"Friendly Collusion", Or About The Risks In Psychotherapy With A Friendly Psychologist

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

The phenomenon of the so-called "friendly psychologists" (from the English friendly - friendly) appeared in our socio-cultural space relatively recently and operates in the field of LGBT issues. The external form seems to be not bad: it is a response to the need of gays and lesbians to talk about themselves openly both in society and in the psychologist's office. At the same time, the internal content carries with it a splitting into friends / foes: the label “friendly” secretly separates “friendly” specialists (who are probably okay?) From “unfriendly” (who are probably not okay?). And this can play a cruel joke with the clients of such psychologists.

Here I want to draw attention to the shadow side of the issue, which escapes the field of vision of both specialists and their homosexual clients, but sometimes has a significant impact on the quality of psychotherapeutic assistance. We are talking about an unconscious tacit agreement to avoid certain topics that, on the one hand, go beyond the client's expectations, and on the other, beyond the psychologist's awareness of their personal complexes associated with sexuality.

It is only natural that a gay or lesbian will want to seek help from a specialist who does not have homophobic rhetoric and who will not confront them with feelings of shame or guilt. It is important for them to know that this or that psychologist is just that. These are their main expectations. And they are fully justified, at least in our country. But a psychologist who responds to these expectations by designating himself as LGBT-friendly unconsciously colludes with these expectations, making it difficult, if not completely shutting down, access to psychological development of very important topics.

The “friendly” label, from my point of view, forms an unconscious field in which:

- there is little room for discussion of the fact that the life of a gay or lesbian is sometimes unbearable, with many restrictions and far from rosy;

- there is a risk of avoiding the depression of revealing his homosexuality, instilling in the client manic and narcissistic defenses (pushing him to more likely accept his homosexuality, sometimes even indiscriminately, but is he homosexual at all, idealizing pride in sexual identity and devaluing the opinions of those who do not share this pride - in fact, this is the risk of feeding the "false self");

- there is a risk of not giving the client the opportunity to burn off the loss of the "previous" life (after all, someone before that was heterosexual with her plans, hopes and achievements) and accept objective restrictions associated with belonging to a marginal group: insecurity, homophobic moods in society, the presence of radical groups, which imposes even greater responsibility for their lives and well-being (in fact, this is the risk of avoiding contact with reality);

- there is a risk of not touching on the topic of internal stigma and homophobia: the friendly status already reveals something about the psychologist for the client, which means that the client is "reliably protected" from his fantasies of rejection and feelings of deep shame and guilt that could manifest working with a specialist whose attitude towards LGBT people is less obvious;

- there is a risk that the psychologist, at the expense of the client, will resolve his unprocessed internal conflicts associated with latent homosexuality among heterosexual specialists and latent heterosexuality among homosexuals (after all, the psychologist himself also needed the “friendly” status for something, and this can mask an attempt to help oneself, and not potential clients, deal with some feelings);

- finally, the “friendly” status can often mask positive stigmatization: the specialist's excessive desire to reassure the client that for him gays and lesbians are as normal as everyone else, betrays his unconscious attitude to differences in sexual orientation (and this again can take psychotherapy away from the topic of internal stigma).

In general, this status can create a blind spot in the interaction of a psychologist and his homosexual client, so as not to reveal many negative feelings about this. A person can deny much and loudly his feelings, for example, that he is the only Protestant in a Catholic settlement, or the only white man in the black quarter, or the only European in the Chinese hinterland. But will this really be so for him? After all, the louder the statements, the stronger the inner pain. And leaving the feelings of shame and guilt "undigested" means allowing them to continue to secretly have a negative impact on self-esteem and perception of one's "I". Shame and guilt are the most psychologically toxic and neurogenic feelings. But it's easy to close your eyes to them if you work in a "friendly" format.

I would like to point out a fact that potential homosexual clients need to know about. Professional psychotherapeutic training involves a deep study by the psychologist of their internal conflicts, including those related to sexuality. A specialist who feels free and competent in dealing with gays and lesbians hardly needs to identify himself as "friendly". After all, we do not have statuses: friendly to panic attacks, friendly to personality disorder, friendly to depression, etc. A competent and qualified psychologist in his specialization is just doing his job. In those cases, when he feels an inevitable collision with acute internal contradictions, he will recommend a colleague who works with this more effectively, request supervision from a more experienced specialist, or in his personal psychotherapy will try to resolve his internal conflicts.

I know great psychologists who work with gays and lesbians. They do not need the “friendly” status - the objective improvement of the condition of their clients is excellent evidence of the quality of their work and qualifications. And I in no way wanted to somehow discredit the status itself or question the competence of friendly psychologists. I wanted to convey to homosexual guys and girls, as well as the specialists themselves, that the prefix "friendly" in itself is not a guarantee of quality, and some topics must always be kept in focus.