other reasonable helpers

Quote:

"marcia" <design1@insight.rr.com> wrote in message
news:1171207732.250923.147640@v33g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...
:
: Dale Kelly wrote:
: > On Sun, 11 Feb 2007 04:24:07 -0500, Socky the Puppet wrote:
:
: > > Good answer.
:
: > actually it isn't, the implication is that only degreed psych
: > professionals are smart enough to know about emotions and the like,
: > whereby they are are just pill-pushers
:
: AFAIK, the only psych professionals that push drugs are psychiatrists,
: and most of them don't do therapy any more, anyway. I was thinking
: specifically of psychologists, social workers, pastoral counselors,
: and psych nurses, who are specially trained to help people deal with
: emtional issues. And it's not a matter of them being the only ones
: "smart enough" to know about emotions (although the ones on SPP are
: brilliant, so that *could* skew one's perception), so much as it is
: that they are the only ones who have learned specific techniques for
: helping people learn to confront, accept, change and/or cope with
: emotional issues.
:
: Having said that, remember, I also said many people discuss their
: problems with friends and family and eventually resolve their issues
: themselves. Mental health professionals certainly don't have a corner
: on the wisdom-and-empathy market; good social support is also
: important to your mental health.
:
: But some problems are larger or run deeper than friends, alone, can
: deal with. I once had a friend, C, who treated all of us (her other
: friends) as extensions of her personal therapist. Over time, the
: conversations turned more and more to C and her complex problems and
: complaints, until it reached a point that she was calling some of us 4
: or 5 times a day (and in the middle of the night, which didn't make my
: husband happy) just to talk about herself. Eventually, people started
: finding C too self-centered and demanding to deal with, began avoiding
: her phone calls, and stopped inviting her places. She had become such
: a heavy social burden that no one wanted to be around her--she tended
: to suck the fun out of every occasion. Of course, she didn't really
: understand this and was hurt by the avoidance and exclusion.
:
: After a couple of years, those of us who remained her friends (because
: we were either spineless masochists, guilt-ridden, or both) tried to
: set new boundaries with her, to get her to discuss most of her
: problems with her therapist and to develop more mutual relationships
: with us. We even suggested she discuss this with her therapist, which
: she claimed she did, but nothing changed. C had developed a pattern of
: behavior that eventually lead to the destruction of *all* her
: friendships, and we had participated in that sad occurence by not
: maintaining good boundaries from the beginning. This is not something
: I'm proud of.
:
: So consider C's fate before you decide to lean *too* heavily on family
: and friends. Most of us love our friends and want to be there to
: support them, but we also need to take care of ourselves. A good
: therapist who maintains decent boundaries and offers empathetic
: counsel can be valuable life-and-relationship saving resources for
: people with serious problems.
:
: That's my opinion. YMMV.
:
: marcia
:

Heh, don't knock yourself out over this, it is difficult to walk away
from a wounded dog.

We've all had acquaintances like that, I'd bet the next time you
recognized the symptoms and maintained your distance from the beginning.