client or trainee

[Roberto de Inocencio]

And I thank you, Melissa, for sharing such intimate experience with us. I 
certainly agree with you. Having a psychoanalytic training as well as being 
a trainer in Psychodrama here, in Europe, some of the situations about which 
you write, seem amusing to me if not somehow preposterous.
Thank you again,
Fondly,
Roberto



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Melissa Monahan" <melissa_erin_monahan at hotmail.com>
To: <list at grouptalkweb.org>
Sent: Monday, September 11, 2006 8:35 PM
Subject: Re: client or trainee


This dialogue is so important.
As a student of Drama Therapy, as well as a Psychodrama trainee, I can
appreciate the fine and delicate line that MUST be drawn between the
therapist/trainer and client/trainee.
As a creative therapeutic novice, I had chosen to extend my trainer's role
to include that of individual therapist. At that time, she was more than
happy to expand her professional repertoire and make a monetary deal.  This
maneuver, however, eventually proved disastrous, as the boundaries became
increasingly vague.
For example:

*Her asking permission to eat salad during a one-on-one session.
*Delegating duties, that included phone calling and drumming up business for
her group/workshops.
*Assuming I'd drive her home following a back-to-back individual session and
training evening.
*Explicitly suggesting, during one-on-one psychodramatic work that, one day,
we'd have an office together and she would send me child clients because,
after all, sometimes being a solo practitioner gets "lonely."

While I acknowledge that reality is subjective, I do believe that some of
the boundary issues stemmed from my trainer/therapist's insecure and egoic
need to be regarded as someone with a "gift" for psychodrama, or "one of the
best psychodramatists around" and "a role model of honesty for my clients."
Conversely, I am a newcomer, and instinctively welcomed any/all guidance as
well as professional mentoring.
After emerging from a profound crisis, I realized how informal and skewed
the relationship was; how compromised MY therapeutic process had become (and
at some pricey hourly rates). While such nuances certainly don't CAUSE one's
crisis, they're not of much HELP either.
Eventually, I suggested she continue to be my psychodrama trainer, but
divulged my decision to work one-on-one with someone else.
This was, naturally, met with bewildered criticism and, then, an ultimatum
to either work with her in individual therapy or leave her psychodrama
group. While I understand her motivations were---always---well-intentioned,
that kind of strong-arming hammered the proverbial nail into the
psychodramtic coffin, and I chose to abort the relationship.
>From this experience, I learned so much about the boundaries necessary to
distinguish a client from trainee, and I thank my former therapist/trainer
for that

~Melissa Erin