Terms of Use: What You May Do With What Is Here
Read it, quote it, take the files and use them at work. What this site is not is professional advice, and that line matters more here than the rest.
Effective 2026-09-16.
The short version
Read anything here. Quote it with attribution. Take the files and use them in your own work, including at your job. Do not present my writing as your own, and do not treat anything on this site as professional advice, because it is not, and the difference matters.
Who you are agreeing with
This site is published by Stephens Counseling PLLC, an Arizona professional limited liability company. “I” and “me” mean Dan Stephens writing on its behalf. “The Service” means danieltstephens.com and everything served from it, including the files offered for download.
By using the Service you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, the remedy is to stop using it.
Nothing here is professional advice
This is the term that matters most, so it is not buried at the bottom.
I am a licensed professional counselor and a clinical supervisor. Nothing on this site is clinical advice, and reading it does not create a therapeutic relationship between us. No article, no downloaded file, and no reply to a message is an assessment, a diagnosis, a treatment recommendation, or supervision. If you need care, seek it from someone who can actually see you. If you are in danger, contact emergency services or call or text 988 in the United States.
The same holds for every other kind of advice the writing brushes against. The articles on bookkeeping, corporate records and business operations are an account of what I do in my own companies. They are not accounting, tax or legal advice, I am not your accountant or your attorney, and a description of how I keep my own books is not a recommendation about yours. Take anything consequential to a professional who is responsible to you.
For counseling or clinical supervision, that work happens through Restored Life Counseling, not here.
The writing
The articles are mine, and copyright in them belongs to Stephens Counseling PLLC.
You may quote from them freely for commentary, criticism, teaching and reporting, with attribution and a link to the page you took the quotation from. You may not republish a whole article, put it behind your own paywall, or present it as your own work. Where a page carries its own license that is more permissive than this paragraph, the page’s license governs.
The articles are written with AI and reviewed by me. How that works is set out in plain terms, because you are entitled to know how a thing you are reading was made. What that means here is that I designed the argument, decided what is true, edited and verified what you are reading, and I am answerable for it.
The files
Several pages offer a file to take away. Each one carries its own licenses inside the archive, and those licenses, not this page, are what govern the file:
- Code, schemas, scripts and templates are under the Apache License 2.0.
- Documentation and prose are under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.
Between them that means you may use these files commercially, modify them, and build on them, including inside a company, provided you keep the attribution and the license notices that ship in the archive. You do not need to ask, and you do not owe me anything.
They come with no warranty of any kind. The specifications describe systems I run in my own companies. They have not been audited, they are not certified against any standard, and whether they suit your situation is a judgment only you or your professional advisers can make. A reference ledger that validates in my hands is not a promise about your books.
Your email address, if you give it
Some files ask for an address before they download. What happens to it is set out in the privacy policy: you get the file straight away, you get a confirmation from the list service, and you can leave from any message I send. I do not rent, sell or trade the list.
Supporting the work
Support is a gift, not a purchase. It buys no service, no priority, no advice, and no relationship beyond gratitude. Everything here is free to read whether or not you ever give anything.
Payments are handled by Stripe, and I never see or hold your card details. Recurring support can be canceled at any time and stops at the end of the period you have paid for. If you gave by mistake, write through the contact page and I will refund it.
Messages you send me
Do not send clinical detail, anyone else’s private information, or anything confidential through the contact form. It is ordinary email on the other end, not a clinical record system, and it is not a route into care. What the form collects and how long it is kept is in the privacy policy.
If you send me an idea, I may write about the subject. I am not agreeing to keep an unsolicited message confidential, and I am not taking on an obligation to you by reading one.
Using the Service
Use it as a reader. Do not try to break it, do not use it to break anything else, and do not scrape it in a way that degrades it for other people. The feed, the sitemap and the plain-text index for language models exist so that machines can read the site politely, and they are the intended route.
What I do not promise
The Service is provided as it is. I do not promise it will be available without interruption, that every link will keep working, or that everything on it is free of error. Where I find an error I correct it, and where a correction changes the substance of a piece the page says so.
To the fullest extent the law allows, Stephens Counseling PLLC is not liable for any indirect, incidental or consequential loss arising from your use of the Service or of anything downloaded from it, and its total liability for any direct loss is limited to the amount you have paid it in the twelve months before the claim, which for nearly every reader is nothing. Nothing in these terms limits liability for anything that cannot lawfully be limited, and nothing in them affects a consumer right you hold under the law of your own country.
Links to other places
The Service links to sites I do not run. Those sites have their own terms and their own privacy practices, and I am not responsible for what is on them.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Arizona, without regard to its conflict of laws rules, and the courts of Maricopa County, Arizona have jurisdiction over any dispute. If a court finds a provision unenforceable, the rest stays in force.
Changes
I may update these terms. Changes are posted here with the effective date at the top updated. Where a change is significant I will say so plainly rather than quietly reposting the page.
Contact
Questions about these terms go through the contact page.