Relationship with psychologist

Relationship Psychologist Career | Duties, Skills and Education

The Basics

Relationships can fill people with boundless joy and motivate them to aspire to great things. However, that does not mean that all relationships make both sides happy.

People often enter relationships without understanding the desires and expectations of their partner. In addition, people are capable of changing as time passes. It is also possible for people to behave in ways that place strain on their partners.

There are countless ways for relationships to turn sour and how they ought to go about correcting existing problems is rarely evident to those within the relationship. This is where relationship psychologists can help.

What is a Relationship Psychologist?

A relationship psychologist is a mental health practitioner who mediates human relationships. They are trained in the field of psychology and are different from counselors.

Although these two occupations have considerable overlap, psychologists have greater responsibilities, often work with clients with serious mental illnesses, and are qualified to administer a wealth of tests in addition to psychotherapy.

The decision to focus on relationships is a personal one and often is not strictly accounted for in their training. The main goal that relationship psychologists have is to improve the quality of the relationship of their clients and help them resolve underlying problems within the relationship.

What Does a Relationship Psychologist Do?

With the goal of improving the quality of a relationship and addressing underlying problems, relationship psychologists approach their very limited number of sessions in a systematic manner.

When they first meet with a couple, they perform an assessment of the couple and their relationship. This includes considering things like the marital status of the couple, how long they have been together, what are typical patterns of behavior within the relationship, and a vast number of other things revolving around the relationship.

In addition to these items, relationship psychologists also make note of things like the age of their clients, their socioeconomic status, their level of education, how they comport themselves, how they are dressed, and so on. The basic idea behind this assessment is to gain an understanding of the people involved in the relationship and the possible issues that have caused the couple to seek the help of a relationship psychologist.

From there, relationship psychologists move onto problem assessment. With knowledge of the state of a relationship and various details concerning the two parties involved in it, relationship psychologists begin making hypotheses about the problems that may be causing strain on the relationship. The basic idea is to examine what is wrong in the relationship.

Armed with estimations about the potential problems within relationship, psychologists establish goals for the couple and suggest ways the couple can improve their relationship.

After time passes, relationship psychologists make assessments about how the couple is progressing along their goals. If no progress was made, it is possible that original hypotheses made by the relationship psychologist were faulty and that they do not reflect what ails the couple.

It is also possible that the couple is either not committed to helping themselves or are simply unable to do so. In these cases, relationship psychologists adjust their approach and provide alternative solutions to any present problems. Relationship psychologist typically have only a few sessions where they meet their clients, so this process is often quite fast.

Once the problems have been addressed or sufficient time has passed, the relationship between the psychologist and their clients is terminated.

The specific ways by which relationship psychologists attempt to address problems depend largely on the school of thought they ascribe to.

For instance, a cognitive psychologist could focus on the thought processes of their clients and work to show them that some of their thinking is faulty. Someone in a relationship could, for example, believe that their spouse does not care about them when this spouse could simply be busy with work or forgetful. Similarly, a humanistic psychologist could seek to provide their clients with unconditional support.

Why Do We Need Relationship Psychologists?

Living within dysfunctional relationships does not benefit either partner involved in the relationship. Discontent within relationships can lead to dangerous situations such as suffocating overprotection or abuse. Unhealthy relationships cause people grief and serve as a source of continual negative emotions.

When individuals feel threatened or are repeatedly exposed to negative feelings, their self-worth, mood, and productivity go down. Given sufficient numbers, this can negatively influence the society at large, not to mention the lives of those involved in the dysfunctional relationship.

Relationship psychologists are necessary in order to reduce the amount of dysfunctional relationships and create more harmonious unions.

Where Do Relationship Psychologist Work?

Relationship psychologists typically work in private practices although their training qualifies them to work in family service centers, mental health facilities, community health services, outpatient care centers, and government and private hospitals.

What are the Requirements to Become a Relationship Psychologist?

Educational Requirements

Relationship psychologists are expected to hold master’s and/or doctoral level education.

Most programs that offer a master’s level education in psychology do not care about what specific bachelor’s degree a potential student holds, but possessing one from a related field helps in the admission process. In addition, material covered during the bachelor’s will likely follow the contents of the master’s level program more closely. Bachelor’s programs typically require four years of time while master’s level degrees take an additional two years.

The contents of a master’s in psychology usually center on a theoretical base of knowledge, skills needed to interact with clients, and ethical concerns present when working with clients.

As such typical courses include statistics, trends is psychology, neuropsychology, addictive behavior, memory systems, cognitive development, advanced psychotherapy, social development, ethical studies, theories of development, and so on.

Master’s level psychology programs also require their students to complete internships where they work under supervision in clinical or research settings.

It is also possible for individuals to pursue doctoral degrees in psychology. The benefits of a doctoral degree include eligibility to apply for licensure, better pay, greater respect, and the ability to work with more challenging clients.

Getting a doctoral degree takes roughly eight years and most of the classes required of students in these programs are more advanced versions of classes they have taken previously. Like master’s level programs, doctoral programs require their students to complete certain amounts of supervised work independent of their studies.

Licensing Requirements

Licensure in the United States begins by completing ones education (typically doctoral level) in an institute accredited by the American Psychological Association.

As far as obtaining a license goes, requirements and procedures vary considerably between states and state boards change their regulations from time to time. For instance, in Florida, someone with a doctoral level degree will need to attend a two-hour course on preventing medical errors, accumulate a total of 4,000 experience hours, and passing the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology. Once done, one must apply to the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards for their license.

Furthermore, in many states licensure is required to use the title “psychologist”.

What Does it Take to be a Relationship Psychologist

The Ability to Listen to Others and Mediate Conversation

Couples come to relationship psychologists in need of help. In order for a relationship psychologist to be of any use, they must be able to listen to their clients without judgement, creating a space where sharing is safe and encouraged. The direction of therapy and its success depends heavily on the formation of a proper understanding of the details present in the relationship.

When faced with hostility and unwillingness to share, a relationship psychologist must be prepared to direct the conversation to a more productive direction. These are skills that are required of relationship psychologists but they can be learned though practice.

Willingness to Continually Learn

The field of psychology is very much an evolving one. Things which psychologists took for granted a few decades ago have since been rendered obsolete while major groundbreaking work has begun to unravel some of the most puzzling aspects of our behavior and cognition. In the same vein, the psychological understanding of the ethical treatment of clients continues to change.

All this makes it vital that relationship psychologist are willing to stay current with new publications concerning their field of work. Without continual study, relationship psychologists risk becoming outdated and threaten the safety and well-being of both themselves and their clients.

Being In Touch with Oneself

The work of a relationship psychologist is demanding. It brings with it a wealth of stressors and constraints.

For relationship psychologists to maintain a healthy mind and body, they must regulate themselves and constantly engage in exercises like mindful meditation to ensure they do not internalize the issues they come in contact with during their work. Having a clear understanding of oneself makes it much easier to regulate emotions and responses to stressors.

What are the Disadvantages of Being a Relationship Psychologist?

People come to you with high expectations: Many couples, when approaching relationship psychologists, believe that their relationship will be saved once they commit to a few sessions. They do not respect the weight of the problems that lead them to their relationship psychologist and lack the dedication to work on their relationship in the long-term. This leads them to fall back into their old, problematic patterns of behavior. Relationship psychologists provide meaningful help to couples, but they are not miracle workers. They cannot force others to change themselves, merely provide them the tools to do so themselves.
The work is stressful: The work of relationship psychologists consists of addressing problems and suggesting solutions to disruptive behavior. When most of what someone does consists of correcting problems and negative situations, it is understandable that he or she would internalize some of this pressure. As a result, relationship psychologists must constantly engage in self-monitoring and use relaxation techniques like meditation to maintain their healthy states of mind.
Relationship psychologists rarely get to appreciate the results of their work: Yes, there are times when a couple will truly benefit from seeing a relationship psychologist. They could go so far as sending their former psychologists photos of the ceremony where they renewed their vows. Even so, these situations are rare. Most of the time, relationship psychologists only see a couple for a limited amount of time. Within only a few sessions, they are expected to help a couple. The true results of these sessions are aimed to last far longer than the few times the couple meets with their psychologist. As a result, professionals in this field of work rarely get to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Useful Resources

Journal of Family Psychology
American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy

What happens when your relationship with a therapist turns into an affair? | Life and style

There’s nothing quite like it. You sit together in hushed intimacy, just the two of you, finally revealing lifelong secrets. The atmosphere is exquisitely calm, the tranquillity shot through with alertness as the world shifts, brilliantly refigured, and relief floods in. You have the certainty that you are protected and profoundly understood by someone who is on your side. As Freud wrote, “Analysis is, in essence, a cure through love. ”

From the very act of revelation, a feeling of affinity can grow. In such safety and solace, with all the exclusive focus you could ever wish for, you start wondering about this person who sits opposite you – the therapist. This expert trained to understand the human heart. Who is this enigma, who gives clues to their personality only through their clothes, voice, décor?

Dependence mutates into projection. It is special. It is about love and, surely, does it even possess an erotic charge?

You start to feel you know them. They are like a parent. In real life, you would be friends. You almost feel you love them. Such intimacy, previously experienced only in early childhood, or in the throes of being in love, is combined with the excitement of approval from on high. Dependence and fascination mutate into projection. It is special. It is about genuine love and, surely, does it even possess an erotic charge?

This is what transference feels like. I’ve experienced it myself, and so have many others. This projection of our own needs, desires and past complications on to an authority figure – a teacher, boss, doctor, therapist – is a phenomenon that therapists have refined, debated, experienced or even used in their practice. I was drawn to write about this in a novel because, having seen several therapists over the years, I’ve felt curiosity, even a transient conviction of a special bond, but only once did I experience transference that contained the intensity of an infatuation. So many friends have experienced the same; every psychoanalyst, psychologist, psychiatrist, psychotherapist I have spoken to has encountered it.

Therapists tend to be objects of fascination to their clients by the nature of their anonymity. Who lies beneath the professional mask? We have a perverse desire to know more. As psychotherapist Carol Martin-Sperry says: “The therapist should be a blank slate and not divulge any personal information that could lead to envy, admiration, resentment, feelings of failure and much else. The therapeutic relationship is not a friendship.”

That relationship is a complex one – on one level, one of the closest you will ever experience, layered with tears, confessions, possibly projected anger – and on the other, it is a financial, professional arrangement with a stranger that is entirely severed once the process ends. There is also a balance to be achieved: research shows that the efficacy of the treatment is largely predicated on the strength of the client-therapist relationship.

When erotic transference happens it contains all the sexual tension of the illicit, all the regressive thrills of a secret affair, one that is usually safe, but immensely frustrating. And then there is the thorny subject of countertransference. This is what the therapist feels about the client, the theory is that they are responding to the patient’s own transference. But what if their own desires start to intrude? What if they act on them?

“The therapist could potentially be drawn into the patient’s unconscious dynamics,” says Duncan Harding, a consultant psychiatrist. “A therapist needs to have their own framework of support and supervision. Transgressions are taken very seriously and can be career-ending. The damage to the patient could be catastrophic – as the therapist potentially colludes with, and re-enacts, the patient’s core pathology.”

“This consulting room passion was the biggest addiction of my life,” says Dora, a married mother of three who saw a therapist. “I was certain this supposedly straight woman was flirting with me. But was it just in my own mind? It became more and more heated, so exciting, so weird-feeling. Kind of terrifying. OK, so to cut a long story short, we had an affair. We stopped the therapy, and became lovers. It was like taking heroin. It was addictive beyond belief, but it messed with my head, damaged my marriage, my mothering, and after a while she left me, and I had a breakdown. I’ve had years of therapy – safe therapy – to repair that harm. I think I’m still not over it, really.”

Transference is often intentionally used by a therapist as a tool. As Harding says: “It informs our understanding of the patient’s unconscious drivers.” But its use needs extreme care, and therapists will generally discuss the transference with their own supervisors. “Transference and countertransference are possibly the analyst’s greatest and most reliable tools,” says Maxine Mei-Fung Chung, psychoanalyst and author of The Eighth Girl. “They can be noted, felt and listened to, but boundaries must be respected at all times.”

“Countertransference happens, but you have to rein that piece of yourself in completely,” says Jan Day, a relationship coach. “It can be a major temptation for a therapist who is being adored. It is a powerful energy if you’re hooked in. The therapist has to stay really grounded.” Of clients who view her as a parental figure, she says, “It’s important to see it clearly, name it and be compassionate with it, so I don’t have to climb into being their parent.” As Carol Martin-Sperry says: “The therapeutic space needs to feel safe and contain all sorts of difficult thoughts, feelings, memories and fantasies. ”

Therapist-patient affairs are horribly harmful. Often the therapists involved are charismatic, the clients are blinded.

Mary, then single and now married, fell in love with her therapist. She felt his attentions were wrong, but that ultimately he helped her to change, and find love. “One day, he said, ‘I don’t want this session to end.’ He looked at me, and my heart flipped. The atmosphere in the room had been condensing week by week until everything he said seemed loaded. I was scared. What if I was wrong? What if I was right? There was no option I didn’t dread and relish. I thought about him constantly. There’s nothing like suspense to fuel obsessive thoughts. It was dangerous, there’s no doubt, but as a therapist he helped me break patterns, and the attention I got from him was fuel and it gave me the strength to change my life. ‘One day you’ll leave me,’ he said, mournfully, and he was right. One day I did.”

Day says of therapist-patient affairs, “They’re horribly harmful. Often the therapists who are involved are so charismatic, the clients are blinded. It’s very compelling when you’re in the midst of it, but when you wake up, you realise how harmful it is. There’s not a possibility of an equal relationship: it’s always distorted, always an abuse of power. The – usually male – therapist uses their power to get what they want when they’re supposed to be serving your growth. You give a lot of trust to a therapist and if they misuse it, any good work they could have done is betrayed. It’s a mess, basically.”

When boundaries, ethics and professional rules are broken, the ramifications are shocking. A study by Kenneth Pope and Valerie Vetter of patients who had been sexually involved with a therapist found that around 90% were harmed, and 14% attempted suicide. Around 7% of male and 1.5% of female mental health professionals admitted to a sexual-boundary violation.

Among cases of professionals being struck off, “celebrity therapist” Beechy Colclough was expelled from the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy for having sex with patients. One of them was reported as saying she felt “humiliated and used”. She described how, “he manipulated me so I would fall in love with him… He made me feel the most special girl on earth.”

In my novel, I wanted to look into what can happen when transference is taken advantage of: the exhilaration of being treated as exceptional, and the explosive consequences of a relationship where there is a unique power imbalance. Confusion, guilt and harmful effects on marriage are almost inevitable. The therapeutic relationship is usually safe and helpful, even life-changing. But every aspect is magnified, and when the personal intrudes, the experience goes from the electrifying to the toxic. Beware those therapy thrills. There danger lies.

The Seduction by Joanna Briscoe is published by Bloomsbury on 11 June at £16.99. Order a copy for £14.78 from guardianbookshop.com

A Special Bond: How the Psychologist-Client Relationship Is Built

20,957

Knowing Yourself A Man Among People

Love, Not Action

Relationships with a psychotherapist are paradoxical - those of us who have ever gone through (or are going through now) will agree with this ) psychotherapy. Just starting it, we feel that it has become very difficult to do without this person. And this despite the fact that we strive to become freer, gain greater independence. The terms of meetings with the therapist are rigidly “formalized”, and at the same time, it is these relationships that give us a sense of security, allow us to become extremely sincere, share memories, and speak openly about desires and fears. (Provided that we have found a good specialist and feel we can trust him.)

On the part of the psychotherapist, the decision to work with the patient also comes on the basis of a subjective feeling. Including because between them there is a resonance, which allows a therapeutic relationship to begin. This emotional unconscious response was reflected by Sigmund Freud in terms of "transference" and "countertransference".

“Transference,” explains psychoanalyst Andrey Rossokhin, “is a process in which the patient, without realizing it, endows his analyst (psychotherapist) with the qualities of various people, relationships with whom played a large role in his life, mainly in childhood. At the same time, he re-experiences the feelings, desires, fears that these people once aroused in him, and begins to experience them in relation to his analyst. And in response, he also experiences certain emotions that make up his countertransference. These mutual feelings make it possible to understand what the patient's painful experience is and to move forward in treatment.

The therapist may experience a variety of feelings, including tenderness and even attraction to the client or client, but the transition to action is excluded.

“Sexual relations “therapist and client” are impossible,” stresses the Gestalt therapist Nifont Dolgopolov. - This principle provides the client with complete security: he can freely express himself and any of his feelings without fear of abuse by the therapist. In Gestalt therapy, there is no prohibition on erotic feelings, the therapist can flirt in response to the client's flirting, but this happens only as part of the therapeutic process.

The one to whom we reveal our true "I"

Many of us are the children of working parents who did not have time to seriously engage in education. And for us, a psychologist or psychotherapist becomes an ideal interlocutor: finally, they are interested in us, they accept us. A psychotherapist who listens to us without giving judgments and advice is the one to whom we are ready to reveal our secrets, our true "I", our shadow sides, oddities and quirks, new facets of our being.

As it happened with 41-year-old Veronica: “During psychotherapy sessions, I am no longer the wife of such and such, not the daughter of such and such ... I am only me and exactly me, the way I am at this very moment. I am accepted in this capacity, and I fully experience my own uniqueness.

Every psychotherapist was (and still is) a client

Sometimes you might think that the difference between the therapist and us is like between heaven and earth. But this is not so: every psychotherapist must undergo psychotherapy himself. “This is our professional duty,” says Nifont Dolgopolov. “Not only during our studies, but also when we start practice, we go through personal therapy, because due to the nature of the profession, negative conditions accumulate, and they need to be worked out.”

It seems that the only psychotherapist left without professional help was Sigmund Freud. He tried to conduct his own analysis, but he did not quite succeed. For example, he overcame his fear of the railway, but became afraid of being late and arrived at the station a few hours before the train departed.

Money is part of the contract

Listening and being present without judgment is the essence of the psychotherapist's profession (and we can't find it anywhere else). This service is paid. In this case, money is an important tool of therapy. “Payment is a guarantee of the client’s independence,” says Nifont Dolgopolov, “it helps him free himself from a sense of duty towards the psychotherapist.”

It took a while for 42-year-old Alice to understand this: “I wanted to please my therapist and be the perfect client. So I only told funny stories. But gradually I realized that I pay for this time, which means that it belongs to me and I can dispose of it as I see fit. It was a grand realization: there was something in the world just for me! And then I allowed myself to tell the therapist everything ... And the therapy finally began.

Therapist is the “wrong friend”

Psychotherapy sets clear limits: regular sessions, special rituals for each type of therapy, limited time, known payment. And, since all the restrictions are already set, inside them there is a field for the emergence of real freedom. The psychotherapist knows how not to put his mood, his feelings, his personality in the foreground.

“If I spend time with a friend, we exchange information as equals,” continues Nifont Dolgopolov. He tells me about his life, and I tell him about mine. I tell him about my experiences, because I enjoy it, I want it. Not so with the client. I listen to him. I do not hide my feelings, but when I say something to him, I do it with a strictly defined therapeutic goal: to help him deal with his problems. Therefore, the psychotherapist is always the “wrong friend.” In relations with the client, he maintains a distance that is beneficial to the client.

The ethical code of the profession forbids psychotherapists not only sexual relations, but even friendship with clients, because it can disrupt the therapeutic relationship and damage therapy.

Respect and not evaluate

“The feeling of trust in the therapist, the conviction that this particular person will help, of course, is subjective, but this is the first and, perhaps, the main step towards solving personal problems,” Andrey Rossokhin believes. The therapeutic connection works like an echo: what happens to the client in the session repeats the events of his life. Are you angry with your therapist for talking too much in sessions? Fight for your territory. Is it difficult for you to bear being separated from him? Together with him, learn to part with those you love.

By developing a special connection with the therapist, therapy allows us to reconsider the habitual ways in which we enter into relationships with other people. “And he teaches to respect the other without judging him and respecting himself at the same time,” adds Nifont Dolgopolov.

Walk a part of the way together

The personality of the therapist is of great importance for the outcome of therapy. “Real presence is needed; so that you have a living person in front of you, - Nifont Dolgopolov is sure. “You can consult a brilliant intellectual and get nothing but dry information. In addition, when you spend time with a person who has a real life experience, when you feel that this person suffered, loved, forgot himself for the sake of others, was able to collect himself after experienced trials, this communication can become a new source of energy for you.

It is impossible to predict what these meetings will be like, because each union of a psychotherapist and a client is unique. Turning to a psychotherapist means going through part of the life path, having at your disposal the personal and professional experience of the person you yourself have chosen. But if with some professional your contact does not add up, you can always turn to another.

Another paradox of therapeutic relationships is that they end sooner or later. “When a patient gains the ability to think about himself as a psychotherapist, this means that he is already strong enough to continue the inner work on his own,” says Andrey Rossokhin. “At this point, therapy can be completed.”

Text: Irina Grats Photo source: Getty Images

New on the site

How to get rid of anxiety and live in peace

“I change jobs every six months and always repeat one scenario”

“Society is the third parent”: how society inflicts on a child psychological trauma

How to make the right choice: 5 steps to the right decision — expert advice

“The guy traded sex with me for porn”

“I fell in love with a colleague who decided to just “have fun” with me”

The cry of the soul: what traumas our voice can tell

How to stop worrying about what others think: 8 important tips - listen to them

“I had sex with a psychologist”

33 875

SexMan among people

“After two meetings with a psychotherapist, I had to sign up for the next one, but I hesitated. A week later, he called himself, asked what happened, said he was worried, 38-year-old Inna tells the story of her romance without much excitement. It was seven years ago, emotions had time to settle down.

“I lied about leaving. Then I became uncomfortable that he was worried about me, and I neglect it, and I called back. I dressed especially carefully for this meeting, I myself do not know why. At the end of the session, he asked about plans for the evening, I replied that I was free. We had dinner together and I gave him a movie CD that I liked. Then he called and offered to discuss this film. That time we went to the cinema. The next time we had dinner again ... and then rushed to each other - it was like a flash. He refunded my money for previous sessions.

Our romance lasted three months, and then it got to the point where it was time for me to decide whether to leave my husband or not. We needed a serious conversation, but none of us decided on it. Relations gradually faded away. And the problem that I came with just lost its significance in comparison with this storm of feelings.

Among American psychotherapists, 12% of men and 3% of women had sexual relations with their clients ¹ . There are no Russian statistics on this subject, however, stories of those who have been harassed by a psychologist regularly appear on the Web. At the same time, such behavior is considered a gross violation of professional ethics. Why?

What's wrong with that?

For Inna, the story ended without any visible harm. True, she did not receive the psychological help she came to therapy for, but she was not offended or offended. However, the consequences of intimacy with a psychologist can be more dramatic for the client, ranging from self-doubt to self-worth and ending with suicide ² .

We turn to a specialist to sort out our feelings and learn how to build more open, free and harmonious relationships with other people, but instead, another complex, confusing and traumatic connection arises. In addition, deception occurs: the focus is shifted from the needs of the client to the desires of the therapist, and thus psychotherapy is effectively terminated. The client is under the delusion that he is still getting help.

The practitioner cannot have interests other than those of the client. But when he becomes sexually interested, the roles change: he begins to pursue and protect his own interests. Sometimes it comes to the point that he threatens to reveal the personal secrets of the client if he complains of sexual harassment, or inspires him with guilt, shifting responsibility for what happened to him.

Therapy must be interrupted if the therapist...

often compliments you about your sexuality;
escorts you home at the end of the session, usually the last one of the day;
made an appointment or invited you to visit;
admits to being attracted to you;
says that you are his favorite client and not like everyone else;
lets you know that he would like to continue his relationship with you after therapy.

Do clients seduce themselves?

“Then he said: “That day you were dressed in such a way that I understood that the girl is ready, and there is no need to be afraid of rejection,” Inna recalls. Coming to therapy, many really begin to unconsciously flirt.

The fact is that when we ask for help, whether it be psychological, medical or any other, we find ourselves in a situation of dependence and uncertainty. We are worried, not knowing what will happen to us, how they will help us, but we hope for a knowledgeable, intelligent and powerful specialist. That is, we return to the psychological state familiar from childhood, when parents had power over us. And our well-being and life depended on how much they like us, how much we “seduce” us into a good attitude towards us.

With a psychotherapist, we involuntarily reproduce this childish behavior of ours, calculated to deserve tenderness, care and care. We flirt, hoping that they will treat us better, provide more effective help, and not at all striving for sexual intimacy. But no matter how provocative we dress and behave, this is part of our habitual mode of action, and the task of the therapist is to work with him for our benefit, and not exploit him for his own benefit.

It is the psychotherapist's responsibility to ensure that flirting does not turn into a sensual connection.

Why is the psychologist doing this?

The motive for the psychotherapist's sexual claims is most often not so much his sexual dissatisfaction as the enjoyment of his own power. That is, there is an abuse of power, even if the therapist sincerely believes that he is "saving" the client in this way. Alas, this is never true.

His actions are based on personal needs and aspirations that he may not be aware of, in particular, the need for love, respect, admiration. Everyone has them, the difference is that the profession of a psychotherapist assumes that these needs (like others) are conscious and the professional finds ways to satisfy them outside of interaction with clients (among colleagues, friends and relatives).

The psychotherapist gains awareness of his needs, feelings and control over them through personal therapy, in which he himself takes the place of the client. However, not in all helping professions, personal therapy is a condition for obtaining a diploma. For example, hypnologists, NLP specialists, counseling psychologists are not required to undergo personal therapy.

Only medical graduates are allowed to practice psychotherapy in public institutions. But they are not obliged to undergo therapy themselves, and in the "Russian doctor's oath", unlike the Hippocratic oath, there is no promise to avoid sexual contact with patients.

Entering into non-psychotherapeutic relationships with clients is provoked by the cultural attitude inherent in modern Russian society

Entering into non-psychotherapeutic relationships with clients is also provoked by the cultural attitude inherent in modern Russian society - the tendency to "double relationships". It manifests itself in the fact that friends are hired, they have novels in the service, they give gifts to doctors, they provide services to teachers. The inadmissibility of such a kind of "double relationship" as sex with a client, in such conditions, is not realized by everyone.

But this is neither an apology nor an excuse - a professional must clearly understand what he is doing and what consequences his actions will lead to. If the therapist experiences sexual desires in relation to the client, this is his psychological problem. Then he goes to supervision (analysis of work with a more experienced colleague) and sorts out his feelings. Together with the supervisor, he also decides whether his desires can be considered an obstacle to continuing psychotherapy - and if so, he refers the client to another therapist.

What if it's love?

The relationship between therapist and client cannot be love. They are initially unequal and arise in specially created conditions of intimacy: the therapist is focused on the client. Because of this, during therapy, there is a feeling that I am deeply understood and accepted as a person, and in return I feel gratitude and sympathy. The security and support provided by the therapist also opens up the possibility for us to express our sexual impulses that we have suppressed in our normal (unsafe) environment.

Attractiveness may be added to liking, and as a result we will experience falling in love with the therapist. He plays the role of a symbolic figure for us, onto which we freely project our feelings. After all, we meet him not in a real setting, where you can see how he manifests himself in different situations, but in the office, knowing practically nothing about him - his image was created by our fantasies.

Therefore, it is important for both therapist and client to clearly understand the difference between sexual experience and sexual action. Experiences are an important part of the experience of each person and, accordingly, the psychotherapeutic process. But sexual activities are unacceptable either during the sessions, or after them, or at the end of therapy. This is the use of the client, his vulnerability and ignorance: after all, he does not realize that his feelings are addressed to a symbolic object, and not to a real person.

The client always experiences the greatest disappointment (even if he is not humiliated or abandoned) when he discovers that his therapist has his own needs outside of his professional role, that he is not ready to meet him halfway and sacrifice his own interests.

But what to do if both - the therapist and his client - believe that a miracle has happened and their feelings for each other are not the result of psychotherapeutic interaction, but true love? Our experts are unanimous: it is the professional duty of the psychotherapist to stop therapy immediately, stop dating, refer the client to another specialist, and undergo supervision and personal therapy himself. Only after that they can meet and test their feelings in real life.

“It's like sex between an adult and a child”

Andrei Rossokhin, psychoanalyst

A psychotherapeutic meeting always takes place on two planes of reality: physical and mental. In physical reality, two adults are sitting opposite each other, and in psychic reality it often turns out that an adult (the therapist) is sitting opposite a small child, full of fantasies, childish excitement and desire for love.

It is this childish sexuality, not adult and real, but full of fantasies, curiosity, secrets and prohibitions, that is important for the psychoanalyst. Because its development, always conflicting, often determines the entire subsequent life of a person. A love relationship can arise between analyst and patient only as a result of an unconscious collusion between them: when both deny the existence of a psychic plane and begin to believe that all their feelings are real and adult.

If we keep in mind the psychic reality, then such relationships can be likened to sex between an adult and a child. When this happens in a therapist's office, it is virtually tantamount to child sexual abuse, with horrific traumatic consequences.

"Children's world with its language of tenderness is broken by adult sexuality with its language of passion," wrote the Hungarian psychoanalyst Sandor Ferenczi. Let me emphasize: such an attraction can take by surprise not only “dissolute” consultants, but also quite “respectable” ones, who, by virtue of their reciprocal fantasies, will sincerely believe in the reality of love feelings.

So it was with Jung and his patient (and later lover) Sabine Spielrein: their story was the basis for David Cronenberg's film A Dangerous Method. A painful relationship with Sabina prompted Jung to turn to Freud for advice, and this incident helped Freud realize the power of unconscious collusion in the therapeutic relationship.

To prevent the psychoanalyst from falling into his trap and traumatizing the patient, Freud introduced the most important rule of training in psychoanalysis: each psychoanalyst must undergo his own psychoanalysis and work out his deepest problems.

What kind of relationship do we have?

Not every relationship with a psychologist is psychotherapy. “I called him to agree on the terms, and he replied that he didn’t take money for help, he offered to come to meet him first,” recalls 25-year-old Maria. “I explained that he was conducting business trainings, and that he was simply helping his acquaintances with advice.” For three months she came once a week, they drank tea, talked about her affairs.

“And then one day we moved from the kitchen to the bedroom,” Maria admits. “After that, every meeting ended with sex.” Maria was worried about uncertainty: they did not have common acquaintances (except for the person who gave her the psychologist's phone number), they did not go anywhere together, did not discuss their relationship. After another six months, she decided to stop meeting ... and she easily succeeded: “I just didn’t call. I was waiting for him to call himself, and then I would explain that I was not satisfied with the ambiguity between us. But he didn't show up. It hurts to think that I meant so little to him. He didn't even bother to find out what happened!"

Psychotherapy is not any relationship with a psychologist, but what happens after the conclusion of a “contract”

a written agreement between the client and the specialist on the provision of assistance, on the goals and methods of work, on the conditions, number of meetings and their cost. The contract enforces boundaries and establishes a distance between the client and the psychologist.

Today, as consumers of psychological services, we are becoming more and more qualified. But still, sometimes we fall into the trap of self-deception, trying to get advice or support for free. If we don't discuss the conditions under which we are being helped, we deprive ourselves of the opportunity to decide whether those conditions are right for us or not. And when we feel indebted, grateful, or guilty (which happens with free help), we are much easier to manipulate.

Our responsibility

In the European Union and North America, sexual contact between a psychologist and a client is considered an administrative or criminal offense and is punishable by law. There are no such laws in Russia. But in all professional codes, sexual intercourse with a client is considered unacceptable.

In the case of sexual abuse by a psychologist, a client can file a complaint with the ethics committee of the professional community to which they belong. The result in most cases will be the exclusion of a specialist from the professional community and the condemnation of colleagues. In extreme cases - in case of rape - you need to contact the police: this is a criminal offense.

So let's be careful when choosing a psychotherapist. Our decisions largely determine how qualified assistance we receive.

About the experts

Anna Varga — systemic family psychotherapist, board member of the Society of Family Counselors and Psychotherapists.

Learn more