“To Otara’s posts - I volunteer as a counselor and general-help person at a domestic violence shelter currently; maybe it’s a somewhat different dynamic but I agree: we strictly mandate active participation in following up on legal, counseling and other remedies to anyone getting housing and help from us. For the most part it seems to be really effective. But the focus there is empowering, not fixing, so perhaps it is different.”
I was actually talking about perpetrators, sorry I should have made that clear.
Of course something can be effective without being ethical. The guidelines for involuntary medical care generally are used to cover ‘assertive’ therapeutic type interventions as well, ie someone needing to be at risk to self or others, etc. I dont think your average person has to worry about cold calling therapists, due to resource issues if nothing else.
Think about every one you know that has ever been just entirely fucked up. Weed out the mild cases, and go for the total lost in the wilderness folks. Now, among them, figure out which one is doing the best right now. Talk to that one.
What do you mean by that? Do you mean that, for example, you insist that victims of domestic violence shelters pursue legal remedies to get the abusers into therapy?
E.g.
Shelter worker: “Are you going to file for a formal Writ of and Order For Mandatory Counseling against the person who was abusing you?”
Victim: “Uhh, I just want to resolve this informally. I got his sister and his parents on my side and they are coming down to visit and snap some sense into him.”
Shelter worker: “I’m sorry, you will be kicked out of the shelter this Friday unless you file paperwork with the court to get him adjudicated for court-ordered therapy. If the judge says no, that’s ok, but we have to see a good faith lawsuit from you.”
If I were contacted entirely out of the blue by an entity claiming to be a therapist who wanted to help me with my mental illness, and if my mental illness were of the paranoid subtype, I can only guess that the results would not be, er, therapeutic.
As person with a severe, longstanding mental illness, I cannot express strongly enough my distaste for this idea as it relates to mental illness. I would consider any therapist participating in such a scheme to be in blatant violation of generally accepted ethics and standards of care. I would certainly never agree to accept treatment from such a person. If my family ever shared information with anyone that would prompt unsolicited contact from a therapist, I would no longer trust them and would lose that significant portion of my support system. If the affected person indeed does not know of options for help, why would getting that information from a stranger be any more useful than getting it directly from the family member or a friend?
I can’t speak to this sort of intervention (blecch) in addictions, but I don’t think most addicts continue to use because they don’t know they can get help with quitting.
I’m not sure how child abusers/spouse abusers even factor into this question as those are legal issues rather than social, at least in Western society.