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July 21, 2021,
On screen, if a therapist crosses the line and has a romantic relationship with a patient, should we be shocked?
Notice we didn’t ask the question, would we be shocked. Why?
It depends upon what celluloid vehicle you are watching.
If it is a Lifetime Movie, we wouldn’t be shocked if the therapist was having sex with the entire college football team. One of whom, would begin to stalk her.
Those movies are supposed to be for stalker, potboiler entertainment.
It is when the behavior occurs in a television series or film that takes the subject matter very seriously and is deeply researched, then we would be concerned.
As a Lifetime Movie might say, since we’ve already seen a lifetime of them, the following is based upon true (or real) events.
Amy is a friend in our circle up here in Nor Cal.
Amy is a very attractive professional woman who was raised by loving very involved parents who encouraged her to think, be creative, explore new ideas and not always accept what has been said or taught to her.
As a result of that upbringing, as Amy has gotten older, she has found it very difficult to relax and have a meaningful conversation with the average work associate or neighborhood friend who often seem to focus on romance, religion, politics and gossip.
She tolerates them so as to get along with them so they don’t get angry and bring bad things into her life, but when she needs a diet of some meaty conversation, Amy has found a different path.
Amy sees a therapist.
To place Amy’s personality into perspective, she is the type of person when she was young who studied and implemented subliminal advertising so she is very used to and adept at unearthing acorns found in the subconscious, including her own.
Therefore, where most of us would be starting from scratch to try and analyze and figure out our issues, Amy is way ahead of the game and has not been afraid to look within, gather the facts and make an objective analysis about her past behavior, forming a composite that can be pricked and prodded to provide her with answers about her present response to people in particular and life in general.
Sometimes when she speaks to us, we sense she is tolerating us.
So, to solve this problem, Amy has met with and spoken with several therapists over the years because she feels they will “get it” whereas most people (including us) will not. She also feels that they will not judge her and above all, keep her information confidential.
Fair enough.
In her therapist travels, Amy came to a startling conclusion.
It was the therapist that she was required to meet with in a confrontational Workers Compensation (WC) process, who was paid for by her company that she received the most useful information that she absolutely did not receive from her other therapists who were paid for by her.
First off, the WC therapist did not like her. That was clear from the onset of therapy. As the two women engaged, without saying it, the therapist was not her friend.
After Amy endured about a month of this so called professional, it was time for the summation report to be presented to the powers that be.
The therapist painted Amy as a very narcissistic and loathing person with no positive traits who was a person of low self-esteem.
She even described in detail the components of Amy’s low self-esteem profile including being willing to stay in important romantic relationships and friendships where she gives 80 percent and is very happy to receive the 20 percent in return.
Shall Ms. Antagonist continue? Would all of you like for her to continue?
By all means. Please continue. We certainly want to hear and see Amy get her comeuppance.
Ms. Antagonist went on to describe Amy, in those relationships, as someone eager to please, like tolerating a friendship with us. In all fairness, if we are so far below her intellectual level, and in a way, we actually agree with Amy’s non-verbal assessment of us, then why does she spend so much time with us?
Answer?
We sense she needs a friend. Despite her great financial success and designer suit armor, she’s lonely.
In her report, everything that Ms. Antagonist said about Amy was negative. As though Amy had no positive traits at all.
Amy was livid. She filed a complaint to the Board of Psychiatry about Ms. Antagonist.
They did nothing.
As time went on, guess what happened?
Amy could see that much of what the therapist printed actually appeared to be true.
With the men in her past, she did allow them to use her up and throw her away. She did give far more than she received. She did give much without asking for anything in return.
Did we previously make those observations about Amy’s life?
Not really, we were too busy trying to dissect our own massive issues.
Most important, it was Amy who needed to come to terms with that and make changes where necessary. Not us.
To her credit, Amy did what she usually does in situations like this.
She finally looked within and stopped blaming others. Like Ms. Antagonist.
Once she analyzed her past relationships, she could see there was much truth in what the dislikable therapist analyzed.
Amy made changes and her life slowly but greatly improved.
We feel fortunate that she still considers us a friend and was willing to have somewhat of a mea culpa moment with us and others.
What was her mistake with the other therapists who were very friendly with her, almost to the point of blurring lines?
It was Amy’s arrogance that got her in trouble.
She approached those situations with both therapists informing them that she knew she had things together because of her subliminal advertising and subconscious analysis past.
Therapists are trained in many areas, subliminal advertising is often not one of them. As a result, we sensed the two therapists were a little intimidated by Amy’s training.
So they went along with her and collected their pay checks while Amy let them know how together she was. A good time was had by all. Lots of laughs in the room. Sincere enjoyment by both parties. They had an easy client who paid on time. Amy had an audience who reassured her that she was wonderful and had it all together.
There was one little problem with the lovefest.
Didn’t help Amy much with her issues. In fact it didn’t help her at all.
We’ve watched a lot of therapist shows over the years. The best one for us is HBO’s In Treatment.
If we were a therapist for Amy, the moment she lets us know that she’s studied subliminal advertising and utilized mind-depth techniques and analyzed her subconscious and that she has it all together, we would sit silently and listen and finally ask her a question.
Then why are you here?
“For intellectual discussion”, Amy would reply. “You’re one of the few people who get me. Most others are too simplistic.”
Our response to her perceived arrogance that most of the human race has nothing to offer her is, “Please join a book club.”
Why would we take that position?
From our view, a good therapist is supposed to challenge your preconceived notions of who you are. Let’s say that Amy actually did have it all together at one point in her life. Our experience has taught us that life is one big, constant and painful transition so even if you were “perfect” before, you most likely are not now but you need to be challenged to see that.
That is what a good therapist is supposed to do.
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