A Guide to Psychology and its Practice

Questions
and Answers

 

I’m looking for a psychotherapist. There are only a few who do psychodynamic therapy here, just about four or five of them. Two of them are out of town so I don’t really have a choice. I already know the person who is supposed to be the best. The problem is that I already have a sort of a relationship with him. I have been contacting him to help me out in my academics because he is also a professor of psychology at the university. He couldn’t do much to help me though. But every time I would call him I felt my low self esteem and I felt like he doesn’t like me and I’m bothering him. Since I don’t have much of a choice of psychotherapists, I was wondering if I should get into therapy with him. But with such a relationship, don’t you think the psychotherapeutic process will be affected?

 

Your dilemma raises the issue of dual relationships in psychotherapy.

Actually, it’s the psychotherapist’s responsibility—not the client’s responsibility—to avoid any dual relationship such as teacher-psychotherapist, business partner-psychotherapist, sexual partner-psychotherapist, and so on. For example, if you were to have a psychotherapist who is also your professor, his knowledge of your personal issues could unconsciously influence the grades he gives you.

In your case, the professor of whom you speak could ethically function as your psychotherapist as long as you are not taking any classes from him for a grade. And, if he does become your psychotherapist, you should never take any classes from him in the future. If you can accept these terms, then choose him; if you cannot accept these terms, choose someone else.

As for your personal feelings about this man, the whole issue of your low self-esteem is a good reason to be in psychotherapy in the first place—and what better way to encounter it than with this professor. In other words, we should be using psychotherapy to face up to and overcome the ugly aspects of our lives; if, in the psychotherapy you hide or avoid these aspects of yourself, then you really are not doing psychotherapy in the first place.

 


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