By A friend can support you, understand you and encourage you. However, we cannot demand that he or she carry everything we carry in our personal backpack. This article addresses the limits that should not be exceeded.
Do you have one or more friends with whom you can share your emotions, fears and most intimate experiences? Having these close figures is a very enriching pillar for our mental well-being. However, your friends are not your psychologist. Sometimes, there are limits that are exceeded, barriers that are very porous and through which one can fall into abuse of trust.
Let’s take an example. Have you ever felt overwhelmed by that friend who uses you as a dumping ground to dump all his problems, despair and existential longings on you? It is a common phenomenon that is not always taken into account. Sometimes, without realizing it, we demand that those closest to us take on the tasks of a psychologist.
“What’s wrong with that?” some people might ask. “Aren’t friends supposed to be there to listen to us and support us in any circumstance?” The truth is, they aren’t. As much as these significant figures love us, their role is not to guide us or give us tools to deal with what hurts, worries or blocks life. Knowing where that boundary is is first and foremost a matter of common sense.
Our friends can offer us understanding and comfort, but even if they are psychologists, their job is not to offer us professional support.
Your friends are not your psychologist and these are the limits you should know
Friends are a key element in enjoying good mental health, but their job is not to promote it in us as a specialized professional would do.
Studies such as those conducted at Columbia University, for example, highlight something interesting: women are the ones who, on average, place the greatest value on friendships and the ones who tend to benefit the most from this alliance.
Stress is reduced, problems are put into perspective, emotional alliances are formed that allow us to avoid the weight of loneliness . All of this is beneficial and advisable, for both genders.
Friendships enrich our existence and even increase our life expectancy, but sometimes they can be two-way streets . And we can demand dimensions that are not their concern. Where are the limits? What basic principles should we take into account in this type of social bond?
By sharing many of our problems with our friends, we can put them in the position of having to solve or guide us in areas that are beyond their control and that are not their responsibility. This can be very stressful.
1. Their advice is not always valid
You can ask your friend for advice on a thousand everyday matters, but not on matters that have to do with intimate and personal issues. Our loved ones will give us advice based on their own experience, which we do not always fit into . Each person is a world, has a context, their own characteristics and needs .
2. Emotional venting is not always appropriate
We often say that a friend is there for us 24/7. It’s not true. Your friends are not your psychologist, nor are they always in the best position to listen to you, no matter how good their will or intentions are . You may seek to vent to that close person just when you are most stressed .
She may even feel overwhelmed by what we are explaining to her and we are projecting a burden of discomfort onto her. She may also feel obliged to solve the problem we are presenting to her for us.
3. Friends are not there to solve your problems
We cannot deny it, friendships are allies in the worst moments. It is possible that more than one has taken a problem off your shoulders, lightened burdens and guided you out of a labyrinth. However, the function of a friendship is not to resolve what hurts us or give a solution to our crossroads.
In fact, this is not the direct objective of a psychologist. His mission is rather to teach us tools, to enrich us with resources so that we are the ones who, autonomously, end up facing certain challenges.
However, it is not appropriate to expect friendship to be that forced master key that solves all anguish . Nor is it ethical to place them under this direct or indirect pressure.
4. Emotionally involved with us
Your friends are not your psychologist and this will sometimes mean that they are not as honest as you need. The emotional bond that unites us to them can make them resort to half-truths or white lies to cheer us up. Affection and good intentions are automatic reflexes that are typical of all friendships, but they are not always useful when we are going through a particular problem.
5. Support is the first step, but it is not enough
You may be going through a painful time. An emotional break-up, the loss of a job, a family problem, a hopelessness that clouds all your perspectives… Friends can be your best support, but they do not have the skills of a mental health professional .
They are the first step towards well-being, who encourage you to seek out those expert figures to solve what is currently hindering your well-being.
Knowing that there are personal aspects that a friend can never address will benefit you and that friendship as well.
The psychologist is not your friend
There is a fundamental rule in psychological therapy: clear boundaries must be maintained between the professional and his patient. Just as it is essential that the position of each one is not diluted, it is also key to forge a good therapeutic alliance with which mutual trust is built. Only in this way will change, growth, and that healing and liberating process take shape.
Just as your friends are not your psychologist, the latter cannot establish a bond of friendship with you during the psychological therapy itself. Therefore, it is essential to comply with these principles:
- Psychologists should not give personal advice. It is not their role.
- Objectivity and neutrality should be maintained to the extent possible.
- There should be no relationship between the professional and the patient outside the therapeutic context.
Although flexibility can sometimes be allowed and one is never completely impervious to the experiences of patients, the goal is to maintain distance. Also, to avoid what Sigmund Freud called “transference” (feelings of the patient towards the professional) and “countertransference” (feelings of the psychologist towards the patient).
Therapeutic success will always come from that framework in which the professional gives the best of himself in an objective manner . Likewise, from that plane in which the patient feels that he is in a safe, structured context oriented to provide him with rigorous tools for change.