Therapy Relationship Factors

Question 1

What can ensure the nature of the therapeutic relationship is clarified?

Answer 1

Through Informed consent (A.3)
* clarify respective roles + expectations
including the termination of the therapy
* Absence of such clarity undoubtedly contributes to confusion regarding boundaries
* understanding that
client may end the non-therapy r-ship WITHOUT negatively affecting therapy r-ship

Question 2

What is client transference and how does that affect decision about whether to enter into a MR?

Answer 2

Client projecting feelings onto the therapist
E.g you remind me of my mother
* Decision is more complicated when
client has an intensely (and unrealistically) positive/negative emotional reaction to the
therapist

Question 3

How does power differential affect risk of entering a MR?

Answer 3

Greater power differential = higher the risk that entering into another relationship will result in harm to the client

Question 4

How does duration of therapeutic relationship affect decisions into entering a MR?

Answer 4

Long relationships = likely have different meanings in different situations (more trust, personal knowledge)

Question 5

How does practice setting (solo private practice vs. community outreach programs) influence decisions into entering a MR?

Answer 5

• Different perceptions of how ethical it is.
• Solo = no expectations /
  explicit prohibitions (i.e., “clinic rules”) about extra-therapeutic involvements compared to community outreach programs

Question 6

How does practice locale make entering a non-sexual MR not always unavoidable and not always unethical?

Answer 6

small and/or specialised communities (the military,
rural communities, deaf communities) = more common to encounter non-sexual + financial MRs
* perceived as more ethical