The Briar Patch:  Thorny “Minor” Challenges for Directors

New Love, And Old Love In the Clinic

Vic Pantesco, Ph.D.

 

The Thorn

           One of the "interesting" phenomena the Director may encounter in the clinic is that of intimate relationships among student clinicians. There is a wide variety of possibilities, but here I focus only on the two at opposite ends of the spectrum. On one end, is the new or relatively newly formed relationship. On the other, is a relationship that had formed during or predated the clinic tenure and is now collapsing.

           For new relationships, the array of challenges include supervisor pairings, sufficiently distinct or separate client assignments, managing interactions in team settings, and a general sensitivity or awareness regarding the absent partner in any given interaction or assignment. Such awareness is not only on the part of the Director, but reasonably also locates and percolates within individual and collective consciousness of clinicians and all team members. And of course, the couple is a de facto separate entity spending all of its non-clinic or class time in separate intimate space. Thus, such a relationship is an identified subset within the clinic community.

           For breaking or dissolving relationships, you can imagine the challenges. To state perhaps the obvious, and depending on the level of discomfort or antipathy in the breakup, there are such items as: physical and emotional space management (in all venues: team meetings; the mailboxes; supply cabinets…); managing "eggshell" dynamics and energies wherever they may appear; and various "splits" and allegiances that naturally form around either member of the dismantling partnership. 

           For both scenarios, the Director or supervisors (who can fall prey to splitting too, which really sweetens the deal) may find they are at times marriage counselors or at others divorce mediators or – even worse – attorneys or parents.  (Now, where did I put my special stash of dark chocolate for the tough times….?)

          

To Dull the Pain

            We have not put into our application framework any proscription of relationships, but sometimes we have given it a serious look.  People in love of course never project trouble or the possibility of it.  While we may know better, and how the press and shifts of grad school (in psychology no less) are a volatile petri dish for couples, I find it hard to legislate on this.

           Once again, we rely on the frame we do have regarding dual roles and invite a candid, considerate conversation up front.  The "up front" part is very important. Essentially, in our orientations we invite students to be very transparent about current or forming relationships. We do not have this conversation in the open forum, other than to publicly say these are complicated in how they work out during the clinic year, and that a conversation with their respective supervisors should occur right away. This helps to ensure our reliance on what many of my colleagues in APTC will recognize as one of my favorites from Mr. Rogers (that's Fred and not Carl): "what's mentionable is manageable."

           So far, in over 10 years, we have not had what I recall as problems. As clinic Directors we have often remarked with each other how our memory for problems is surprisingly acute, even over long periods of time. So I trust the data of not having a problem memory in this area. Nevertheless, I can never be sure how much I might ascribe to simply good luck, and that's fine with me.

 

 

Vic getting some much-needed therapy from his rock troll therapist on Block Island, RI