I'll be posting more about my meeting with the Weiland family soon. In the meantime, I'd like to write about an article I wrote a couple years ago that I came across while doing some housecleaning at my blog. It struck a deep chord with an insight I'd had while I was on the road to see them.

I would not have made the trip if I were still working as a psychotherapist.

Ironic, yes, but absolutely true. I would have been afraid of getting drawn into possible dysfunction, afraid of the mess of it. I wouldn't have wanted a "working weekend." My role as a psychotherapist and my identification with it, particularly in such a situation (a woman had been murdered in a domestic assault), would have stopped me from showing up as a human being. I would not have been able to show up simply as a woman profoundly touched by what had happened. I couldn't have been able to be there in whatever way was needed, no matter that these people were strangers to me.

Let me state for the record that I understand and fully agree with the legal and ethical reasons for having strong therapist-client boundaries. But I will say that therapists, and several coaches as well, identify so strongly with the role that they have difficulty entering into psychologically difficult situations without it. You know the saying: when you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Therapists start to see pathology everywhere they look, just like police officers see potential criminals. It's an occupational hazard and one that takes vigilance to overcome. And coaches are so afraid of being accused of doing therapy with their clients that they are even more vigilant where these issues are concerned.

The article I re-discovered, which I will summarize here, relates very much to this phenomena and how so many of us struggle with intimacy.

I had just been talking in a discussion forum about the way I like to be in relationships. I mentioned having fun when kids braid my hair. I also mentioned I haven't yet met any adults brave enough to do that, although I did have my hair pulled and was smacked with a pillow by one of my hiking buddies while I was in Utah.

I got a reply from a member saying:

"Oh, Laura, let me at your hair!!!!!! I just love to braid and comb and brush people's hair! (OK, now who's sounding a bit mushy, lovey, touchy-feely, here!?!?!?!) This is one of those things that just tends to make BOTH people involved feel really good!! And it's so playful and fun and rawly human."

Rawly human.

Too often we are afraid of being rawly human. Fear dominates so much of how we relate to each other. I'm not talking about the fear of whether a person will attack you from the bushes or whether you shouldn't walk in the parking lot at night. I'm talking about the fear that we won't be liked, loved, or retained as an employee or spouse or friend if we aren't careful. Too often we fear being authentic and genuine in our relationships with each other.