Policies
Disclaimer
Last updated 24 August 2026. This page states the limits of what Affterwords publishes. It forms part of the terms of use.
Not professional advice
Affterwords is a publication. It is not therapy, counselling, coaching, mediation, medical care, legal advice or any other professional service, and reading it creates no professional relationship of any kind.
Nothing published here is diagnosis and nothing published here is treatment. Research summaries describe what studies observed in the samples they recruited. They are not assessments of any individual and cannot be used as one.
Decisions about health, relationships, finances or legal matters call for a qualified professional who can consider the particular circumstances. A publication that has never met the reader cannot do that, and does not attempt it.
Not a crisis service
Affterwords cannot respond to emergencies. Email is read only during business hours and is not monitored for urgent messages.
Anyone in immediate danger, or concerned for someone else's immediate safety, should contact local emergency services. Most countries also operate a free crisis line reachable at any hour, and these can be found through a local health service or a national directory. Contacting a local service directly is faster and more useful than writing to a publication in another country.
No claim of result
Affterwords makes no representation that reading anything published here produces any outcome. The material is descriptive. It reports findings, the samples those findings came from, the designs used, and the objections raised by other researchers.
Nothing published here is a method, a system, a formula, a protocol or a set of steps that produces a result, and no page should be read as offering one. Research findings describe averages across groups. They do not describe what happens in any particular case, and a finding that holds across a sample says nothing certain about any individual within it.
No testimonials
Affterwords publishes no testimonials, no reader stories, no reviews, no case histories and no before-and-after accounts. None have ever been solicited and none will be accepted.
The reason is editorial rather than legal. An account of one person's experience invites a reader to measure a general summary against a particular life, and to draw a conclusion the research does not support. Where a study reports on individual participants, that study is cited and the reader can consult it directly.
No assumption about the reader
Affterwords does not know who is reading and does not write as though it does. No page here describes a reader's relationship, circumstances, history, feelings or state of mind, and no headline, advertisement or email from this publication is written to imply that anything about the reader is known.
This is a standing editorial rule, applied to every page and to every advertisement, and it is stated in full on the masthead. Any material that appears to breach it is an error, and a message to support@affterwords.site identifying the page will be treated as a correction request.
Accuracy and currency
Every citation is checked against the published source before a piece appears. Research is nonetheless revised, retracted and superseded, and a summary accurate on its publication date may not remain so. Publication dates appear on every piece for that reason.
Commercial disclosure
Affterwords may earn revenue from material sold through this site and from advertising it places elsewhere. Where a page carries a commercial link, that is disclosed on the page. Editorial selection is not influenced by that revenue, and no piece in the record exists in order to support a product.
Not for minors
This site is intended for readers aged 18 or over. It is not directed at children and its material is not written for them.