Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to Vaishalya Healing, a mental health counselling practice based in Himachal Pradesh, India, operated by Leena Mehta, a licensed counselling psychologist.

Our website address is vaishalyahealing.com. We offer individual counselling, couples counselling, family therapy, child psychology, and residential wellness programmes.

We are committed to protecting the privacy and dignity of every person who reaches out to us. This policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, how we keep it safe, and what your rights are.

By using this website, booking an appointment, or contacting us through any channel, you agree to the practices described in this policy. If you do not agree, please do not use our website or services.

We collect only the information that is necessary to provide you with counselling services and to respond to your enquiries. This includes:

We do not collect payment card details directly. Any payments processed online are handled by third-party payment processors (such as Razorpay or PayU) with their own privacy protections.

We use your personal information only for the purposes listed below. We never use your data in ways you have not consented to.

• To provide counselling services: Scheduling sessions, maintaining clinical records, and delivering appropriate therapeutic support.
• To respond to your enquiries: Replying to contact form submissions, WhatsApp messages, and emails promptly and appropriately.
• To confirm and manage appointments: Sending booking confirmations, reminders, and follow-up communications.
• To send our newsletter: Only if you have explicitly opted in. You may unsubscribe at any time.
• To improve our website: Analysing anonymised traffic data to understand how visitors use the site and improve the experience.
• To comply with legal obligations: Maintaining records as required under applicable Indian law, including professional clinical recordkeeping standards.
• To ensure your safety: In exceptional circumstances where there is a serious, imminent risk to your life or the life of another person, we may be legally and ethically obligated to share limited information with emergency services.

We will never use your information for unsolicited marketing, sell it to advertisers, or share it with third parties for their own commercial purposes.

Mental health and health-related data is classified as sensitive personal data under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act) and under international standards. We handle it accordingly:

• Clinical notes and session records are stored in secure, access-restricted systems and are not accessible to anyone outside the treating therapist.
• Health information shared in intake forms is used solely for clinical purposes and is never shared for research, advertising, or analysis without your explicit written consent.
• We do not store sensitive health information on shared or public servers. All clinical records are protected with password access and stored separately from contact details.
• If you contact us via WhatsApp, please be aware that WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption but is a third-party platform. We advise not sharing highly sensitive medical information over WhatsApp — use email or in-session disclosure instead.

Confidentiality Exceptions: There are three circumstances where confidentiality may be lawfully broken — (1) where you present a serious, imminent risk of harm to yourself or another person, (2) where a court of law orders disclosure, or (3) where disclosure is required under a specific provision of Indian law. In all such cases, we will inform you first wherever possible.

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to any third party. Limited sharing occurs only in the following situations:

• Email & Newsletter Service (Mailchimp / Brevo): If you subscribe to our newsletter, your name and email are stored on their servers under their own privacy policies. You may unsubscribe at any time using the link in every email.
• Website Hosting Provider: Our hosting provider stores the website and may process basic server logs (IP addresses, page requests) in the normal course of maintaining the site. They do not have access to your personal data or clinical information.
• Google Analytics / Search Console: We may use anonymised, aggregated traffic data to understand how visitors find and use our website. No personally identifiable information is shared with Google through these tools.
• Payment Processors: If you make a payment online, it is processed by a third-party payment gateway. We do not store your card details.
• Legal Authorities: Only where legally required, as explained in Section 4 above.

All third-party service providers we work with are contractually required to protect your data and may not use it for their own purposes.

Our website uses cookies — small text files stored on your device — to help the site function correctly and to understand how visitors use it.

• Essential Cookies: Required for basic website functionality (e.g. form submission, page navigation). Cannot be disabled without affecting how the site works.
• Analytics Cookies: Used to track anonymised visitor numbers, pages visited, and time on site. This helps us improve content. These can be declined without affecting your access to the site.
• Preference Cookies: Remember your choices (e.g. language, timezone). Optional.

You can control or delete cookies at any time through your browser settings. Most browsers allow you to refuse all cookies or to accept only specific types. Please note that refusing essential cookies may affect certain features of our website.

We do not use cookies for targeted advertising or retargeting campaigns. We do not allow any third-party advertiser to place cookies on this website.

We retain personal information only for as long as necessary for the purpose it was collected, or as required by applicable law.

After the retention period, data is securely deleted or anonymised. If you would like your data deleted earlier, please contact us (see Section 10).

Under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 and general data protection best practice, you have the following rights regarding your personal information:

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details in Section 10. We will respond within 30 days. We will never charge a fee for a reasonable request, and we will never discriminate against you for exercising your rights.

We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13 without explicit parental consent. If a parent or guardian contacts us on behalf of a child, the adult's contact details are used for all communications. Clinical records for child clients are stored with the same protections as adult records.

If you believe a child has provided personal information to us without appropriate parental consent, please contact us immediately at help@vaishalyahealing.com and we will take prompt action.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, technology, or legal obligations. When we do, we will update the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page.

We encourage you to review this page periodically. If we make significant changes that affect how we use your data, we will notify active clients by email.

Continued use of our website or services after any changes constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy.