The Junk in the Driveway - A reflection on Dual Relationships

I’ve been thinking a lot about conflicts of interests, boundaries and dual relationships lately.

This wasn’t actually prompted by the appalling abuses of power we have seen in news headlines in the past few months (and, what a long list we could make…) of people in positions of trust or influence who violated some fundamental rules about power dynamics and respect.

And it wasn’t really triggered by questions I regularly get from new professionals in health care or the legal system, as they try to sort out the grey zones in their Codes of Conduct between what is right and what is wrong when we engage with other human beings: maybe get closer to our clients emotionally, or know of something that could really help them out but is a breech of the rules we are governed by. Or we find something out in our work that has an impact on another aspect of our lives but we are bound by confidentiality.

No, this all started with a pile of junk blocking a driveway.

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