Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Hopalong on March 30, 2008, 12:00:44 AM
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Hi Richard,
Are dual relationships years post-therapy always, always a terrible idea?
Sigh. I have had a few dates with my ex-therapist and I've felt calm, centered,
neither worshipful nor fearful but very ready to love.
He basically bolted down the street screaming about lawsuits.
(I exaggerate, but he oozed fear.)
Just wondered if you think the roles must always be that rigid.
(I've read volumes on dual relationships and the protection of the integrity
of the field and transference and countertransference and I still think it's maybe
sensible most of the time but it's also humorless and unimaginative and deflating.)
What do you think?
thanks,
Hops
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Hops:
I saw this question and I couldn't help but post. The APA has a fairly strict Code of Conduct regrarding thereapists' relationships with former clients. I've excerpted part of the code below which speaks specifically to a sexual/personal relationship with former clients. While they set a minimum of two years as the time period before a therapist can have any kind of relationship with a former client, seems to me they discourage it altogether.
My guess is due to liability issues and the fear of losing their license, most therapists simply stay away from such circumstances. Should the relationship end badly, there would be fear the former client could come back and file charges against him. However, since your therapist has already moved into this area with you by agreeing to go on several dates with you, perhaps he is only now realizing the potential consequences for him professionally and that is why he is concerned. Or, perhapss he didn't consider your post-therapy time with him as "dates" or was afraid it was moving too fast?
Right or wrong, and I completely understand your feelings about this, most doctors just choose to stay away from such situations because of the significant consequences it can cause them professionally and personally.
Here's the code:
Sexual Intimacies With Former Therapy Clients/Patients
(a) Psychologists do not engage in sexual intimacies with former clients/patients for at least two years after cessation or termination of therapy.
(b) Psychologists do not engage in sexual intimacies with former clients/patients even after a two-year interval except in the most unusual circumstances. Psychologists who engage in such activity after the two years following cessation or termination of therapy and of having no sexual contact with the former client/patient bear the burden of demonstrating that there has been no exploitation, in light of all relevant factors, including (1) the amount of time that has passed since therapy terminated; (2) the nature, duration, and intensity of the therapy; (3) the circumstances of termination; (4) the client's/patient's personal history; (5) the client's/patient's current mental status; (6) the likelihood of adverse impact on the client/patient; and (7) any statements or actions made by the therapist during the course of therapy suggesting or inviting the possibility of a posttermination sexual or romantic relationship with the client/patient. (
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I know...I've read it, and since it's been a year and a half, I figured we'd be socializing and getting to know each other for six months. Then there'd be another decision to make.
But he seems to have leapt directly out of the frying pan into the fire when in fact he was in a puddle of milk. I would never wish to harm him.
I felt badly for him because he's as lonely as I am, and I think this life of his has driven him to drink.
Ah well. There will be no fatal attractions, just regret.
What a terrifying profession. Glad I'm not a shrink.
love
Hops
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PS--He's also a forensic shrink, and a sensitive person. So he spends some of his time in prisons, like last week, when he interviewed a 19 y/o who had shot and killed his gf, a 2 y/o child, and two other adults. And doesn't remember any of it. But this doc perceived it all and said to me, he had a horrible horrible life.
God bless those among us who are strong enough and sacrificial enough to be present to that kind of pain.
(One striking childhood memory he shared was when his mother, who regularly had breakdowns of one sort another, decided she didn't feel like coping with two kids at once--he was about five--so she locked him outside. Almost 60 years later he remembers his thought process: "Well, I'm going to have to feed myself now, so what can I do. I'll go to the garden and get a tomato..." and he trudged off and found one...he remembers it vividly. Clearly symbolic of his abandonment.)
As the evening went on his comments about women grew more and more bitter and explosive and by the time he was stalking off to his car muttering "and there's ANOTHER thing you can evaluate!" I realized he wasn't even talking to me, I had asked him a lot of questions but not in a challenging way--just an attempt to "catch up" since I'd been talking to him for a few years!--but he was battling with ghosts...so I turned the other way and went to my car and went home. Weeping all the way.
Very hard to say goodbye to him but truly, saying goodbye to a few weeks of happy fantasies and the belief that I'd found love and would be building a relationship, a future with a mate...that was the real grief.
Hops
Whew. Sad all around.
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Hops:
Has he told you outright he's not interested in pursuing anything further with you? From the way you describe him, maybe his fear is not just that you are a former client, but that you represent a potential love interest at all....Unless he has made it clear to you that he doesn't want to pursue any kind of personal relationship with you, maybe you should keep the door open and try to just socialize without any strings attached....It could be he just needs time to figure all this out...and figure himself out....Even if it turns out, you just end up spending some time together, that would still be a good thing, right? And you never know...it's not completely unheard of that a therapist and former client hook up after the therapeutic relationship has ended....I'd treat it like any other potential relationship.....go slowly, get to know each other, see if there is mutual interest...and then work out any "issues" that might get in the way...Either way, I wouldn't take it personally----sounds like he may have his own struggles to work through that have nothing to do with you or the fact that you're a former client...
Good luck....and don't give up....the right one is out there for you...In the meantime, enjoy every minute of the "getting to know you" process...
:)
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Very hard to say goodbye to him but truly, saying goodbye to a few weeks of happy fantasies and the belief that I'd found love and would be building a relationship, a future with a mate...that was the real grief.
I'm sorry Hops. I'm so glad you had a few weeks of "happy fantasies" and the joy of looking forward to a relationship. Those I know were nice. I hope you will focus on how those felt so that those memories will override the grief ones. That might make the next love interest more appealing rather than fearing a repeat end.
I so hope you will find a better fit very soon. I hoping for one myself. I was with three other mothers at a birthday party this afternoon. One is married, another found love a year ago and is engaged, the third just found love and I'm counting on being next. (right after you)
I am holding the thought that he was an appetizer, come along just to get your hunger started. You have not been served the entree yet. Don't clear the table yet - the real meal has yet to be served. Love - GS
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thank you, Sun, Izzz, GS...I really appreciate your responses.
Very awkward thing to talk about, but I'm feeling okay.
I was very sad for a night and a day, then really did a shake-up-wake-up kind of thing.
He was in full-tilt panic that had nothing to do with me, and no Sun, there isn't going to be any relationship.
He said as much by email, before I got home.
I've responded and said my piece and wished him well and that's that.
Mainly, it was good to feel hopeful...but we all know how dashed hopes feel too.
Good coping today was church, a long meeting, then Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (with Frances McDermott) with a good friend. She was so supportive, and the movie SO delightful on every level. I feel better.
I'm not mad at him. Just kind of stunned at the intensity of his fear and projections.
Yoicks.
(Izz, Doc G can answer my question here...wasn't asking him to diagnose anything. No worries.)
love,
Hops
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It is a NO-NO
Imagine that you engage with him. Can you always trust him that he will not engage in sex activities in his work?
Please answer me this question, please.
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Imagine that instead of a personal trainer in mind you get a personal trainer in the body at the gym. Are you going to trust him when he goes to work to the gym? He might fall in love with anothe rclient? Do you see my point?
It is a no-no
In the case of an MD (doctor) it is totally forbiden, he loses his license. Period.
What about a gynecologist? Can he remember all the genitals that he sees everyday? How about a proctologist? Cam he remember all the rectums he sees everyday? Would it be OK??????
Just food for thought.
Sorry if I do not make any sense, I just took my muscle relax peal because after the accident my muscles are very contractured.
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Any position of authority, prison in mates with guards, correctioanl officers, when you go to a therapistr, he is ain a position of authority, adn you surrender your most intimate
thoughtds to him, teachers with students, etc etc
IA TI OK????????????????
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Hi Lupita...
I do understand why they frown on dual relationships.
I do.
And it's a moot point anyway, since it's over before it began.
(He is not one who would do sexual activity with a current client, and has never before me risked involvement with a former client. This is what he said, and he is an honest man.)
But the real point is, it's over before it began. So there's no decision for me to make.
Just processing the loss of a hope.
love
Hops
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Another side of it...
it was kind of a shock to see this man whom I trusted and even loved (before it felt romantic) be drunk, slurring his words, ranting about this and that (using the F word) and raging about women...his ex, hypothetical litigious ex clients (that was where his fear kicked in) and by extension, I guess, me.
It was sad and in some way I haven't fully allowed myself to feel yet, it was hurtful.
I did not deserve that.
Perhaps I should have never told him I'd like to see him socially.
(Speaking of boundaries, TT.) So I have some guilt, too...I know the rules.
Jeez. I don't know if it's an Ntrait in me (oh those pesky rules, surely they wouldn't apply to special me). Except I never ever asked for him to transgress the rules. I just asked him what they were, and he told me, and then after a year and a half...he called me.
Trying to measure my level of accountability and sort out the guilt I'm suddenly feeling.
I feel as though I hurt him by stirring a sleeping beast. (He's no beast, I just mean, he is a vulnerable human being too, not a robot.)
Help?
Perspectives very welcome.
thanks,
Hops
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Well Hops, I, for one, am glad he bolted. I think you do not need or deserve that level of rudeness. Sounds to me like this man has LOTS of ISSUES and you have worked so hard you deserve someone who is kind, smart, funny and loving not someone who seems to me to be so raging that he cannot contain himself......... his behaviour has nothing to do with you, as you note, and he choose to meet with you.............. now what other fish are out there???????????/
Hugs,
axa
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Hi Hops,
“Are dual relationships years post-therapy always, always a terrible idea?”
If we are speaking of a romantic relationship between therapist and patient, my answer is yes. Once a therapist to someone, always a therapist, and if a therapist is having trouble with this issue, he or she should be talking to his or her own therapist about it. “Therapist” is a very special role—a unique attachment for a patient—and the memories for both patient and therapist last a lifetime. Any “waiting period” (such as the APA’s two year rule) is arbitrary and meaningless. After two years post-therapy, I don’t cease to be my patient’s therapist. Sometimes patients call me years after I stopped seeing them—my relationship to them is exactly the same as it was the day we stopped.
I hope this helps.
Best,
Richard
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Hops,
There's a semi-new series on HBO called In Treatment and one of the main issues is whether a therapist should have a love relationship with his patient Laura. The season just ended.
Perhaps you can rent the show. Watch the Laura sessions and the Paul/Gina sessions- that would be 18 25 minute episodes. Pail, the therapist, is torn over whether he should have a love relationship with his patient Laura, so Paul goes into therapy with his therapist, Gina. I loved this show.
ann
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Thanks, Richard.
I sense you're right. I've got a bad memory of him raging drunkenly, after about 3 years of trust.
Siggh. But I'm a big girl. I won't let it mess me up too much.
Amazing what a different person he became.
Reminds me of my wedding night, when Mr. Hyde came out.
A little scary as in inflaming trust issues, for me, generally. But I won't let it.
(I hope.)
Ann, thanks to you too Ann...I don't get HBO but I'm sure it'll turn up on DVD. Thanks for the recommendation.
Izz, I guess he saw me without boundaries inasmuch as he was wandering around in my lizard brain (hypnosis). Ah well. He helped me tremendously and I am grateful. I am sorry he's so chaotic in his personal life and once my bruised heart heals, I will stay with that. I don't know how he can ever allow ANY woman close enough to him for a happy twosome. But I'd rather know what I know now, rather than experience something like what I did in marriage (a nightmare of a honeymoon). It's moot.
I'll sure never be interested in messing with THAT particular boundary again, that's for sure.
Amber, glad you're able to do T'ai Chi safely with your T. Makes sense, as you're in a safe nonverbal group activity. But in hindsight, I don't think she should put the responsibility on you to decide it's okay. (New knowledge.) What polite grateful client would ever say, oh No, I don't want you to join my class. And BTW...imo, revisiting square one is sometimes just an opportunity to plant your foot and shove off again...((((Amber)))) don't be too disheartened.
Axa, I feel sheer gratitude for your post. It hit me like a real hug from a real friend. Thank you. I'm going fishing.
love,
Hops
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Hi Richard,
Are dual relationships years post-therapy always, always a terrible idea?
Sigh. I have had a few dates with my ex-therapist and I've felt calm, centered,
neither worshipful nor fearful but very ready to love.
He basically bolted down the street screaming about lawsuits.
(I exaggerate, but he oozed fear.)
Just wondered if you think the roles must always be that rigid.
(I've read volumes on dual relationships and the protection of the integrity
of the field and transference and countertransference and I still think it's maybe
sensible most of the time but it's also humorless and unimaginative and deflating.)
What do you think?
thanks,
Hops
One of the things I've learned in school, and it was drilled into us, is the concept of: "Once a client, always a client". This is good protection from a LOT of headaches!
Bones
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Hi Hops,
I had a crush on my psychiatrist when I first started working with him. Wanting to heal, I did some research eventually recognizing the attraction was telling a story:
Under my attraction to my therapist was an acting out of a young early trauma in my infancy when my mom abandoned me for a short period at nine months. My mom's love was toxic, the rescuer's love, a sweet neighbor, was pure and wonderful she treated me with that sweet unconditional acceptance, yet I was left conflicted and guilty. Does that not sound like a crossing of the boundaries therapeutic dynamic?
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Hops - the last time my NP's threw me in the looney bin, I began dating and having an intimate rel'ship with my therapist, who was an intern at the time. I never realized the damage - actual and potential - til MUCH later. I have to say it wasn't worth it.
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Hi Izzy (apologies Hops but have not "seen" Izzy for an age - hope all is well with you)
I am of the school "once a client always a client"
xxx
axa
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"once a client always a client"
That is my perception and understanding.
Leah x
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Hoo boy.
Do I feel WARNED.
I'm going to listen to and trust you guys' judgment.
Especially since I got a sweet email from him today telling me I had touched him, and he finds me beautiful.
Yikers.
I think we've had a forgiving farewell now, and I need to leave it at that.
BOY am I vulnerable to longings right now. It might be spring, or a rising feisty dammit sense that I want someone to LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Time to hit the match.com. Yuggh.
love
Hops
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WOW Hops,
He seems very pulled in two directions(LOL) Ami
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Yes, he is.
Conflicted, and I understand why.
He's a dear good human being with feet of clay.
That first, therapist next. And lonely man.
I'm okay and hope he will be.
love
Hops
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Hi Hops,
Sounds like a Red Flag. IMO, let this thing die. Hope you protect your own heart & head.
ann
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Well said, Ann. And I will.
Let this thing die.
thank you.
Hops
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Uh oh.
I had written him a couple emails after the evening, telling him I didn't think he saw my good intent. Then told him what I had been dreaming about, told him they were fantasies of happiness, but I'd enjoyed them (things like sharing routines, goofy pets, giving him my father's study, loving his kids and grandkids...). I really let it rip. I think partly it was a refusal to allow his rage and paranoia about me to be the last word.
But now I think it was a mistake, because he's written back. His first response was moving. He said my response to his curt email and "rude behavior" had kept him awake. That I had touched him.
Tonight I got another message...and he's saying, you want to make me happy? Wow. Etc... how do you do that?
So I wrote a long thing back about how I'd worked to find my own happiness, just the various ways I'd moved from long anguish to depression and finally to self-love and the release of shame. I advised him, basically, to beam compassion onto the little boy within him, absorb the child's pain, let it go through him, and then they'd both be healed.
But what's troubling me now is I feel that after expressing all that, I was ready to let it go. And he's popped back. And after his behavior that night, as much as I HAD fantasized, I was ready to let it go. Sounds odd, but I think I showed him too much tenderness. Because now he's responding, and I'm no longer feeling I could take him on.
What do I do now? I don't want to hurt him.
Hops
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Uh oh.
What do I do now? I don't want to hurt him.
Hops
You keep your distance and continue giving your attention and nurturing......
to yourself.
No open ended e mails. You can write back.... "So glad you're having a better day/OK day/insightful moment. Best, Hops" without feeling guilt.
Release him with love and keep your distance.
You sure have had a busy past month, Hops.
I hope the brother situation resolves (soon also.) I have to believe it will.
You're a kind nurturing person who deserves serenity. A relationship with this man (ex T.....) may well have been another path to more self sacrafice on your part. There are healers and hurters in this world. You're one of the healers learning how to choose recipricol relationships. Why is this so difficult and slippery to identify and figure out?
I don't understand this but I've spent time thinking about how these patterns tend to repeat.... wondering why some people seem to experience more than their fair share troubled relationships, pain and chaos..... craziness that makes absolutely no sense and never will.
What part is the relationship? The other person? You? Do we create this ourselves or does it happen to us bc we're driven to overcome and heal impossibly broken people? Are we aware of it on some level or do we have absolutely no control?
Is it simply a matter of luck and not being preyed on by someone unable identify their own behavior as negative or destructive?
I need to believe you can figure this out and find worthy relationships for yourself.
It happens for other people.
Why NOT you?
We're back to.....
Boundaries....
healthy and strong.
Yes?
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Hops - I think the betrayal of crossing boundaries is the worst of this scenario. All the vulnerability is from the one who was/is a patient ... the "therapist", if he's any good, has not let down any personal barriers. If he has done so during treatment, right then the betrayal begins and the line has been crossed. This may be a stupid question, but have your ever read Fitzgerald's story about the psychiatrist who married his patient? It was very reflective of Fitzgerald's own marriage and the tragedy of it is a road map for those who follow this path.
I wrote a book about this topic - well, any therapy abuse. Crossing the role boundaries is one of the biggies.
Stay strong, girl.
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Thank you, Lighter.
No open-ended emails. That's it.
Thank you.
I can still be compassionate while gently distancing.
And, (((((((((((((((((((((Lighter))))))))))))))))))))))). Welcome back.
ToWrite, if you're comfortable sharing more about your book...do PM me. (No worries at all if not.)
As to his breaking the boundaries, I do recall in therapy him saying, "Well, I probably shouldn't say this, but your situation reminds me of how I felt with my second wife...it was, I'm doing all the loving in this relationship!" So perhaps he did first cross a boundary then. He seldom made a similar reference, though. To me, I was delighted to know a little about him, it made me trust him more. And I don't think he ever had malicious intent. He's just a human being. Maybe he was feeling attracted to me and that messed with his judgment.
Otherwise, I'd say at the end of my therapy I practically DRAGGED him across the boundary, by telling him I would like to see him socially, asking him what the rules were, and telling him more than once that I was serious and would like it very much if he'd call me after the proper interval. And if both he and I were free, we could start in friendship. All he said at the time was finally a slightly embarrassed, "Maybe we could make a go of it!"
But he was never seductive or predatory in any way during therapy. Other than those mild slips during almost 3 years, I think he was always professional, decent, and honorable.
So I am responsible, too. I'm close to his age, I've been around the block, and I should have realized it was my own boundary-bashing that helped create the situation. Vulnerable as a client or not, I'm an adult, and I own my part.
Thanks for the wise counsel. In honesty, after seeing how much anger and bitterness he has toward women when we had dinner, and on top of that the notion that he's likely alcoholic...I would not be capable of entering a romantic relationship with him now anyway.
Hope it will taper off by email, and if he asks for a meeting, I'll say only if we have a mutual understanding that it's only as friends.
Hope that makes sense.
Thanks all so very much for your insight and guidance. This would be the last thing I need right now, to derail my life in a draining and unhealthy relationship.
love,
Hops
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Hops.... if he suggests a meeting by e mail.... remind him that he's the one who recognized how innapropriate a social relationship would be.
That was your understanding, right?
You don't have to inject negativity into that message. Just that you understood, agree and that's your decision too.
You're an adult and you have the right to set boundaries and have them recognized and repsected.
Why is it so hard for some of us to feel any entitlement to healthy boundaries and respect of same?
Not sure.... but better figure it out and fix it quick.
(((Hops)))
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Well said, Ann. And I will.
Let this thing die.
thank you.
Hops
Dear Hops,
I would take Ann's wise words on board.
Maybe, no contact is the best option, for both of you.
Love to you,
Leah
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Ooops. My heartfelt emails from that night ("you misunderstood me, I was only fantasizing about love and making you happy" -- OOPS) which I assumed were a farewell, had the opposite effect.
He wrote back, you want to make me happy? Tell me how it works...
(I had actually kind of thought, after that date, ummm, this isn't someone I feel brave enough to take on...)
But I wrote him about my own process, with a particular emphasis on how my church community has increased my personal happiness over the years.
So now he's written that he'd like to go with me Sunday.
I don't know how to refuse that. So I want to be gracious but also not encourage him to think we're marching forward still toward romance. Now, I think if it's anything, it should be friendship. I'm always happy to talk about spirituality with people and I'd love for him to find solace and community there as I have.
It just feels awkward. I guess I'll be friendly and agree to share church, but without the couple assumptions. Oy oy. I guess I can't control what he's thinking and just need to give the clearest message I can.
Watch out for what one wishes for. One just might get it and then what the heck does one do?
help,
Hops