| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:ethics |
| Posted by: | Todd Sloane |
| Date/Time: | 18/10/2003 04:12:58 |
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Hey there, Here is a late night attempt to respond with some kind of lucidity. I am going to go with a gut response here. I find your question excellent and, at first blush, challenging to verbalize. I'll refer to "finding products" here around the sales topic, but you can substitute "finding services" or "creating services" as is most useful to you. Now to a thought experiment. If I were to take this idea to it's logical extreme and imagine trying to operate in a sales context free of content... The result I get is the client creating their ideal product in their map of the world. In other words, they would create their ideal product in their internal representation each and every time. The practical problem here is, of course, that they won't actually have such a product that they can use. Hey, they might be really excited about the idea (map) that they have just created, but it won't do them any good unless they decide to go out and build it... Not too practical. Sales to me is more a process of eliciting the clients criteria and then finding an existing "best fit" product to those criteria. I also don't think it is always ethically ok to introduce content in sales. Ethical applications of this would involve introducing content in service to the clients criteria and then having a "check" (i.e. unconscious signal) to insure that the content introduced does so. Then back to elicitation... In therapy I am not attempting to find/create something out-there-in-the-world that meets the clients criteria. I am attempting to help the client operate more effectively in the world. This is accomplished through some operation that changes their map. Put another way, they are requesting assistance FROM ME to become more resourceful THEMSELVES. In this instance they are/have the resource that they desire. With a product there is a tacit agreement that they desire an external resource. In a therapy setting there is a tacit agreement that I will help them to access and utilize thier resources. If, however, I introduce content in the therapy context I am substituting myself for the client as the source of resources, a violation of the relationship. I am manipulating their map instead of assisting them in manipulating it themselves. Now some folks could say, "What is wrong with being the clients source of resources? So what if someone becomes a little dependent, right?" To anyone in that position I say go for it, have fun, but bring a mop! Been there, done that, next! |