Re: Is "I love you" appropriate in therapy?

In article <SPPM1050813231004-14730@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> from sci.psychology.psychotherapy.moderated Wilba <WilbaSPPM@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>Wilba wrote:
>> John M Price PhD wrote:
>>> Wilba wrote:
>>>>Mary Kaye wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> To all of you who are therapists - is telling a client "i love you"
>>>>> appropriate? Why? Why not?
>>>>
>>>> I'm interested in the flipside - how would you handle a client who says
>>>> "I love you" to you?
>>>>
>>>> This happened to me working on a crisis line. I was ending the call and
>>>> the caller said it to. It seemed in the moment to be a ploy to keep me
>>>> on the line (this is a very manipulative and demanding caller).
>>>
>>> Another repeat/frequent caller telephone counseling success, no doubt.
>>
>> Please explain.

>In the absence of any clarification, I have to go with my first impression
>that this was a snide remark.

Of course it is a snide remark. My take on 'telephone counseling' in the
general sense, as you practice it, is very damn low. I will say one of
the articles ou cited did raise it a bit. But a bit.

As I have said in that thread, I think it is designed more fo rthe
counselors than the clientelle. Pretty much you can put a large period
there.

This does not include, BTW, adjunctive telephone counseling associated
with specifc programs. For instance, stop smoking call in lines, breast
cancer lines, all adjunctive to a more conventional intervention, work
well. I have seen those data, and they far exceed anything the
generalized 'call on you only friend' stuff in the centers populating
cities since what, the 60s? Again, I have also not seen any demographic
data indicating a presenceof these shops results in a decrease in
population based stats of suicidality.

I'm interested in how this is acceptable,
>since the charter explicitly defines "personal attacks" as inappropriate.

I am interested in how the hell your reading skills have taken this as a
'personal attack'. Please explain that cognitive failure. If you recall,
the consensus, and I think you even shared it, was that repeat callers did
represent a failure of the technique. I simply recalled that.

Frankly, this actually lends a bit of support, at least in your case, of
my thesis that this endeavor is for the counselors and not the clientelle.
You have certainly overidentified with the program you are involved in if
you saw my comment as a 'personal attack' when the plain text is
indicative of a failure of the program, again, represented in your repeat
caller. Remember and remembber well that counseling and all therapeutic
interventions are meant to solve problems and get the person back on the
road of independence. What I see, however, especially in repeat callers,
is an iatrogenic dependency. Sure, maybe it isn't intentional, but alas,
there it is.

>There also seems to be a dual standard in operation. If I use mild sarcasm
>in response to John, those posts are rejected by the moderators,

Not by me.

yet he
>seems to be free to post insults without restriction. Does this mean that
>once you are on the green list your behaviour is never scrutinised?

Again, how the hell do you characterize my personal and actually more than
a bit studied low opinion of a field as an 'insult'.

>From where I sit, you are the one owing an explanation for your wild assed
and novel application of the term.

Maybe even an apology for willful misrepresentation and
mischaracterization of my post. Gees, Wilba, is your memory that horrible
that you forgot the whole of the discussion, or are you just trying out
spinning techniques?


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