Posted by Mark H. on February 19, 2002, at 17:53:13
In reply to Inequality in therapeutic relationship - Trouble, posted by Dinah on February 19, 2002, at 9:49:21
Hear! Hear! Intimacy necessarily involves vulnerability and sharing that which is uncomfortable to share. If there is no potential for damage to one's sense of self in this willing self-exposure, there is also little potential for growth.
You see this playing out in therapy with those who recite the same painful story week after week, never bringing their core issues into the present moment in the presence of others. I think this is one of my areas of weakness; I can verbalize the past with precision, but I often have no idea how I'm doing right now.
Yet it is my craving for intimacy that prods me towards this precious moment and, thus, healing. We must enter the relationship with trust, even if it later proves to be undeserved. One of the things we need to learn is that we can survive a broken heart (and/or disillusionment with our therapists). We learn better when and how to risk; we learn that a large part of what makes a relationship special is not just the other person but the openness to loss that we are willing to bring to it. Over time, we increase our capacity for love and simultaneously our acceptance of certain types of pain.
Peer counseling is called listening.
Directed counseling always involves inequality. Our power resides in our choice to be there, not in how we stand once we find ourselves naked before a (hopefully) compassionate and skillful stranger.
Mark H.
poster:Mark H.
thread:18481
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020214/msgs/18512.html