I was reading a Dostoyevsky novel recently, (The House of the Dead, published in 1862) and came across this line: "Humanity, kindness, brotherly sympathy are sometimes of more use to patients than any medicines."

I'm not sure why this blog/article writer chooses to out the medical field as being cold, dead-eyed and full of boundaries. If you have a cavity, you get it filled, no need to go back again for 6months (whatever the recommendation). If you have schizophrenia or a personality disorder or an intractable depression, a 50 minute appointment one time isn't going to "fix" it. Those patients become under your care long term. That involves communication and.. well "caring." Don't choose therapy or mental illness as your chosen care specialty if you are not committed to that, in my opinion.

The docs I work with are some of the most loving people I've met. They are (most, not all, I hate to generalize) in the field because they want to help people. The amount of infantilizing that goes on with therapists claiming to require all of these boundaries against their "weak, vulnerable, needy" patients is so absurd to me. Treat someone as a human with respect. If you are afraid of patients so much that you need to place yourself above them (not all therapists, again), then don't go into a field of care.

If the therapist doesn't want email (etc, or hugs), then say it. I don't think there is any more meaning implied, and the therapist doesn't need to then dig around somebody's feelings regarding communication via email. My doctor emails me. She asked me to email her. It's never been an issue in 5 or 6 years I've seen her. Why else would she tell me I could email her? She also gives me hugs. I don't like it or dislike it. We are just people being people.

I mean really, who do therapists think they are?