Dec. 5th, 2014
Obviously, confidentiality is absolutely primary in crisis hotline work. And that includes not only texter information, but also even things that are tangential, like our training methods, just because they can sometimes use information from real texts -- anonymized, of course, but even so.
That said, I do feel it's okay to share some things like this dramatization of the importance of understanding the difference between supporting a person and trying to solve their problems. It's not our job to solve people's problems; if solving things is what THEY want to do, we help them work through the process, but we don't solve things for them, and if what they want to do is vent, that's what we do. And I think the following video is a good example of that:
That said, I do feel it's okay to share some things like this dramatization of the importance of understanding the difference between supporting a person and trying to solve their problems. It's not our job to solve people's problems; if solving things is what THEY want to do, we help them work through the process, but we don't solve things for them, and if what they want to do is vent, that's what we do. And I think the following video is a good example of that: