Websites
A website for a psychologist: first contact, privacy and fees
A psychologist's site must take a first contact without asking for more than a phone number or an email. Health data, register, fees, online sessions, clear boundaries and real blocks.
A psychologist's site works when the first contact takes under two minutes and does not ask anyone to describe their problem. Name, contact detail and preferred time: that is enough. Every extra field is health data entering a database without need.
Someone looking for a psychologist often does not yet know whether they will write. They read three or four sites, look at the photo, the register number, the fee, and close the tab. The site does not have to persuade: it has to remove obstacles and say what happens after the first message.
The pages a practice actually uses
| Page | What it must contain |
|---|---|
| Home | What you work with, where you see people, how to write, what you are not |
| Areas of work | Anxiety, mood, grief, couples, adolescence: plain language, not diagnosis |
| How it works | First session, length, frequency, cost, how it ends |
| About | Training, register, approach, supervision |
| Fees | Cost per session, length, cancellation, receipt, invoice |
| Online | Platform, room, what is needed, limits |
| Contact | Minimal form or email, phone with hours |
| Privacy | Notice, retention, rights, what never passes through the site |
Register and title: the part that gets checked
Law 18 February 1989 no. 56 establishes the psychologists' register (Article 1) and reserves psychotherapy to those with the specialisation (Article 3). The site states register number, section, region and, if you practise psychotherapy, the training institute. Anyone who leaves out the register number fails the first check an attentive visitor makes.
The same law and the code of conduct limit advertising: information yes, promises of results no. «Recovery in three sessions» is not aggressive marketing, it is a breach of professional conduct. A review carrying a patient's name and face is also a problem, because it reveals a health treatment.
Privacy: from the form to the platform
A request for an appointment is already health data when it comes from someone presenting themselves as a patient. The GDPR (Regulation EU 2016/679) treats it as a special category under Article 9(1); the legal basis for that first contact is normally the explicit consent of Article 9(2)(a), with the Article 13 notice.
- Three-field form: name, email or phone, when you can reply. No «describe your problem» box.
- A confirmation page saying who replies, within how long, and what to do in an emergency.
- A clear warning that the site is not an emergency service: call 112 if it is urgent.
- Email on a provider with a processing contract (Article 28), not the personal inbox shared with others.
- Defined retention: messages with no follow-up are deleted after twelve months, and the notice says so.
- No third-party script before consent: Directive 2002/58/EC, Article 5(3) applies to a small site too.
Fees and cancellations: write them down
Since 2012 there are no binding minimum fees for professions (Decree Law 1/2012, Article 9): you set the fee and publishing it pays off. A clear range avoids exploratory conversations that end badly. State session length, proposed frequency, the 24 or 48 hour cancellation policy, how you issue a receipt and whether you work with insurers or funds.
Online sessions need one more line: which platform, what is needed (headphones, a quiet room, a stable connection), where the session is considered to have taken place, and how an interruption is handled. That is not paperwork: those are the questions that arrive before the first session.
Structured data: ProfessionalService and Person
The JSON-LD uses ProfessionalService for the practice and Person for the psychologist, with jobTitle, memberOf pointing at the professional body and sameAs to profiles. schema.org has no «Psychologist» type: additionalType declares the profession and medicalSpecialty stays generic. Do not expect a rich result: this data links people, place and service. The method is in how to add schema markup.
curl "https://ui.eneawork.it/api/blocks/category/faq?limit=200" | jq '.category.count, (.blocks | length)'Blocks from the catalogue
Three records. FAQ 02 from shadcn-ui-blocks carries the questions about first sessions, frequency and cancellation. Contact Sections 02 from Creative Tim is the form with an image, to cut down to three fields and no free-text box. The pricing category holds 41 blocks for a fees page: here a two-column table is more honest than three packages.
The limitation to state up front
The blocks are React and Tailwind: there is no video platform, no clinical diary, no management of medical receipts. The catalogue covers the interface; the relationship and its tools sit elsewhere. Even the tidiest form does not replace a monitored inbox: if nobody replies within two days, the site has made things worse. Previews are free, the full code sits in the Pro part.
Cost and timing
A five or six page site for an individual practice sits in the low thousands of euro; what costs is the writing time, because the words have to come from you. The recurring cost is small: domain, hosting, a compliant video platform if you need one. The full picture is in what a website costs.
For a nearby case read a website for a consultant and a website for a dentist, for the platform choice WordPress, Wix or React components, for visibility get the site indexed by Google.
Frequently asked questions
What should a psychologist's website have?
Register number and training, areas of work in plain language, how the first session works, fee and cancellation policy, a three-field form, and a warning that the site is not an emergency service.
Can I ask why someone is writing in the form?
Not as a free-text field. The reason is health data and needs explicit consent and safeguards. If it is needed, use a closed choice and explain in the notice why you collect it and how long you keep it.
Are patient reviews allowed?
They are not advisable. A review describing a treatment reveals health data, needs explicit consent and can breach the limits on advertising in the code of conduct. Describing your way of working is safer.
Should I publish my fees?
Yes, it pays off. Since 2012 there are no binding minimums and you set the fee. State cost, length, cancellation policy and how you issue receipts: that avoids first sessions that end on a price surprise.
Can the website replace the first session?
No. The site brings a request in and says what happens next: who replies, within how long, at what fee. It must also say what to do in an emergency, meaning call 112.