It's weird that you couldn't help your clients there in the room. Can't be the first time you as a counsellor have heard "why me?". Most other counsellors seem to do OK without an internet forum.

so they are reading this?

to the couple in question - I hope you have taken the comments about pursuing IVF and that being maybe the cause of your child getting leukemia with a pinch of salt. Children are conceived all over the world in various situations, many situations which could be worse for the embryo than with IVF

I am so so sorry for your loss. I think the consensus is that unfortunately sh!t just happens to people whether those people are good or bad and is there such a thing (as others have pointed out) as good and bad people? I think we are all born good - it's what life throws at us that can turn people bad.

oups, oups and oups. I wonder how many feel like being totally screwed now or like needing a drinking session therapy. totally idiotic tactic.

then why didn't they post about it themselves?

i think this thread should be closed or a new thread about IVF started as it's just focusing on this issue now anyways....

I'm not being funny but shouldn't you have informed us in your original post that you intended to use the response material in one of your sessions?

I agree, this thread is becoming ethically difficult to judge and should probably be closed.

Alright, while from the standpoint of looking at the professional, you may have a little something BUT from looking at the grieving couple, I think you're way off base.

While the therapist I saw after my miscarriage did not (to my knowledge) share my information on the internet, she DID encourage me to seek out other expats in whatever ways I could, including encouraging me to get involved in Centre Point (which I still have not done) and supporting my decision to watch someone's dog as well as get involved with Angela's D&D group.

The thing is, when people are grieving, ESPECIALLY "cut off" from family as many of us are here, we need to take words of wisdom, hope and encouragement where we can find it. It is possible that the couple in question are members of EF already but did not feel confident that they could discuss such a painful and personal issue themselves and thus allowed the OP to present the case as she has done to sort of feel-out what members may be most likely to be comforting presences in their lives.

I have let bits and pieces of my experience out and have received some words of encouragement, both openly and in PMs... meanwhile, others who have had painful experiences have not been so warmly treated. Plenty of folks going through divorce, cheating spouses, misbehaving and sick children have gotten plenty of judgmental commentary... Perhaps the couple in question is in too unsteady a state to "risk" that right now...

When something so sad happens, it is not ours to say how someone else gets through the pain, it is only ours to offer words of comfort and encouragement... or stfu.

Yup. I'm not normally for closing threads, but this one is an ethical train wreck.

It's wrong on so many levels, I've run out of fingers to count them.

Yes but critically this isn't them. It's their counsellor.

If it was a grieving couple looking for advice, great - let's all give them advice, which may include going to a counsellor. But this is a professional counsellor posting about the problems of others on a public forum, and the days later saying that the therapy patients a actually reading this. I find this delayed disclosure terribly unfair to everyone who posted on this thread and shockingly unprofessional on the part of the OP.

OK I am going to close this thread. It was wrong on so many levels.

OP I think you got some answers but unfortunately I think the couple in question have likely read stuff that the authors on here would not have said if they knew they were reading.

Really the question 'why do bad things happen to good people' is a silly question. There is no answer is there? there is never going to be an answer. As a counselor I would have thought this a bad tact to take with your clients trying to figure out why. Surely as a counselor your job is to help them over come the process not try and answer impossible questions

To the couple in question - I think you'd be surprised if you came on here and told your own story, I think PegA has a point that it might have been an intimidating prospect but I actually think you would get a lot of support from the members

Nicky

Then the problem isn't about confidentiality. It's about judgement.

But....
If the clients say, ok, talk about us, then is it really poor judgment? I admit that was my first concern when I read the initial post last night. The OP should have said from the start that her clients did approve, and maybe that they were interested in what others thought, but didn't want to deal with the crap themselves. Given the thread, and some of the responses, I think that might have been a wise choice.

And perhaps the OP assumed that as a professional, others would not assume that she was taking this information and just blabbing it on the internet.

Of course assume makes an a$$ out of you and me, doesn't it?

At any rate, it was an interesting discussion. I'm sorry the discussion couldn't continue - I thought that people were doing a reasonable job policing themselves... but that's life.

Obviously yes.
The counsellor obviously brought up the topic (or else how would they know about the forum). These are vulnerable people and in my opinion the duty of care assumed by the professional covers decision making of the patient in an instance like this.

Actually, we don't know how the topic was raised, and it's really not our business. But, if you were my therapist, I would fire you for such a patronizing attitude. No therapist would make such decisions for me. Therapists guide, suggest treament modalities, help patients reframe situations, but patients still have autonomy insofar as decisions are made.