Clients Ask the Darndest Questions

“Would you help me out with my laundry?” “Could I give you a hug?” “Do you have any money you could loan me?” These are some of the questions clients have asked me that caught me off guard. My short answer to these questions was, “No.” Of course, in the conversations I had with these clients I expanded my “no” and more fully addressed issues including my professional boundaries and the role I played as a therapist in their lives, and the therapeutic importance of keeping the roles of client and therapist intact.

When I talked with clients about these issues I always asked if they understood my explanation and reasoning behind my “no.”

Saying “no” and talking about professional roles with clients was really the easy part. The harder part was thinking carefully about my part in the dynamics of the relationship. I began to ask myself, “What did I do, if anything, to prompt such a question from my client?”

Newton’s third law of motion states, “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” As applied to the therapeutic relationship, this law encourages us to pause and ask ourselves, “Is there something I did or said (an action) that encouraged the client to ask or do what they did (the reaction)?” (For those of you who are physics buffs, please forgive any misuse of Newton’s law!) It would be easy for us, as professionals, to put the onus of unsettling conversations and strange questions all on the client. We could focus on clients’ lack of boundaries, their sense of entitlement, or their not knowing what it means to be a “good” client. Any of these explanations could have an element of truth. However, to consider only these factors excuses us from looking at ourselves in the therapy relationship and our part of the interaction. In short, these perspectives take us out of the equation. As ethical therapists, this is the last thing we want to do. It could be that at times we have little or no part of the “action” that caused the “reaction” of the question. However, to assume that without consideration is not good ethical practice.

To advance our ethical sensitivity and awareness in our interactions with clients, we need always to keep ourselves in as part of the equation. Through honest inquiry and purposeful self-reflection, we might uncover our ethical missteps, either by omission or commission. For example, a client might ask for us to attend their music performance and mention “other friends will be there as well.” This statement might suggest the client considers us in the category of “friend” and we have a choice to make; do we address the issue or let it slide? When these types of things happen we have an opportunity to reflect on our practices, possibly refine our choices, and as a result take another step toward the goal of ethical excellence.

A note of thanks goes to Dr. Mitchell Handelsman for his suggestions on this post. Check out his blog "The Ethical Professor."