this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2024
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Your psychotherapist is absolutely not supposed to have sex with his / her patients, and doing so (and getting caught) is grounds for losing your license to practice.
That said, about 30% of psychotherapists are banging at least one of their patients in the United States...or claims to be...or something. If we're lucky that is a bogus stat, but frankly it's plausible.
That said, ideally you'd get therapy and sex from different sources.
I think the idea is have a therapist AND a sex partner separately
People are people. You're not supposed to date/have sex with co-workers in most workplaces but it happens all the time. I'm not saying it's a good idea for people to be banging their therapist.
In 1980s psychological parlance, the most common places to find partners were:
In the 1990s and aughts, we were already seeing that things had shifted. Fewer people were engaged in their church group. There was more awareness of sexual harassment at work (and power dynamics that could interfere with regular human interaction). People also had fewer friends and less contact with their extended family. This resulted in more people clubbing (and functioning by one-night stands) and otherwise looking for better places to find eligible partners.
I was in the psychiatric sector both as a patient and a peer counselor, and they recommended activity groups. Frisbee golf, knitting, puzzle-building, backgammon, gardening, etc. I sucked at those, but I was dating during the golden age of Craigslist personal ads. We still have sexual harassment in the workplace in 2024, often from upper-management on the clerical pool, which means for anyone not in upper management, they're being micromanaged and kept from propositioning fellow employees. But curiously in the 1970s and 1980s employees often dated and married.
I mean.... I'm way more likely to open up to someone after I've had sex with them.....
Tbh I didn’t think this meme was saying have sex with your therapist, but I guess some people thought that the therapist is the same person
When we rely on our lover to process our inner turmoil then yeah, it's the same, just not a professional therapist. That's the implication.
Hence a better model of having multiple holistic close friends that can distribute the work. Or a professional therapist and a separate FWB.