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Dear Evelyn and John, I could not agree more narrative based techniques could cause harm. I have an abused patient, who was not looking after kids properly. I put on my parental and ex officer hat and told her off. She refocused on her kids. I would not have taken the risk, if she had not told me that her children were the centre of her life. Avoidance and denial are coping strategies, but i would not refer a patient for counselling or consider narrative techniques if my judgement gives me the gut feeling of this is as good as it gets. The context is important, mothers may seek to put off making a 'healthy emotional adjustment' to life events. The patient is still on my list! I have to treat her primary generalised anxiety, but social services are happy with the child care and school attendence has greatly improved. However, did I abuse or use professional power. Yours sincerely, Nigel yours sincerely, ----- Original Message ----- From: "Evelyn Forget" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2001 3:00 PM Subject: potential abuse of professional power > Hi all, > > John Launer writes: "I am very concerned about the potential for abuse of > professional power in getting people to connect with deep grief or anger > when we may not have the time or the skills to help them process it." > > My interest in narrative is from a research, as opposed to a therapeutic, > perspective. But it is not always easy to separate the two, and occasionally > unexpected issues arise, even during the most structured interviews. Mental > health workers spend a good deal of time working with their own "stories", > and probably have a better handle on when their own issues and > interpretations have the potential to become coercive than do researchers. > Everyone involved in therapeutic encounters knows that there are times when > "getting people to connect with deep grief or anger" is not in the best > interest of the client. Do we, as researchers, have the same skill? Nobody > needs an amateur therapist, no matter how well meaning we are. And, even > when we have a clinician on our team, do we always recognize when a > "subject" needs help? > > I don't believe that narrative approaches to research are entirely benign, > and I'm not sure that the good intentions of researchers are protection > enough. There are many very fragile people out there, and we can't always > recognize them in advance. My question is: how do we help one another become > more aware of the potential for abuse of power in this situation? What > ethical guidelines, beyond those imposed by granting councils and ethics > boards, ought to inform our work? > > Evelyn L. Forget > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp