For many Canadian psychologists the distinction between confidentiality and privileged communication is unclear. For instance, many mistakenly believe that they are able to promise absolute confidentiality to their clients. The misconceptions can, in part, be attributed to the absence of any clear legal guidelines concerning privileged communication. A discretionary approach to granting privileges based on Wigmore's rules could This paper was funded in part by Grant No. 452-836198 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and by the York University Psychology Graduate Student Association. The authors are indebted to Harvey Brooker for comments on an earlier version of this article, and to two anonymous reviewers for their critical appraisals.Requests for reprints should be sent to