Bartering For Therapy
by Garry Cooper, LCSW
John, many years ago when I was just hanging out my shingle, I made a financially dumb but emotionally rewarding career move: I marketed myself as a therapist who worked with creatively blocked writers and artists. Blocked artists and writers weren’t exactly rolling in cash, and so they couldn’t really afford to see a therapist. But I loved the work and really believed in the value of what I was doing, not just for the artists but for all of society. We didn’t need, and still don’t need, one more trader or financial advisor in this country, but we always need more writers and artists. So every now and then, I traded my services for artwork. (Writers, I’m afraid, were out of luck. They really didn’t have anything they could give me, except an occasional chapbook of poetry with a market value of maybe five bucks)
So, was my bartering a dual relationship, a boundary violation, or good, humane therapy?
New to private practice, I imagined my last two supervisors, one sitting on each of my shoulders, giving me conflicting indirect advice. “A therapist is a prostitute,” one often told me. “We’re merely objects for our clients. They project whatever they want onto us, who we really are doesn’t matter one bit to them, and we have to put our own needs and feelings completely aside in service to them.” I took that as a kind of permission to barter. Hell, as long as I was a prostitute, what difference did it make whether I got cash or a painting? My other supervisor believed that Codes of Ethics were written in stone and that therapy was exactly this-and-that and never the other. Barter and burn in hell, she might have said. Taking paintings opened Pandora’s Box of Transference.
But I knew that my clients’ paintings were inextricably tied into their self-esteem and identity and that they felt they were giving me something of great value. It could only help therapy if I expressed a genuine willingness to accept their artwork in lieu of money. I was as grateful for their artwork, valued it at least as much, if not more than, money, even during some of my lean financial times. My accepting their artwork helped them believe in themselves, in their art, and in the possibility that they could make their way in the world through their powers of creation—pretty healthy things for artists to believe in, especially when they’re struggling with creative blocks.
Ofer Zur, who says terrific things about the difference between boundary crossings and boundary violations, is an eloquent advocate of bartering. In his online article he lists the justifications and benefits, as well as pointing out how to barter ethically, responsibly and within the structure of therapy, and any therapist who considers bartering should check out his guidelines. . I’ve summarized him in the November/December Psychotherapy Networker .
You and I have talked about Zur’s comments on the use of touch in therapy and many of the same points apply to bartering. Therapists who refuse to consider bartering, I believe, are too concerned with outdated notions of what therapy is, too concerned with covering themselves legally, and too afraid to fully engage their clients on a more level playing field.
Last year I heard from one of my first clients, who’d originally contacted me because he’d stopped painting. I hadn’t heard from him in over twenty years. It was just a brief note, telling me that he was exhibiting his artwork in another city. Twenty years later, and he’s still creating. And I still have one of his paintings hanging on my office wall.
Garry Cooper, LCSW is a therapist and writing coach in private practice. His “Clinician’s Digest” column for the national magazine Psychotherapy Networker, covers the latest news and research in mental health and psychotherapy. Visit his website Psychology Trends. He can be contacted at garry@psychjourney.com
