I’ve been following this very interesting discussion and would like to chime in with my two cents worth. From what I have gathered in this thread so far, I don’t think that what DBS said was terribly off base and believe she or he is going by what the original poster has said. I don’t think any strange or off beat assumptions have been made. Because the original poster said: ‘puter tech, you said – “First, of all we don’t know if the therapist wanted to "burden" the client. The therapist might have misjudged the situation and felt it would be easier for the client to know something like that up front. The client could have had a lot of different possible responses to being told something like this.” Actually in my opinion we do know that the therapist wanted to burden the client because, any psychotherapist who has had six years or more of university training knows full well (or should) that a therapist should never ask the client to give something emotionally to the therapist. For a therapist to attempt to derive sympathy from a client in a therapeutic setting is a burden that the client does not deserve. I don’t think any psychologist or psychiatrist would dis agree with me on this point. As a practicing CSW in a taxpayer supported social service agency, I would never consider, as a matter of standard policy, to burden any of my clients or be selfish in that way. If a social worker or psychotherapist does not realize that self disclosing something of that nature that could be harmful to a client, in my own humble opinion, it would be clearly unethical and I don’t think DBS is off base in suggesting that the therapist in question does not have the best interests of the client at heart when doing this. If a psychotherapist needs that kind of sympathy or emotional validation, she or he needs to be telling that to her or his own psychotherapist (or supervisor or mentor) and certainly not to any clients. And if a psychotherapist does not know that such information could hurt a client, then in that particular situation the therapist does not have a good therapeutic sense of self in that particular relationship with the client anyway. Now if we are talking about a therapist self disclosing in the past tense, i.e. some kind of adversity that is in the therapist past life in which the therapist overcame, and uses that information as an aid to assist the client with healthy ways of coping with adversity, and how to overcome that adversity, that would be fine. And appropriate and healthy. Bur for a psychotherapist to burden a client with current ongoing problems in the therapists life in my opinion is not only very selfish for their therapist to do to the client but also potentially destructive to the therapeutic relationship. This is psychotherapy ethics 501 stuff and is taught in most 500 level grad courses in both social work and psychology programs at good universities. It's basic knowledge which all new grad students learn and should remember and apply in their careers. If it is not, then the therapeutic relationship will always and I mean always deteriorate into a friendship and not a professional relationship, with both client and therapist finding themselves in a therapeutic setting without clear and appropriate professional therapeutic boundaries maintained. You say that “…we don’t know if the therapist wanted to "burden" the client.” It does not matter what the intent of the therapist was. If it was an off handed mistake for the therapist to leak that information out then fine, there are ways that client and therapist to discuss the issue. However if a psychotherapist, as a matter of regular, ongoing. Standard policy uses self disclosure of personal, present existing personal problems in the therapeutic relationship, that is clearly wrong, selfish, destructive and in my opinion unethical. You say “…we don’t know if the client really wants to change therapists. If the client wants to do so then yes of course the therapist should not stand in the way.”
“Now that I know my therapist is going through this awful crisis, I find myself worrying about her. I worry about whether her husband's brain tumor will be found cancerous. I worry about what my therapist will go through if it is cancer, or if her husband dies. I can't stand the thought of her being in pain. It hurts me.”
On that point I agree with you and I wish the priginal poster the best and hope that what ever the outcome of your therapy experience, it is a positive one.
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