# Dopers who have worked on a telephone crisis or advice line: Ever get a call from someone you knew?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dopers-who-have-worked-on-a-telephone-crisis-or-advice-line-ever-get-a-call-from-someone-you-knew/967526>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [July 6, 2022, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dopers-who-have-worked-on-a-telephone-crisis-or-advice-line-ever-get-a-call-from-someone-you-knew/967526 "2022-07-06T22:05:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2022, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dopers-who-have-worked-on-a-telephone-crisis-or-advice-line-ever-get-a-call-from-someone-you-knew/967526/1 "2022-07-06T22:05:05Z")

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I’ve never done that kind of work, but I’m curious.

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**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2022, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dopers-who-have-worked-on-a-telephone-crisis-or-advice-line-ever-get-a-call-from-someone-you-knew/967526/2 "2022-07-06T22:07:33Z")

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Since this is more of an informal poll than a factual question, let’s move it to IMHO (from FQ).

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**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2022, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dopers-who-have-worked-on-a-telephone-crisis-or-advice-line-ever-get-a-call-from-someone-you-knew/967526/3 "2022-07-06T22:24:10Z")

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No, never. If there is any reason for concern about this, there are procedures to handle it both in terms of confidentiality and in terms of providing another counselor if desired.

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**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\
**Post date:** [July 7, 2022, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dopers-who-have-worked-on-a-telephone-crisis-or-advice-line-ever-get-a-call-from-someone-you-knew/967526/4 "2022-07-07T00:11:20Z")

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I was a crisis intervention counselor for several years. Never encountered anyone I knew. If I had, I’d hand it over to another counselor.

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**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\
**Post date:** [July 7, 2022, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dopers-who-have-worked-on-a-telephone-crisis-or-advice-line-ever-get-a-call-from-someone-you-knew/967526/5 "2022-07-07T00:42:06Z")

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I never did, in any of several crisis phone line support roles, but I was in the opposite side of that situation once. I knew a musician who’d played drum in a band, and then was assigned to him as counselor in a walk-in counseling facility in Albuquerque, and after a little while recognized him and asked.

We hadn’t been close friends or anything and he didn’t recuse himself. Wasn’t really an issue.