Professional Traps

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Professional traps

Psychotherapy belongs to the "human" professions that involve direct, close contact with people - clients.

On the professional path of the psychotherapist, there are a number of professional traps that are derived from interpersonal relationships - inevitable components of therapeutic contact. These traps are based on human weaknesses - vices: ambition, pride, arrogance, flattery, greed, envy … from which the therapist, being a “part-time” person, does not become liberated. He, like any person, may in the process of professional activity appear temptations generated by the specifics of the profession.

Temptation is defined as a temptation, a desire to receive or do something forbidden, reprehensible, unlawful. In the professional activity of the psychotherapist, temptation manifests itself as a violation of professional and ethical standards and often leads to a violation of the boundaries with clients.

Temptation deprives a person of the opportunity to choose, programming him for certain patterns of behavior.

I will name some, in my opinion, the most typical temptations for a psychotherapist, describing them as professional traps.

Rescue trap

The relationship of psychotherapy with medicine (helping professions) often confuses the idea of the functions and boundaries of this profession, blurring the image of the psychotherapist. The halo of salvation around the profession is a condition for the psychologist-psychotherapist to fall into one of the most common professional traps - the salvation trap.

In this case, the profession becomes a service, and the psychotherapist perceives himself as a rescuer, bears this mission upon himself. In this case, all other motives recede into the background - the motive of salvation becomes the central one. Such therapists give their all to work, confuse work with life, do not take money for their services. It is not surprising that they burn out rather quickly, because the take-give balance turns out to be grossly violated for them.

What is the therapist's “weak link” that might lead him into this trap?

• Lack or insufficient amount of personal therapy with a specialist;
• Low professional self-esteem;
• Insufficiently clear professional image;
• A high degree of suggestibility;

This can lead to a vulnerability to client manipulation.

There are always manipulators among clients who will look for your "Achilles heel". He will find and press on your weak points in your personality and in your professional image.

The most commonly used techniques (baits) of the client manipulator:

• Appeal to the Hippocratic Oath;
• Attempting to pity the therapist:
• Declaring your helplessness;
• Trying to play on ambition, pride, self-esteem, vanity, therapist's power
• Attempts to catch the therapist's feeling of shame for his "greed" (all sorts of attempts to reduce the cost of consultation, to knock out any bonuses for yourself)

It is important to recognize in time such a client who is luring you into the trap of "rescue" and not rush to save him.

How not to fall into the rescue trap?

The answer to this question for me is in the zone of the therapist's awareness of his freedom-lack of freedom in the profession. In order to better understand this, it is appropriate to periodically ask yourself the following reflexive questions:

• Do I have the right to refuse a client at all?
• can i say no to this particular client?
• what prevents me from refusing him?
• what story is the client inviting me to?

Answers in the negative to the first three questions indicate a high likelihood of you falling into the rescue trap.

Consider other options for professional traps.

Power trap

In the profession of the psychotherapist, there is a lot of power over the client. This is partly due to the fact that the client turns to a psychotherapist for help as a professional, often giving him responsibility for the process and result of therapy. The client easily accepts a subordinate position, perceiving the therapist as endowed with some kind of power that is beyond his understanding. Most often, the result of this perception is the images of the therapist as a Teacher, Magician, Doctor, Counselor, Sage … Such attitudes of the client can become a source of temptation for therapists to use the power provided by the profession.

Love trap

Clients' problems are often the result of their early childhood needs not being met for those important to them - parental figures. These are the needs for security, unconditional love, acceptance. For various reasons, these needs can be frustrated. As a result, such a person will search for good parents all his life in the hope of getting what he should have received by right in childhood. And this parent for the client can be a psychotherapist who has fallen under his idealized transference. It is a mistake in this situation for the therapist to take these feelings of the client seriously. They are actually directed at another object.

The sex trap

A particular aspect of the temptation to love is the temptation to have sex. The therapist can fall under the client's sexual transference, which is one of the manifestations of the idealized transference. In this case, the therapist may be tempted to take advantage of his position. Such cases are well known and described in the history of psychoanalysis and are the topic of not only professional discussion, but also quite often find their reflection in literary and cinematographic creativity. For example, the feature film "A Dangerous Method", Yalom's novels "When Nietzsche Cried", "Liar on the Couch". The list goes on …

Money trap

This temptation is based on such vice as greed, greed. A psychotherapist subject to this vice will use the client as a means of enrichment. Conditions such as ignorance and dependent position of the client and the power of the therapist can be used by the latter for selfish purposes. The therapist, in this case, will try by any means to "tie" and keep the client as much as possible in therapy.

Glory trap

The profession of a psychotherapist, among other things, provides an opportunity to satisfy the need for vanity. For its most narcissistic representatives there is an opportunity to become famous by creating their own school in psychotherapy, their own author's approach, method, having written many texts - books, articles … In this case, the profession is a means, while the goal is fame. Clients, and often the psychotherapeutic process itself, find themselves hostage to the passion of the therapist, tempted by fame.

The profession for a therapist with a problematic self-identity can be a means of reimbursing it. For some, it can become a compensation, for someone - a narcissistic extension. In all cases, we can observe a shift in the focus of attention from the client and the very essence of professional activity to one or another personality defect of the therapist.

In most cases, the described temptations are not recognized and are "blank spots" in his personality. Each therapist has his own weak points, which he can turn on, falling into professional traps. Personal psychotherapy and supervision helps to avoid them, leading to awareness of the white spots of their personality and constant reflection on themselves and their professional activities.