‘Yes, I’ve wondered too,’ was my first response to Kevin Chandler’s article ‘Turning tricks’ on the relationship between prostitution and therapy (Therapy Today, April 2009). Many times, I’ve waited self-consciously to greet a new client, with a sense of the ‘prostitute me’ – that’s to say, as someone selling something a bit ‘seedy’. There’s something here too, about the neediness of both parties, about to engage in an activity that has no witness.

My interest was then distracted by increasing irritation at the author’s insistence on referring to ‘we’ rather than ‘I,’ as in ‘We counsellors and psychotherapists…’ Not until he spoke for himself did I re-engage and start to disagree. First, the prostitute and punter split off sexual activity from the rest of life; the therapist is surely in the business of integration, relating with all parts of him/herself, sexual nature included. 

What’s provided by the therapist, upon which Mr Chandler bases his question about authenticity, is more than the ‘empathic understanding and encouragement’ I might seek in other close personal relationships. The extra, which is not provided by the prostitute either, due to lack of awareness and intent from either or both parties, is the caretaking for the child part of the adult client that s/he asks – maybe knowingly, maybe not – of the therapist in the hope of healing earlier damage. I am clear, in my own intimate relationship, that I can not expect my partner to look after this part of me. This is what I received from my own therapist over a period of six years until I was able to take over full responsibility.

As for the temporariness of this responsibility, which the author presents by his imagined exchange, the therapist knows – as a parent knows and doesn’t say to his child – that the relationship will grow and needs will alter and lessen as the child develops. The therapist holds this knowledge until the client is ready to know it too. Indeed, the work is made of the client’s growing ability to feel held during absence. 

I find, after another read, that my dislike is built on the author’s choice of language, particularly in the final section – his choice of ‘artificial’ over ‘creative’; of ‘trick’ over ‘magic’. With relief I found reference in the last paragraph to transcendence of roles, of the ‘rare and precious’ moments when meaningful relationship make the question of fact or fiction irrelevant.