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Re:Ethical Issue/Dual Relationship
T2H · 08/21/02 at 4:59 ET
Also, it occurred to me afterwards to add - in my own experience as a therapist with loose boundaries with my own therapist, there was a point at which I became very angry with her about how the boundaries had shifted (tho I certainly played an role in shifting them :-)). I had thought that I was terminating therapy with her because I was feeling better and things felt done...from the start with her there had been some msgs about possibly having a friendship later - we had actually met as colleagues originally a few years before I became her client and we really hit it off but it never went anywhere and other than the couple of times we saw each other in professional circles, we had had no other contact in the intervening years. But there had been all along msgs and even, at the start, open discussion about possibly one day having a friendship - she is actually the colleague who got into a similar situation as you are in tho that client was not a therapist, and since learned to tighten boundaries some because of the mess that that produced in her own life, and she has shifted the boundaries with that client as well as with others and feels better about that now. When I felt my therapy was coming to an end, I also felt I was suddenly getting msgs that a friendship between us could never happen - the idea that it could possibly one day had been a big issue for me throughout the therapy, and I intermittingly would get upset about the problems and boundaries and we would discuss it and make them firmer though really we have never met outside of therapy sessions at all, other than the pre-therapy contact. But for me, psychologically it was a source of great conflict, pain, and ambivalence and had I known how hard it would make things I would have gone to another therapist, because we already knew we really liked each other and would like to be friends, so it was a stupid decision to see her - I had thought I was only going to go for maybe a dozen emdr sessions and didn't expect to go so deeply into things but once we started it was clear I had a lot more difficulties than I realized - at the same time I am glad that I did go to her because I made very rapid progress with her. When I felt suddenly that she was now giving me messages that no a friendship would never be possible, then I was very angry and though I would not likely have ever acted on it, I did have thoughts that I could report her to her college - because so many mixed messages had been given and all that I went through and it was unfair and I felt like something traumatic and damaging was being done to me that would undermine the whole of the therapy I had done to her because it would end badly because I felt bad about this. But I e-mailed her and asked her directly where she was at with the idea of friendship, that i needed to know, and she acknowledged that she thinks about it a lot, and can't figure out what to do because she knows that others would be horrified and professionally it just is not supposed to be done, etc... and outlined the different reasons for not becoming friends, etc.... Her acknowledging her struggles with this somehow made all of it ok for me, because - rightly or wrongly since this isn't the greatest boundary thing either - I felt it was "our" struggle and not my struggle and it didn't feel like some crazymaking thing that had been done to me - just felt that she had made mistakes as had I - I am a professional too and know well the reasons for not entering into a therapy rel'ship in the way that I did, and yet I made that decision - just as your client also knows the reasons for not having the boundaries get that relaxed/informal/fluid, whatever you want to call it, and yet she chose to push for that and to accept it. I know the onus is still on the therapist to set those boundaries, but still - it is an informed choice, tho made from a position of vulnerability. I have learned a lot from my own situation with my therapist and have made a point since of having very firm boundaries with clients because I know firsthand what this experience has been like for me - and I am very high functioning and have good coping skills and am able to see the situation relatively clearly, though that has not always been the case. Very serious harm could have been done to myself through this and I think that it is fortunate that she and I have been able to talk it through enough that it now feels like I will be ok no matter how this turns out. I guess what I am trying to say is that I think it is possible, depending on the client, to extract yourself from this as much as possible, without her being harmed in the process, but that as much risk as it entails, I think that acknowledging the mistakes you have made with her, and being honest about your role in things, would be an important part of the process and more likely to dissipate her anger about boundaries now shifting. Actually I am not sure that doing that does involve risk - it is an admission of wrongdoing in some respects, but she is already well aware that the recommended professional boundaries have been crossed, so it isn't giving her information she doesn't already have, but may validate some of how she feels about things which may help to dissipate her anger, and as another professional hopefully she can empathize and understand on some level at least. And maybe, if it is limitted, it will feel ok to have some degree of professional contact together as colleagues. In many rural settings -and sometimes even non-rural settings (I have become a therapist in the same city that I saw a couple of therapists years ago and the odd time our professional paths have crossed) - that would be unavoidable.
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