WHEN PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL LIVES INTERSECT

There are professions which become so much a part of one's normal thought processes, it is hard to turn them off, even when you are not getting paid for your time or sharing your expertise. For example, if a plumber walks into a friend's house just as a pipe bursts, spewing water all over the room and the owners clearly do not know how to find and turn shut-off valves, should the plumber not offer immediate help and suggestion? Should nurses refuse to bandage their friend's kitchen cut? Similarly, if friends or acquaintances display symptoms that, after talking and knowing a bit about someone's current life, does not seem reactive, is it wrong to try to educate that person (given what that person is describing) about clinical depression, its symptoms, and available resources for its relief. This is especially true when that person is telling you that there is no reason in their life that they should be feeling so lethargic, despondent, and unable to think clearly or remain focused on work issues.

As a psychotherapist for many years, I keep professional boundaries Occasionally I have felt it would be unconscionable not to try to help educate people to some of the choices of action they may have with which they are unfamiliar. I'm careful to allow people to take the lead as to how much they comfortably wish to share and only respond with those questions they are willing to answer to aid my direction in helping, if that is what they wish. It is not a therapy contract; never considered in place of a friend wishing to go into therapy with a professional; but always with a promise never to violate a confidence or discuss their sharing with others.

Over the course of years, I have never felt used because, and rarely felt that the person was trying to get free advice. Sometimes I knew they could benefit from seeing a professional who could prescribe medication (which I do not do) for them, I have urged them to do that. To me, most importantly, was to fill in the gaps of their lack of understanding how it could help and work on their resistance do to lack of knowledge. I explain what therapy is (or is not) and how it might benefit them. I have often explained clinical depression versus difficulty in dealing with a life situation. Many expressed fears are unfounded in the real clinical world and, because I have been taken into their trust, resistance often fades away more easily. I have let people know they never have to take any medication prescribed if they do not trust the prescriber or the medication but they should allow themselves the recommendations from a clinician as to how it may be helpful to them. Some fears of being forcibly hospitalized are dealt with realistically. Today, you can only be hospitalized involuntarily if you are a danger to yourself or others and that may only be for diagnosis and short term beginning of treatment. As with people who need to quit drinking alcohol, most of us know you only success when you are motivated internally, not by external pressure, unless motivation comes from the belief you will lose your family, loved ones, or livelihood.

I do not think giving money is sufficiently sharing one's self and shirking the potential for the potential help most of us have within us. Few of us have enough money to pay the many sources which need monetary help. It is a better world when we help others. Should we not all use whatever expertise or skills we have learned for that endeavor? That defines real charity to me.