Posted by fallsfall on June 17, 2004, at 21:57:59
In reply to Re: Rock vs Hard Place » fallsfall, posted by tabitha on June 17, 2004, at 12:25:13
Tabitha,
I'm not sure that talking to your friend is the same as getting a consultation. Talking to your friend is almost certainly valuable, but because he is your friend he can't be truly impartial.
Preparing for the consultation was valuable for me. I had to get my ducks in a row because I only had 50 minutes. That forced me to decide what was important and what wasn't.
She had no real vested interest in either side. My therapist had sent me to her group in the first place - so she had some loyalty to my therapist, but I had been her patient so she had some loyalty to me.
You know what you might want to do? Ask your friend, the therapist, to recommend a therapist who you could see for a more formal consultation. That way you would be more likely to end up with a good therapist, but there wouldn't be any dual-relationship confusion.
I don't think I'm explaining this well, but I don't know how to explain it better. In a consultation you aren't asking for "advice" - you are looking for insight (?), you are looking for *therapy*. When you talk to a friend (even a knowledgable one) you get something different from therapy. Maybe someone else can explain it better, or maybe the point isn't as important as it seems to me.
Best of luck.
poster:fallsfall
thread:357301
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040614/msgs/357677.html