Assignment Task: How do we deal with potential guilt and the personal effects of learning a client has done something morally wrong. For me this comes down to boundaries, learning how to listen to someone's experience without holding on to it myself. I also think of it as I can hear someone's story and not be responsible for it. This is really hard to do when you are working with clients that have different values than you. Especially those who have committed crimes. To have good boundaries and to protect my own mental health I have to keep a degree of separation. Slay-Westbrook (2017) describes this as the "I-thou" relationship (p.7). Maintaining a strong "I" through the balance of self and other minimizes the possibility of being emotionally harmed by this work (Slay-Westbrook, 2017).
How would you navigate your own emotions and morals when a client reveals their unethical actions?