Quote:
Originally Posted by lolagrace
About the 10K . . . that was early August and it is possible that was her last hurrah before treatment. Once treatment begins, if this is cancer she is dealing with, patients can go from feeling actually rather normal prior to treatment to feeling quite miserably ill and weak within a matter of days. I wanted to mention that because several people have taken that fact that she ran in early August as some sign that she isn't as ill as she says. I disagree with that having seen people go through this many times. She can also just be feeling so lousy at this point that even trying to get on to her computer is just not in her range of focus right now.
All you can do, barring getting possible information through her workplace, is give her the space to deal with her own illness. When she is up and able to respond, I'm sure she will, but right now she may very well not be in any position to think about much but her own health. These medical problems can completely dominate one's life.
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One of a therapist's core responsibilities is to provide consistent care to clients. If, for any reason they cannot do that (like as in your example, having to undergo cancer treatment) they should notify and refer clients out. Not put their clients on hold, go out, do 5k runs, take their info off their website, and just leave everyone hanging.
Cancer treatment can be long and protracted (if that's what we're assuming this is) how long is the client supposed to wait? It could be a year or more!
Therapists are free to take time out to deal with medical problems. They're not free to leave people hanging in the wind until such time as they feel like addressing the issue. The whole paradigm of therapy is that one needs to be able to depend on the therapist. If the therapist suddenly becomes inconsistent, that can and will set most clients back.
I feel like the advice you've given would be really sound if we were talking about what to do if a friend is ill, or someone who you were in business with. It's not applicable to the therapy relationship though.
If a therapist is too ill to communicate what is happening to clients, then those clients need to be referred on. Period. The client is not beholden to patiently wait for the therapist to feel like getting in touch.