I bet that you didn’t know that therapists have to be zen-masters? I’m not a real fan of Star Wars, but I think that there was some sort of weird looking small guy that had some great lines. Weird looking or not, the movie did get it right sometimes. I once stated that “niceness is overrated.” Wait, wait, don’t throw me into the pit yet. Niceness means that boundaries can get blurred in the quest of helping injured clients feel better.
Niceness is a normal first response to grief and trauma. The question that remains unanswered is deciding when to stop being nice and begin to be set limits. Some psychiatric disorders occur because clients don’t know how to set limits. You got it: Borderline Personality Disorders. That just means that a person gets way, way too attached to someone else. That attachment can sometimes can get fatal.
There was a movie called “Fatal Attraction” in which there was a miscommunication between two people. Two people who worked together became attracted to each other after a long day and a couple of drinks. She wanted a long-term intimate emotional relationship. He wanted a short-term intimate sexual relationship. Their disagreement didn’t end well. She wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. His wife wouldn’t take “yes” for an answer. Awkward.
The story’s moral is that a really good therapist can become a weird-looking zen-master and help avoid awkward attractions. Personally, I just want to be an ordinary-looking therapist and do what I’m good at doing what I listed on the Specialties page.