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Abstract
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One of the most frustrating people to work with in either a face-to-face therapeutic interview or over the telephone is the person who does not engage in a verbal interaction with a therapist. In a face-to-face contact, other means of communication can be elicited and utilized by the therapist to engage the client. When the telephone is used as the medium for communication, the therapist is at a disadvantage as most of those other avenues of communication are not available.
In the silent caller we have an excellent example of ambivalence. At the same time as this person calls a center designed to assist people who have personal problems he, for any number of reasons, chooses not to engage in verbal communication. This behavior which appears inconsistent, usually has a basis in his psychological makeup or previous experiences with helping agencies. Many callers to a suicide prevention center have been rejected by other agencies and organizations or by their families and friends and are unsure whether or not they will be accepted at the suicide prevention center. As a result, they may call in a reluctant manner to reduce the psychological effect of the potential rejection.1
One of the advantages of a telephone is that the caller is psychologically next to the person he is talking to regardless of the physical distance. To the silent caller this psychological advantage may be a disadvantage. With his concern about being accepted by the telephone therapist, the immediacy of this intimate relationship with another individual may become too frightening for him so while he utilizes the telephone in order to gain psychological mobility without a change in his physical environment, the rapidity of the change and the impact of the closeness may frighten him away from beginning a conversation unless the person on the other end of the telephone is aware of this concern and does something to facilitate his talking with a statement that says, "You can trust me," "I want to help," or "I'm here to listen."2
But what does one do when the caller makes no verbal response, yet remains on the line, making his presence known? Faced with this type of caller, the telephone therapist must first overcome his initial tendency (which maybe appropriate in other non-therapeutic situations) to hang up the phone assuming that it is a so called "prank" or "nuisance" call. He must remember that his first task as a telephone therapist is to meet the caller at his level of acceptance and to try and remove any impediment which may keep the person from communicating his problem or difficulty...
Keywords: Suicide prevention
Language: en |