Quote:
Originally Posted by RTerroni
When I go for my first Therapy session at the new practice next Wednesday I undoubtedly will be going into to boundaries and the issues that I have with them, as many of you know I do have some difficulties in adhering to proper boundaries. So I was wondering what you people think are the appropriate boundaries to abide by when seeing your Therapist outside of session. I am still pretty firm on my belief that every situation is different. I also can't understand how talking outside of Therapy violates confidentiality rules if you don't talk about things that are related to Therapy.
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In my view a therapist shouldn't see any client outside of session or have any interaction, and I bet there are very few who actually do this. It wouldn't be confidentiality but the quality of the therapy itself as the reason. T's are all discouraged from creating "dual relationships" so they cant be your friend or try to fool you into believing they one day will be. In order for there to be psychotherapy, an academic art which is based on years of research and study, all experts agree, a lover, friend, or family member cannot be your therapist. Blurring the lines is not appropriate for a T, other people will frown on it and see it as a predatory relationship, because a T weilds power like a teacher over a student or a parent over a child it can never be an equal relationship. Clients are by nature vulnerable and the allure of a caring attentive person can be hard to resist for when you are struggling with life, but the reality is in real life the T is a different person and one that you don't know and shouldn't know, because all that's important is who you think they are.
Another reason is they are paid for their time, but who is going to pay for all the out of session time. If they did give that much time to all their clients they would have no lives and would spend instead 7 days a week listening to sad stories and people talking about themselves. T's need to take a mental break and have time to reflect etc. between sessions, plus a personal life. You really want a healthy happy T and not one who is using their patients to fill social roles in their lives.
I believe that longing to have contact with a T is at the root of a lot of pain comingled with past memories and at the root of what issues depression etc that drove people into therapy in the first place. Feelings of need like this are so common for people in psychotherapy that I hope you can open up with your T about the feelings vs just focusing on the wrong or right rules of outside contact. You need to keep the focus on yourself and making progress toward your goals. If you are merely using the therapist to build a relationship to sustain you that's no way to live. Any good T would not foster a dependency. If you can talk to your T about these feelings I bet they can help you work through them.