Posted by backseatdriver on March 16, 2009, at 9:04:14
In reply to Re: Dual relationship with t??? » sara77, posted by sassyfrancesca on March 16, 2009, at 8:52:20
It helps me to think of dual or multiple relationships as relationships where participants play a variety of roles simultaneously. I've had "dual" relationships with professors who were at once teachers, colleagues, collaborators, lovers, and friends. There were power imbalances galore. But in the end, things turned out okay. These relationships are easy to pathologize because we generally like to think of all relationships as necessarily and ideally between equals. We have the idea that: if there's no equality, then there's no real relationship. But we live in the real world where power operates, and not in a purely power-free utopia; sometimes we're up, sometimes we're down. For me, part of the task of development has included learning how and when to wield power responsibly and how and when to be directed -- again, responsibly.
The poet Vicki Hearne wrote a book called "Adam's Task" which contains an essay about dog training ("How to Say Fetch") that is really an essay about the reciprocity of uneven or shifting power balances between *people*.
BSD
poster:backseatdriver
thread:885573
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090227/msgs/885610.html