6th Circuit, ACLU, Education / Schools, Gay, Gay Marriage, Religion

Should Therapists Be Able to Turn Away Clients on Moral Grounds?

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Here’s what Will Meyerhofer sent my way, via email:

I do work with people whose views I disagree with – mostly religious people (a bunch of Orthodox Jews, for example.) But if someone really really disagrees with me – say a homophobic born-again-er – they’d have to be nuts to choose me as a therapist. It would never work, anyway. Even if this woman tried to work with LGBT folks, it’s not like they would last very long. In fact, it would be a disaster. There has to be trust, and a therapeutic join, or nothing’s going to work in a therapy room.

How do you work with someone who disagrees with some of your basic views? Mostly, you avoid tricky topics – it’s none of my business if they’re very religious and there isn’t much I can do about it, so I focus on the matter at hand and accept their difference. That’s about all you can do. But there are limits to how well that’s going to work….

This lady’s obviously got some deep issues with gay folks. But who knows? Maybe she can be useful as a therapist for uptight Christians.

Quite possibly — although that is a busy market segment. CHECK YOU MARCUS BACHMANN.

Back to Will Meyerhofer:

This is one of the dirty secrets of psychotherapy, and it comes up in supervision, when therapists get together and compare notes. How do you work with that conservative religious client who thinks women should be treated differently from men – as subordinates? I think, at some point, you simply lay low – the old adage, “start where the client is,” takes over. A therapist has to be understanding – try to be the person the client needs to have listening to him. But to some extent, of course, that’s wishful thinking – a goal, not always the reality.

There are hard lines – you can’t try to “cure” homosexuals. That’s malpractice. But things get hazy when you’re talking about “socially acceptable” differences. Religion falls into that hazy zone.

I’ve worked with clients who collect guns, and eat meat and live for professional sports – and they didn’t seem to mind hanging out with a gun control-espousing, vegetarian esthete. On the other hand, as a therapist, you’re less present in some ways than you would be as, say, a friend or acquaintance. You are a person, listening – but you’re also a bit of a blank – that’s part of the process.

A Counselor’s Convictions Put Her Profession on Trial [New York Times]
Ward v. Polite [U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit]
Sixth Circuit Revives Free Speech Lawsuit Over Grad Student’s Firing [WSJ Law Blog]
Julea Ward, ADF Win Free Speech Rights Appeal in Counseling Case [FindLaw]

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