I just started watching In Treatment. I had heard of the HBO series but never seen it before. I watched the first episode which is Paul's session with Laura in which Laura discusses her love for him.
Technically, this kind of situation is called an "erotic therapist" which is a situation in which the patient believes she/he has fallen in love with her/his therapist.
This has happened to me a few times in my career and I have known many other therapists with whom this has happened as well. It is a dangerous situation for the therapist in that ethical boundaries can be breached if the therapist does not set appropriate limits, and false accusations can be made against the therapist if the patient gets angry that his/her intentions have been spurned.
The key thing is for the therapist to adequately document in the patient's record the situation and to seek good professional consultation and supervision immediately. In a couple of cases I transferred the patient to another therapist.
Of all the problems that therapists can get into this is probably one of the most common and difficult to manage in a therapeutic way.
At the end of the session Laura says, "I think our time is up."
Dr. Weston says, "Yes, it is."
Laura asks, "What am I gonna do"
Dr. Weston says, "We'll talk more about it next week."
Here is a link to an article in the professional journal, Journal Of Psychotherapy Practice and research.
For more information about the show click here for the Internet Movie Database.
This is article #1 in a series on In Treatment.
No comments:
Post a Comment