Posted by ksvt on February 13, 2001, at 21:11:06
In reply to Re: therapist as friend, posted by allisonm on February 12, 2001, at 12:34:19
> I'm jumping into this discussion rather late in the game, but if you live in a fairly nonpopulated area like I do, you don't always have a choice. My last pdoc was a social aquaintance, whose house i had been to a couple of times before I started seeing him professionally. I wasn't crazy about the idea of seeing someone I knew but i was really desparate and not capable of seeking recommendations from other people. It worked out okay. I stopped having those social contacts but it is not at all unusual for me to run into him in the grocery store or elsewhere. He's always very friendly and has introduced me to people he was with, although of course he never identified me as a patient. I had another therapist once who apologized for greeting me in the store and I saw a pdoc very briefly who wouldn't acknowledge me at all. I didn't at all like the way this made me feel. I told my current therapist that I would prefer to be greeted, which she has done on the rare occasion when our paths have crossed. I figure that I've lived around here long enough and know enough people that it is totally credible to anyone I might be with that i would know my therapist or pdoc in some non-professional capacity. I have no desire to be their friends, but I'd rather they didn't act like i didn't exist.
I did relish one opportunity to turn the tables of embarrassment. I was in the post office one day when my pdoc wandered in and started to come over to talk to me. At that moment he ran into his ex-wife, whom I also knew. I left pretty immediately after that, but the stammer and embarrassment I heard sort of made up for some of the times in his office when I found it so difficult to talk. K
poster:ksvt
thread:4509
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20010209/msgs/4638.html