Privacy Policy

This website sets no cookies, runs no analytics, and carries no advertising or tracking pixels. The only information it collects is what you choose to type into the contact form, and that goes straight to Melanie's email inbox.

The sections below fill in the detail — including the handful of outside services the site relies on, and one important limitation about email that's worth knowing before you write.

This site is operated by Melanie K. Lindell Counseling PLLC, a private counseling practice owned by Melanie K. Lindell, a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in Washington State (license # LH60528990).

727 Ericksen Ave NE, Suite 5
Bainbridge Island, WA 98110
melanie@lindellcounseling.com
(425) 308-2156

This policy covers lindellcounseling.com only — the information handled by this website.

If you become a client, your clinical records are protected separately and far more strictly, under HIPAA and Washington State law. Those protections are described in the Notice of Privacy Practices and informed consent paperwork you'll receive at intake. Where the two documents differ, the intake paperwork governs your care.

Sending a message through this site does not make you a client, and does not create a therapist–client relationship. See the Terms & Conditions for more on that.

The contact form asks for your name, your email address, your phone number if you'd like to give one, and whatever you'd like to say. Nothing on the form is prefilled from anywhere else, and none of it is stored in a database.

When you press send, those details are delivered as an email to Melanie. The message is handled in transit by Amazon Web Services (API Gateway, Lambda, and Simple Email Service, in the US West region) and then sits in Melanie's ordinary email inbox, where she reads it.

Your information is not sold, rented, or traded. It is not shared for marketing, and it is not used to build a profile of you. Melanie may share it only where the law requires, or where sharing is necessary to protect someone's safety.

The contact form sends ordinary email, which is not encrypted end-to-end and is not a HIPAA-secure method of communication. Please use it to say hello, ask about availability, fit, scheduling, or fees — the practical things.

Please don't use it to describe your history, your symptoms, or anything else you would want held in confidence. There will be a proper, protected place for all of that once you're a client. If something feels too private to email, it almost certainly is — say so briefly, and Melanie will find a safer way to talk.

Cloudflare Turnstile protects the contact form from automated spam. It runs quietly in the background on the Contact page and, in doing so, receives your IP address and some technical signals from your browser in order to judge whether you're a person. It does not track you across websites. See Cloudflare's Privacy Policy and its Turnstile Privacy Addendum.

Google Fonts supplies the two typefaces used throughout the site. Loading them means your browser requests files from Google's servers, which makes your IP address visible to Google. Google Maps shows the office location on the Contact page; it loads only if you scroll down far enough to see it. Both are covered by the Google Privacy Policy.

Amazon Web Services hosts the site and delivers form submissions. Like any web host, it keeps routine server logs — IP addresses, timestamps, pages requested — for security and reliability.

Inquiry emails stay in Melanie's mailbox for as long as they're useful — long enough to reply, to pick the conversation back up if you write again, and to keep an ordinary business record. If you'd rather your message were deleted, ask, and it will be.

You can ask what Melanie holds about you from this website, ask her to correct it, or ask her to delete it. Write to melanie@lindellcounseling.com and she'll respond personally.

Depending on where you live, you may have additional legal rights over your information — Washington State residents in particular have specific protections around health-related data. Those rights are honored; ask and you'll be told plainly what applies.

There is no mailing list, so there is nothing to unsubscribe from.

Melanie works with children and adolescents in her practice, but this website is intended for adults. The contact form should be used by an adult — a parent or guardian making an inquiry on a young person's behalf. Please don't have a child under 13 submit the form.

If this policy changes, the revised version will be posted here with a new date at the top. Questions about any of it are welcome — melanie@lindellcounseling.com.