Why Freedom Isn't Best

[Received]

Say you have a person who says -- and this happens, and I've seen it repeatedly -- that she deserves to be punished, abused, whatever. Does she have the right to be abused?

 

[Tree of Life]

Say you have a person who says -- and this happens, and I've seen it repeatedly -- that she deserves to be punished, abused, whatever. Does she have the right to be abused?

"Punished" and "abused" are certainly different. Punishment implies some sort of guilt.

I was in a counseling situation with a young man today who confessed to several instances of [heinous crime]. He's been feeling incredibly guilty and has never been charged, tried, or convicted. In order to make restitution he needs to confess his crimes to the state and face whatever punishment they choose to hand down. Unfortunately he does deserve this.

So if someone says "I deserve to be punished" they might be right. He has a right to be charged, tried, convicted, and sentenced. I do hope that the courts are lenient on this repentant young man, but he has every right to submit himself to the court system to begin making restitution for his crimes. The courts owe it to him to give him a fair trial and sentencing.

 

[Ana the Ist]

"Punished" and "abused" are certainly different. Punishment implies some sort of guilt. .

Isn't the counselor obligated to report this?

 

[Tree of Life]

Isn't the counselor obligated to report this?

Yes. We're proceeding with helping him confess to the authorities.

 

[Received]

"Punished" and "abused" are certainly different. Punishment implies some sort of guilt.

Punished in the abstract sense isn't what I was aiming for. I should say that "punished" -- referring generally or specifically in the counseling sense I continually pick up on with clients -- almost always means going beyond what fits the crime when people prefer it for themselves. That is, I don't know how a person who feels guilty can be objective enough to know exactly what cleans his guilt, precisely because he's guilty and guilt bends toward overcorrection with regard to oneself. And what do clients mean when they say they should be punished? That they have a defectiveness schema and so think they should be punished for things they have no responsibility for, or they think they should be overpunished for things they did indeed do wrongly.

BTW, you might be easy on this one if you're the counselor in the above story. If he somehow magically confesses his guilt, you've narrowed him down quite a bit in terms of confidentiality concerns.

 

[Received]

Isn't the counselor obligated to report this?

Always an ethical difficulty. In Texas you're required to break confidentiality only with the possibility of imminent risk to another person from the client, not anything he's done in the past. What if the client is lying? Then you risk breaking confidentiality and getting sued because he blows smoke.

 

[Tree of Life]

BTW, you might be easy on this one if you're the counselor in the above story. If he somehow magically confesses his guilt, you've narrowed him down quite a bit in terms of confidentiality concerns.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

 

[Received]

Are you the counselor?

 

[Tree of Life]

Always an ethical difficulty. In Texas you're required to break confidentiality only with the possibility of imminent risk to another person from the client, not anything he's done in the past. What if the client is lying? Then you risk breaking confidentiality and getting sued because he blows smoke.

There is something known as the priest/penitent privilege. Clergy are not legally obliged to report crimes confessed to them by the penitent.

 

[Tree of Life]

Are you the counselor?

One of them.

 

[Received]

One of them.

Well what I'm saying is that if the guy does confess his guilt, then because of what you've written here the few people here know who this guy (provided you mention where you're from, maybe a few other small details at other places on this site) could be. Much like if I work in a small community and say I worked with a Hispanic who is visually impaired. You know, not making it obvious but definitely making it on a narrower list.

Sounds like an interesting case. Didn't know you were a shrink. Any specialty?

 

[Tree of Life]

Well what I'm saying is that if the guy does confess his guilt, then because of what you've written here the few people here know who this guy (provided you mention where you're from, maybe a few other small details at other places on this site) could be. Much like if I work in a small community and say I worked with a Hispanic who is visually impaired. You know, not making it obvious but definitely making it on a narrower list.

Sounds like an interesting case. Didn't know you were a shrink. Any specialty?

I did remove my location from my profile after you mentioned that. I think it unlikely that anyone here will ever know any important details about this situation. But just saying - guilt is real and sometimes the feeling that we deserve some kind of punishment is accurate. It shouldn't always be dismissed.

I'm not a shrink. I'm a pastor.

 

[TillICollapse]

I don't think a person's feelings of guilt can accurately help them to understand what levels of justice and consequence are necessary to "right their wrongs" or make restitution. Mostly because I believe guilt is selfish and self centered. A person seeking to alleviate their feelings of guilt, is arguably focused on just that: their own feelings of guilt, and alleviating them. Now, those feelings may help drive them to the path of taking responsibility for their actions, so I'm not saying it's worthless. But feelings of guilt in and of itself is still blinding, imo.

I don't typically see the "overcorrection" as over-correction, rather, I see it as over-compensating. Most guilt, at least in my experience, involves a person's own view of themselves ... how what they have done or haven't done, makes them view their own self. It has little to do with any consequences that may effect others, or events that may effect others. It has to do with how their own choices will effect themselves, and this causes "guilt" over their choices. Thus, they may try to over compensate by making a "deal" ... agreeing to some form of self punishment, or self abuse, to compensate for some aspect of themselves they wish they didn't feel guilty about. The guilt is there not because of the action, but because of the consequences they don't want to face, or an image of themselves they don't want to see as being there. So forms of self abasing, may often times just be overcompensating. The temporary alleviation of such guilt, is also often to elicit sympathy from others. "I hate myself so much, I deserve to die." "No you don't ... no one is perfect. This guilt isn't something you should feel," etc and so forth. It never gets alleviated long term, because it's focused on the wrong thing: the self. So long as that happens, taking responsibility for one's actions (the path that leads to justice, restitution, etc) is still diverted, time and again, and overcompensated for with self abasing, self prescribed punishments, sympathy eliciting, etc.

I mean, I'm thinking out-loud here.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I dont agree with punishment, except if thats all that will reform people. "Throw the book at him" means the authorities dont read enough.

 

[Inkfingers]

what do clients mean when they say they should be punished?

That they have turned their disdain for their victim onto themselves?

Punishment looks too much to the ill that was done than to the good that can come, and by doing so partakes of the same poison that caused the crime to begin with; a lack of loving recognition of the nature of things.

Don't mistake this for any kind of soppy hug-a-hoodie liberalism though, as I will kill in self-defence or defence of others, and imprisoning people to protect others (and to force a "time-out" in which they can receive a better education that may help them in the future) is right and good. It's just a recognition that, in a universe governed by cause and effect, blame and punishment are a view from ignorance not from knowledge. Act to defend, act to reform, but if you act to punish you are as much igorant as the person you are punishing.

It's easy to forget this though; "Anger, fear, aggression; the dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight".....to borrow from a movie.

 

[quatona]

Say you have a person who says -- and this happens, and I've seen it repeatedly -- that she deserves to be punished, abused, whatever. Does she have the right to be abused?

If you hold "justice" for a value, she has the "right" to be punished, but not the right to be abused. I can´t make sense of "a right to be abused". Does that mean she can demand from me that I abuse her, and to refusal to comply would be unethical? Something like that?
Then again, I don´t even seem to have a clear idea what you mean when saying "a right", anyway.

 

[quatona]

Btw, the connection between the thread title and your OP question escapes me completely.

 

[bhsmte]

Always an ethical difficulty. In Texas you're required to break confidentiality only with the possibility of imminent risk to another person from the client, not anything he's done in the past. What if the client is lying? Then you risk breaking confidentiality and getting sued because he blows smoke.

I believe most states are very similar to this, in regards to mental health professionals and confidentiality.

 

[Tinker Grey]

S&M Relationship

[bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]: Punish me!
Sadist: No.

 

[Received]

If you hold "justice" for a value, she has the "right" to be punished, but not the right to be abused. I can´t make sense of "a right to be abused". Does that mean she can demand from me that I abuse her, and to refusal to comply would be unethical? Something like that?
Then again, I don´t even seem to have a clear idea what you mean when saying "a right", anyway.

Gah, this is complicated, because who's to say you can't have the "right" to hold contradictory things, and if you don't (have the right to hold contradictory things), then your distinction in the first sentence doesn't hold?

"Right of the abused" means this person has the right to be abused if she prefers it. The refusal to comply wouldn't be, er, unethical, I think, uhhh -- maybe because "ethics" implies a corporate sense of what constitutes personal becoming (with or without regard to others, which is what morals is about). But if you understand ethics as a potentially personal thing ("my own ethic"), then you could technically say that insofar as the person believes being abused is a good (ethical) thing, the degree to which she doesn't fulfill this means she isn't ethical. You made it complicated.

I don't really know what rights are either, other than the implicit sense of how people use them.