Chapter 6 - Sex, Cntd.

Transference and touching

Touching can be appropriate and necessary in a therapeutic relationship, especially as we have seen when the client is in regressed and other nonordinary states of consciousness. Appropriate use of the energy of this center may mean taking the risk to offer decisive, loving touch. A congregation member has an ecstatic experience during a church service, stands up, then falls backwards with body moving wildly. She needs the touch of the minister and other members to feel safely contained, to feel that her experience is accepted by others, and to rest quietly for a period afterwards. Therapists can investigate their own longings, desires, and fears around the physical body, physical sex, spiritual sex, touch and vital energy. Because the second center contains pitfalls which are terribly dangerous therapeutically and professionally, therapists can seek out training and consultation as prevention. They can certainly seek assistance at the first sign that their longings, desires, or fears are triggered by a client's transformative process in this center. Therapists can also examine their own current relationship to the transformative process of their own spiritual paths.

Self reflection on sex (Excerpts from the listed questions)

• Am I attracted to the client?
  
• Am I vulnerable to my client's adoration?
  
• Has the client requested touch or am I the one initiating touch?
  
• Do I have strong needs to give or receive nurturing touch?
  
• Am I afraid to give or receive touch?
  
• Do I believe I should always respond to a request for nurturing touch?
  
• If I am touching the client, am I monitoring her responses closely?
  
• Do I have moral judgments about my client's fantasies or sexual behavior?
  
• Am I encouraging my client to see her process as an internal one?
  
• Have I been giving myself reasons why my normal ethical code of conduct should be set aside in this one particular case?

Cross-referencing sex issues with issues in the other centers

Ethical misconduct often involves sex. In many ethically troubling cases where there has been no actual sexual behavior, there have been romantic undertones and confusing double messages. Sex is the way we are accustomed to achieve union. We are attracted to that which we are lacking in ourselves in order to feel complete. Therefore sex is often used as a way to unconsciously become one with what we want: money, power, love, truth, and insight. We might attempt to fill this need for wholeness through union with a client who displays one of these qualities. (See Chapters 1, and 3 through 10.) If someone is dealing with sex as the primary ethical issue, he might refer to the section on telling the truth to ourselves in Chapter 13. He might also want to read over the sections on underestimation of the power of nonordinary states of consciousness to affect us and unacknowledged longings for love and spiritual connection in Chapter 12.

See menu at side for more chapter excerpts from The Ethics of Caring