Iatrogenic

Iatrogenic-induced inadvertently by a physician or surgeon or by medical treatment or diagnostic procedures [an iatrogenic rash]

hmmm---i wish that it was just a rash.

Seriously. I have been doing a lot of thinking about how the process of graduate school has a serious impact on one's capability to function as a normal human being.

This past Saturday, while most of you probably rode bikes, ate sushi, or laid in lush green lawns with a oh-so-envied books for pleasure in your tiny hands, I practiced staving off the affection of my future clients. Awkward. It's weird to even practice this when you aren't even sure that any future clients will indeed be sexually and or emotionally attracted to your crazy self. hmm.

I also learned a lot about how to counsel juvenile sex offenders--a new interest as of late and possible desired internship work.

When I walked out of my classroom after close to eight, yes, you heard correctly, eight hours of class, I couldn't help but think that this was the beginning of a new life that I will lead as a counselor. I am pursuing a persistently severed existence. For so long, I processed my anxieties externally with friends and significant others. As a counselor, I must endure and process these anxieties by myself. Hm.

Though I did process the content of this past weekends class with the others in my life, I started to think about these situations happening in my real life as a counselor (yes! there will eventually be a real life as a counselor!) and realized that I will not be able to tell my husband about sexual advances that my clients may or may not (more likely not) make in my direction. Hmmm. Or--I cannot truly explain to him why and/or how I am feeling obsessed with or drawn to or sorry for--or empathy for--or whatever it is that a counselor feels (only another counselor can know this feeling) for a teenage boy who raped his little sister for three years.

Seems like a bunch of hmmm at this point. Existential theory posits that clients live an authentic and congruent existence. But what about the theoretically existential therapists who also believes this but can't live a congruent existence because of their passions that just also happens to be their jobs?

iatrogenic--it's like a rash, but it itches on the inside. (and not in the sexually transmitted disease kind of way).