arrangements.

Some providers may process information outside the UK. Where UK data protection law requires safeguards for an international transfer, those requirements apply. You can contact me for information about the safeguards relevant to your data. Automattic and Microsoft publish further information about their processing and retention. Automattic privacy policy · Microsoft privacy statement

Comments

The site is closed to comments.

Your rights and complaints

Depending on the circumstances, you can ask to access, correct, erase, restrict or receive a portable copy of your personal information. You can object to certain uses of your information and withdraw consent where I rely on it. Withdrawal does not affect processing already carried out lawfully.

Use the Contact page to exercise a right or raise a privacy concern. I will acknowledge a data protection complaint within 30 days and let you know the outcome of my review. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Changes to this policy

I will update this policy when my information-handling practices change and draw attention to material changes where appropriate.

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