Posted by nellie7 on April 14, 2010, at 11:30:55
In reply to Dilemma in Therapy, posted by widget on April 1, 2010, at 17:41:07
Having feelings for a T is similar to falling in love with the character played by an actor. Ts are trained to be empathic, understanding and to say the right thing. It is part of their job and the role they play with each of their patients, regardless of how they feel about them.
The client knows nothing about what the T is really like, unless, of course, he fails to play his part as expected. The "relationship" is one-sided, with the client paying in order to be helped by accessing knowledge and skills obtained in a formal way.
In my opinion, there are many factors that make this relationship problematic. Perhaps sometime in the future a computer program will be available to replace Ts. That would probably be the ideal solution, since it would spare clients from having feelings based on fantasy as well as from having to put up with countertransference and other issues actually belonging to the T and not to the client.
By the way, I hope no one is offended by this post. That is definitely not my intention. It's not that I blame Ts- they are being put in a difficult position and have to deal wth unrealistic expectations which are an inevitable outcome of the complicated situation. It simply saddens me to understand that trained people who are theoretically capable of understanding the difficulty involved in living with psychiatric illness or other issues don't really care, while those who are really capable of caring cannot understand. Being mentally ill myself, I have had to learn this lesson the hard way.
poster:nellie7
thread:941668
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20100405/msgs/943373.html