Professional, Communal, & Internet Dual Relationships Defined

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Professional dual relationships consist of a clinician and client are both mental health professionals and become professional colleagues either at a college, training institution, co-authoring a book, attending the same workshop, or any other situation where a the client and clinician would be considered professional colleagues. This is an important consideration when taking into account that although one may live in a metropolitan area, small communities do develop within those areas and the mental health field can sometimes feel like a small world. Communal relationships can occur for similar reasons at the professional dual relationships, birds of a feather flock together. Clinicians and consumers of similar faiths may attend the same religious institution, members of the LGBT community may run into each other at the Equality Center, or any other small community within a larger community. The internet relationship is likely the most self explanatory. Basically this means any interactions that occur online. In the ever growing world of technology, online relationships are becoming more and more prevalent in the form of emails, social media, and other professional sites such as Psychology Today. A person may find a clinician that appears beneficial on Psychology Today, click on their website and find links to Facebook or email distribution sign ups. An inadvertent way a client may initiate an online relationship is if they are already seeing you and decide to research your name. A current client may find your blog, website, or LinkedIn profile simply by typing your name into a search engine and send a request to connect.

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