What is the difference between privileged communication and confidentiality?
It is an important distinction. Much of the terminology is used interchangeably. The generic term “privacy” encompasses confidentiality and privileged communication, but also deals with other important subjects. Privacy is not included in our Constitution; legally, it’s a relatively recent, [20th-century] notion. It covers the Fourth Amendment, breaking and entering and taking of property, cases involving celebrities’ personal privacy, contraception, and abortion, as well as confidentiality and privileged communication. Privacy is the broad, generic canvas on which the subject of confidentiality, along with other related subjects, plays out. Privileged communication is only used in specific situations where the law has decided that certain relationships are so important they will be protected even at the cost of prohibiting credible evidence at a trial. Sharing yet protecting secrets creates profound human dilemmas. Everybody has said a version of, “Can I tell you something off the rec
