Nicolas and another counselor talk about counseling clients around trust and monogamy.
N: How do you deal with talking to clients about monogamy, like I'm getting the test so, cause I'm in this monogamous relationship and we're not going to use condoms anymore.
C: This is an interesting thing cause we brought this up several times in post shift, and I think that the best thing to do, I mean I've heard some people say that you can never trust your partner dadadada, and I don't think that that's necessarily the most effective way to deal with it because that's again, that's breeding mistrust and, rather than coming from a place and just really being informed or thoughtful about something. I really check in with them about how they feel about that and sometimes I do a self disclosure at that point in time, because I was in what I thought was a monogamous relationship for seven years, and it turned out my boyfriend was everything but monogamous and he was putting me at risk in a lot of different ways and uh, so, you know, you never know and I tell people that and really check in with them about they feel. You know, do they feel like they have a good level of communication with their partner, do they feel like if their partner were to be with somebody else that they would have safer sex, or that there's a possibility that their partner would be with someone else, how would they feel about that? You know. Just really explore with them and frequently what I find is that there is some doubt in people's minds that this monogamy thing is really going to be monogamous and if that's the case then I try to work with them, uhm, around the issue of safer sex and what it would take for them to feel ok about that, whether it's a length of time, whether it's more communication with their partner, you know whatever, but I try not to go at that from an angle of you can't, you only know what's in your mind, you don't know what's in other people's minds.
N: Yeah because you're talking to someone who's convinced themselves of what they know anyway and they can discount whatever you say as, "Well you don't know my boyfriend" or "you're just doing your job in telling me all this."
C: Right, or you're being judgmental. Fear doesn't work well I don't think. Basically you have to think that on some level it's wrong to steal and not be afraid that somebody's going to catch you if you steal because there are lots of times that you can convince yourself that nobody's looking or nobody's going to see, you know. If you decide that it's wrong to steal then uhm, you're in a totally different place.
More test counselors talking about monogamy
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