I guess that's not quite how I read it. I read it as the T knowing that the church was not his to exclude anyone from, but also deciding that he could not treat someone who was also attending his church. To me this is kind of like saying you can't treat a friend or coworker, in that the therapist just wasn't comfortable with the overlap in roles and thought that it would negatively impact his ability to be effective in treating the person. That doesn't mean that every T would have the same feelings about it.

Alpaca,

That's interesting. So you don't see it as that the T feels some sense of "ownership" of the church?

Not really, but I can't say if I went back to read it again if I might have a different take on it.

Alpaca,

You don't see any power issues there? JW. I usually have my own slanted view of things.

Liese

Hi XOXO,

Thanks for your view of things. It certainly helps to try to see it from another person's point of view.

For me the difference here though is that the church is open to anyone and Sam wanted to join the church before he knew it was the therapists church. He wanted to join the church to expand his community involvement.

I think this is where I am having the problem.

We do have to share things in life. We don't have to share our time, our money, our homes, our bodies, maybe our spouses but we have to share the roads and anything else that's open to the public.

I can see how the therapist would have felt intruded upon but I don't think it's his boundary to draw, although he felt it was his boundary to draw.

Does that make sense to you? Sam didn't have a problem with them joining the same church. The therapist had the problem. IMO, the therapist should have sought supervision.

????? What am I missing?

quote:

we have to share the roads and anything else that's open to the public."

I agree with you Liese.

The thing I don't like about how boundaries are handled in therapy is I see the purpose of the boundaries is to help & protect the patient. I don't think its right for the T to get upset if a patient wants to go to "his church" if the patient thinks that church is a good fit for him.

I think its too territorial of the T.

It could be true that Laura and I are not good with boundaries.

It's also bothering me is that the therapeutic relationship already has a power imbalance in favor of the therapist and here the therapist is asserting his power over the patient.

The whole scenario to me seems like an enactment of Sam's past.

Not only that, I can't tell you how many times I've been in a club or something and someone joined that I was really uncomfortable with and wish they hadn't joined but I had to get over it. I didn't "own" it.

That being said, I could totally identify with Sam and feeling rage and betrayal. I'm wondering how it all worked out. If he came out of it any healthier.

XOXO, I'm not looking to be right here. I'd love to hear your thoughts some more.

I guess it comes down to that I'm probably looking at it from a moralistic viewpoint and the reality is, right or wrong, it was the therapist's boundary. Sam could have hit up against any other boundary but just happened to hit up against this one.

Outside of therapy I don't really have any "boundary issues". I also don't have them with my current T. He doesn't trigger me the way these women did. My therapist kicking me out of therapy was 8 years ago and 12 years ago. Me seeing a photo of them embracing was a month ago though.

I don't think I'd have the same issues with them today that I had then. I think part of it was I was at a sensitive age btwn 17 & 21 years old when I met them. I didn't go to grad school for psychoanalysis so I didn't really get the meaning behind it all and didn't trust it and wanted assurance that they cared about me was a lot of where it derived from.

This forum has given me a lot of perspective on what happened. I had never met anyone who was in love with their "therapist" before that I could relate.

I also didn't fully understand why I had felt so abandoned given I've never been materially abandoned.

My father was abusive and my needs were neglected etc.. so I was emotionally abandoned.

I also find it interesting that the author finds it protective of the therapist when the therapist didn't let the cross-dresser come to sessions in drag but doesn't seem to find this church example as protective of the therapist.

I'm not sure I see the difference there??????

I know Laura, I was just commenting on the fact that you and I saw the same side of the coin. I wasn't making a personal statement about you. I'm sorry if it came across that way.

Liese

A lot of therapist go into because they have major unresolved issues and I am afraid of their hidden demons in the room and trusting.

Liese - No Worries.

Thanks Cat and Alpaca and xoxo for weighing in. xoxo, I'm curious about the power struggle suggestion. That sounds interesting. Can you expand?

You can probably tell that I have huge issues in this area. I'm feeling Sam's rage.

RE Power Struggle:

Liese is your issue with it that Sam isn't "good enough" to be in the Church? That his therapist is acting like he's above Sam?

At first I felt that the therapist was being unfair to Sam, as Sam had selected the church before knowing that it was the therapist's church. But on reflection I see the therapist's point of view. He and Sam had a good working relationship which was producing results, and rightly or wrongly sharing a church would change the dynamics of the relationship. The therapist was acknowledging that his discomfort at the situation would spill over into the therapy relationship.

Laura,

I don't know if it was a good enough thing. If I were Sam, I think I would feel angry about the powerlessness I would have felt and this stronger figure "getting his way" and imposing his will on me. But maybe that's what xoxo meant about the power struggle deflecting from the real issue, feeling rejected?

I would get embroiled in the power struggle.

Off to therapy again.

Liese

Hi Liese,

I want to preface this with saying I just read the part that was the case study of Sam, not the whole article, so I may be missing something. Perhaps later I'll go back and read the whole thing.

I had some reactions similar to yours, I think. I found myself feeling angry when I read about how the therapist felt "intruded upon" by Sam's presence in church. I mean, intellectually I get that people aren't to blame for their feelings and they simply have to work with them and whatever they might be pointing to, but my feeling was that this was not a very Christian attitude on the part of the therapist, and maybe not a therapeutically appropriate attitude to have about an innocent action of a client, either.

On the other hand, there were some things about this particular scenario that made me think it was probably not a great idea for this particular duo to be in church together. For instance, in the beginning of the case study it said that Sam had previously suffered from destructive boundary crossings in a relationship with another therapist. I would think this might be a valid reason to be extra cautious, especially since it was mentioned that the congregation was small, which can mean that people have a harder time avoiding being "in each other's face" so to speak. I also think sobbing in a pew behind one's therapist could be a confusing experience spiritually and emotionally that may have a negative effect on the work of therapy. Of course, it's possible to attend the same church without that happening, but since in this case it did happen, it changes things a bit, I think.

As you know, a similar situation has come up for me, so I found reading this case study and the comments from members here very interesting. In my own case, I discovered that a church I had been intending to visit was one that my T attended, and I wanted to be sure that if she saw me there she would know it wasn't because I was stalking her. T was very gracious about it and kind, even saying she'd be glad to see me there, which made me feel good. I'm sure if she had responded like Sam's therapist I would have felt rejected and controlled as he did. In fact, in reading this case study I felt a little selfishly glad that I didn't have to deal with that, lol. Although as it turns out I might not be visiting T's church for awhile, because I'm currently seriously exploring a different one that interests me a good deal.

Anyway, the situations are also kinda different because T's church is large and formal and I think it would be easy and natural to limit interaction with her to nothing other than a "Good morning" or something if I happened to pass her in the foyer or hall. So I don't think there would have been as many potential issues. Anyway, those are just some of my thoughts. Thanks for posting the article and bringing this up!

In this thread, the fact that the therapist did not want the patient to join the same church is referred to as the therapists's "problem." Why is it a "problem" to, in a professional relationship when success depends upon the client's ability to disclose, protect the client from any information that might discourage disclosure?

For example, I am a high school teacher. At one point when I was in my late twenties, a student and his family moved into the duplex adjoining mine. In class, the student would make statements about my behaviors to which he had an emotional reaction stating things like, "You didn't come home until 2 a.m. this weekend. I heard your garage door. Were you with your boyfriend?!" The student's knowledge that I arrived home in the early morning hours definitely disrupted his learning. Lord only knows what images/thoughts he was experiencing while I was trying to teach class!

Likewise, when the client sees/knows his therapist in a manner that will surely "paint a picture" for the client (be it an accurate picture or not), it would influence the client's thoughts and imaginings about the therapist. The last thing the therapy needs is a focus on therapist instead of client, or a derailment of disclosure due to perceptions the client forms while belonging to a small congregation with his therapist.

Also, the therapist should not be influenced by his perceptions of the client outside of the therapy room boundaries. The article stated that the therapist saw the client crying and s/he had a completely different take on it then the client's perceptions of his own tears. While the therapist thought the tears were arising from (sorrow, sadness -- I can't remember exactly what it was), the client was crying because the "organ music moved him." Is it in the client's interest for the therapist to bring information into the therapy room when the information is colored by the therapists possibly inaccurate perceptions?

Finally, the article states,

"Sam needed to experience his therapist as failing him and betraying him. His therapist was able to tolerate the frustration, anger, and devaluing involved in assisting this man to differentiate his past relationships from his present ones and to have a different affective experience and outcome. Sam's acceptance of his rage and sadism toward himself and others were crucial to his psychotherapy. Although disagreeing with his therapist's decision, Sam acknowledged the value of being enraged at an important other without the destruction or denigration of either participant. Negotiating the intense affect and sense of betrayal while remaining in connection was a positive experience for Sam."

Had Sam been in therapy to treat his fear of snakes, for example, the church relationship probably would not interfere, but for the type of therapy Sam was experiencing, it definitely would make a difference to Sam's therapeutic outcomes.

Oh my . . . that went on for a bit, didn't it?!?

BraveHeart

Seeing it from your perspective sure gives me a different take on things. That must have been awful when your student said that in class. I can't even imagine how embarrassed I would have felt. I hope you were able to put a rein on him.

Probably my first reaction was coming from the place of stuff I have to work through, maybe even stuff like Sam had Ti work through Powerlessness, lack of control issues. Etc. I had the opposite Reaction to the article. I thought the authors made it mostly sams problem when
The truth is there was stuff going on for both of them. Rightly or wrongly though as xoxo pointed out, If the t's counter transference was going to interfere with the work they needed to do. Then well really what are you going to do? Its what they had to work with

I just hated that sense I got of the therapist saying "its mine and you can't have it". As a not very assertive person I am sure I have been in that situation a million times where someone else felt more entitled to claim something than I did. More anger to work through in therapy.

But if I can see it as coming from the goodness of the therapist heart, I don't find it as offensive.

It was embarrassing! The student would not stop his comments, despite warnings, and was eventually moved to a different class (and then I moved to an apartment in another school district!

Best to you...

Thanks BraveHeart,

That was wise to move to another school district but the whole incident sounds pretty traumatic, including having to actually move from where you reside. Do you know what ever happened to that kid?

My T lives about 30 minutes or so away from his office and it seems like a smart move. (Note to T in that article: move your office to a distant town.) He probably does run into people sometimes. He told me that it doesn't bother him at all when he runs into clients except for one time when he ran into a client at a water park and that was a embarrassing because he was in his bathing suit.

I like knowing he doesn't live close to me. I would be the type to worry about run-ins if he lived in my town. But you just never know. Recently I ran into a T I saw 15 years ago at a children's museum. He actually lives 7 miles northeast of me and the children's museum is 10 miles west. Go figure.

Liese