Posted by deborah anne lott on August 5, 2005, at 21:08:27
In reply to Lott: How informed should the client be?, posted by All Done on August 5, 2005, at 13:10:19
Of course there needs to be informed consent in psychotherapy but just what the therapist should say initially is not so obvious. I think that a therapist should say that some clients develop strong feelings for and about their therapists and that these often have to do with earlier relationships. I don't think a therapist should necessarily go into a lot of detail because people have to be free to react individually. Some people don't develop strong feelings, at all. But I think therapists say too little partly because there isn't the science behind most therapies that there is behind a medical procedure such as heart surgery. A surgeon can tell you what the side effects usually are; how likely you are get better; etc., but therapists don't have these kind of statistics. But they should say more. I've seen some handouts that some therapists could patients at the beginning that are very good but I don't think there's any standardization about it right now. And different schools of therapy have different philosophies. I think there should be greater regulation of informed consent in therapy and therapists should be held more accountable for disclosing more.
poster:deborah anne lott
thread:537858
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050801/msgs/538074.html