Do As They Say
In a first-semester class, the professor said to consider our values and share which clients, if any, we’d be uncomfortable serving.
One classmate said, “gay people,” because he was personally disgusted by them. Another shared that her religious beliefs wouldn’t allow her to serve a client who was considering ending a pregnancy.
The professor thanked them for their honesty, gently reminded them of their duties under the NASW ethics code, but ultimately validated their right to not serve certain clients stating that if they harbored implicit biases, they may do more harm than good.
A year later at my internship, I had weekly one-on-one meetings with a client. She had rejected all the other therapists she had met at the agency. I was told that I was a “perfect fit” for her, but never told why. When I met with the client, everything became clear—but in the worst way possible.
She was a white supremacist, and I’m white. All the other therapists she’d met at the agency were either Latino or African American. When the session ended, I set up a meeting with my on-site supervisor.
I explained to her that I’d been assigned to counsel a white supremacist and that white supremacy was against my core values. As such, I explained, I could not continue working with her because I harbored such a fundamental disgust for her ideology.
I expected that, like those who shared in my first-year class, I would be thanked for my honesty, and the client would be reassigned. This was not the case. The pushback I received was significant, and I was told that I would have to serve her and that it’d be a “learning and growing” experience for me.
I had no choice. If I wanted to keep my internship and complete my required hours, I had to do as they said. It was an incredibly horrific year. Story credit: Reddit / Juliet_Joy