Posted by Dinah on October 6, 2008, at 8:57:19
In reply to Re: Do you know where your T....? » lucie lu, posted by healing928 on October 5, 2008, at 22:34:11
I think it does help to know your therapist, to know how they would feel. Certainly we've had posters' therapists react very badly to a drive by their house. It would be unwise to cross boundaries that could jeopardize the therapeutic relationship.
Other therapists are more understanding. My therapist has always been calm about things that are in the public domain. For example, his old house was his mailing address on his bills. I ignored it for a while, but it bugged me and I finally asked about it. Because it was a street a few blocks from mine, and I was worried about the implications. Once, when his family was out of town, I drove by the corner nearest his house. My objective was to picture where his house was so that I knew where it was in relation to mine. Would he accidentally pass by my house on the way to the grocery? Did I need to worry about working in shorts in the garden? But there were undoubtedly other reasons as well. Wanting to place him mentally when he was away from me. Wanting to connect. Wondering who the person so important to me really was. His address before that one was listed as his mailing address, not on his bills, but for his professional organizations visible by google. He knew I knew his address, but it was a long way away and I was able to mentally place him. I was in his town near the street (or I assume so numerically) once, and thought about driving by. But I'd forgotten the house number. I know where he lives now in a general way. He described it to me in a discussion of evacuations. I can mentally place him and I feel no real desire to drive by. I have other ways of feeling close.
But the main point is that I knew that my therapist would be ok with a driveby. If it was important to him to not have his clients know where he lived, he wouldn't have had the address on his bills. Moreover, we'd talked about the fact that some clients need to feel close between sessions and do drive by his house or call his answering machine. He said that as long as I didn't lurk outside, or knock on the door, or otherwise frighten his family, it was perfectly ok with him.
I think it's a good idea not to choose to invade a therapist's privacy, defined by their own boundaries. I think discussions about the desire to do something are wiser than discussions about having done something, given that some therapists react badly. But what a therapist considers a violation of privacy differs between therapists. If it doesn't cross their boundaries, it isn't a violation.
(Mind you I hate the idea of other clients doing it as much as I hate a warm sofa cushion.)
poster:Dinah
thread:855293
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20081005/msgs/855996.html