A woman calls and says she wants to urgently speak to someone because she is involved with a married man and he wants to leave his wife. The caller says this man does not know where to begin in terms of dissolving his marriage, and she wants to give him advice about how to proceed.
Of course there is bracketing, a non-judgemental stance, unconditional regard etc, but my super ego immediately becomes enormously judgemental of this man, and to a lesser extent of the female caller, and I refer them on to someone else...
It would be very difficult, I imagine, for me to be "for" such clients, and my preconceptions about honesty, integrity, self-avoidance and self-awareness would (again I imagine) constantly surface in the counselling room as preachiness, disaproval, sanctimoniousness and other such roadblocks to connection.
But at this time in Life, given my own recent biography, the idea of in any way colluding in, facilitating, aiding and abetting the break up of even a dysfunctional marriage with all the pain, sorrow and grief that that usually entails ( not that it is in my power to heal a relationship or to bring about its dissolution) fills me with a sense of disgust.
Ghandi said that "truth hates secrecy" and I have a religious belief in the idea that the energy required to keep something hidden, or secret, or even compartmentalised, is not compatible with an easy hapiness and contentment.
And yet I have heard of complex and complicated situations where people maintain dual stunted relationships ( unhappy, sterile or lonely marriages, alongside extra marital relationships with other persons married or unmarried) as working compromises, and the best that is psychically available to them. And if I am honest with myself, I don't know for certain that there is a better way for them. When I take into account that in these emotionally untidy ( as if emotions could ever be tidy!) situations there are also the additional ingredients of children, finances, sexual orientation, fear of loss, guilt, etc, it sometimes becomes a little easier to reserve judgement.
People are always striving to reduce their pain and suffering, even when they do so in maladaptive and counter-productive ways. Sometimes an addictive pleasure seems to offer a respite from suffering ( and suffering can look like boredom or greyness or barreness), but most, if not all pleasure ends in pain. To sympathetically accompany people on their journey, perhaps towards making this discovery for themselves (or perhaps not) may be one useful role a counsellor can fill.
Therapist - counsellor - psychologist friends, what do you think? How do you respond to clients who push your "moral buttons. " When do you know you cannot transcend your own point-of-view and that a client is not for you?
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