Word: therapists
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Jerry, a suburban Atlanta therapist in his late 20s, knew he was running major risks when he fell in love half a dozen years ago with a man some years older. From the first date, they practiced safe sex. But there is no prophylactic protection against grief. When the relationship was less than a year old, his lover was found to have AIDS. Jerry says he never considered leaving during five harrowing years. But he adds tearfully that he could not imagine involving himself with an HIV-positive man again...
Bruce Paltrow, the former executive producer of St. Elsewhere, is another TV creator with a sudden fondness for the confessional first person. Each episode of his new NBC comedy, Home Fires, opens with the main characters talking to a family therapist. Again the technique seems merely a way of tricking up an otherwise routine sitcom...
...course, therapists are not automatons; their feelings can be stirred in sessions every bit as much as are those of patients. Sometimes those emotions shift onto the client, a process called countertransference. When a woman counselor takes up with a male patient, the impulse is often a "fantasy that love will cure the patient," says psychiatrist Glen Gabbard of the Menninger Clinic, who points to the romance between the therapist played by Barbra Streisand and Nick Nolte's character in The Prince of Tides. "The movie would have you believe that what was helpful to him was her love...
...When therapists feel themselves drawn into an emotional or sexual relationship with a patient, they are supposed to consult colleagues for guidance. Bean-Bayog seems to have done just this. Last week a clinical social worker in Boston said that Bean-Bayog had discussed her sexual attraction toward a Mexican-American patient in a teaching session. Bean-Bayog also repeatedly sought advice on the Lozano case from senior psychiatrists. Said one of her colleagues: "She had consultations at every stage of the game." He points out that a therapist who is abusing a patient is unlikely to be so open...
...from accepted standards of medical practice" in her treatment of Lozano, but it came to no conclusion about the charge of sexual misconduct. Pending further hearings, the board decided to allow the doctor to continue to see patients under the supervision of another psychiatrist. The plight of this respected therapist caught up in one of the great hazards of her profession has stirred sympathy within the Boston psychiatric community. "There is a strong tension within us that we should be able to heal, comfort and cure terribly troubled people -- particularly gifted, young people," says one therapist who is familiar with...