You may recall that a few weeks ago I posted that I had
messed up with an inmate I was working with and allowed them to try to call
someone that they were restricted from contacting. I felt really bad about the situation and
wrote to the inmate to let them know that I wasn’t happy that they had used me
to get around the rules and restriction of the correctional facility. I let the inmate know that I would be happy
to talk to the inmate about any concerns they have over the welfare of their
child.
A few days later I received a return letter from the
inmate asking to speak with me and explain the situation. I was able to call the inmate in, and we did
speak about the legalities of contacting the other parent. As we talked I realized that the inmate
believed, or wanted me to believe, that they were innocent of the child sexual
abuse charges. I asked how they got to
be in prison if they were not guilty and a long story came involving their own
sexual abuse history, post traumatic stress disorder, and lie detector tests.
If the story I was told is true, then it is incredibly
tragic that this person is serving time in prison. I can see how it might have happened, but my
built in bullshit detector was going off as I listened. It got me thinking about lying in counseling
settings. One of the inmates that I meet
with regularly recently apologized to me for a lie that they had told me for
past several months. Another is racked
with guilt about lying about their crime to the other inmates so that they
won’t be hurt. Interestingly, all three
are serving time for crimes against children.
Why would inmates choose to lie to their chaplain or
pastoral counselor? Jeffery Kottlersuggests that people lie to counselors in order to avoid shame, disappointing
the counselor, don’t understand how counseling works, or are living in a
reality of their own making. I would add
that some people lie in order to manipulate their counselor and fulfill a need
for self perceived grandiosity.
Lying in counseling is
such a tricky thing. It can certainly
slow down therapy if the client is honest about what is going on in their
head. While many lies are actually
omissions, they do delay or alter the therapeutic process. Karen Kleimen expressed it well in an article
in Psychology Today.
People
in therapy lie about all kinds of things. It can feel like another form of
self-preservation, but it is a huge impediment. It is at best, a distraction
and at worst, a manipulative deception that will prolong your pain. Lies of
omission will either drastically postpone valuable therapeutic work or it can
totally derail the process.
In a blog post, therapist CindyBlank-Edelman writes about the way that she approaches the issue lying with her
clients. Blank-Edelman takes a
compassionate approach and lets clients know that if they feel like they need
to lie to her that she is OK with wit.
She says, “In my opinion, if clients are lying to me then it points to a
major challenge they face in their lives. For whatever reason, they feel like
they can’t be honest about who they are.”
This may be true in the case of the
inmate who sexually abused their child.
It could be that the pain of acknowledging sexually violating their own
child is too much to bare at this time.
If that is the case, then I don’t see how this inmate can heal their own
traumas and manage to move forward as someone who won’t become a repeat
offender.
I’ve been wondering if knowing an inmate is lying to me
should change the way that I respond to them.
Does someone who lies, perhaps in elaborate ways, revoke their right to
a certain level of compassionate care?
It doesn’t seem like they are, but I also realize that I can set a limit
to what I am willing to listen to. In
my work as a correctional facility chaplain,
it is important that I keep my focus on promoting prosocial skills and
behaviors in the people I work with.
Because of this I feel like the issue of lying takes on a larger
importance.
There are generally thought to be
four types of lies. White lies that are
to spare another’s feelings, beneficial lies that are necessary for the greater
good, deceptive lies that are told to hurt other people, and deceptive lies
that either a creation of false information or withholding of information that
is useful to others. In the case of the inmate who apologized for
the lie that they had been sharing with me in counseling, the lie would fall
under the deceptive lie. The inmate who
wanted me to help them make the inappropriate phone call may also have been
telling me a deceptive lie.
It’s a bit of an odd situation to
not know for sure, but for now I will assume that if it was a lie, that it came
from a place of deep emotional fear and damage, and should be held gently while
the underlying problem is addressed.
Perhaps in time the truth can come forward. I will also question things that don’t make
sense and when I hear inconsistencies in the story.
It should be pointed out that most
of the people I work with do not come in and lie to me. Many come to see a chaplain because they are
in real pain and need someone to share it with and perhaps hold some of it to
help them cope. I am very happy to help
people in these times, and if a lie slips into this time together, it likely
doesn’t affect the quality of our interaction.
The trouble with lying and deceiving
is that their efficiency depends entirely upon
a clear
notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver wishes to hide.
-Hannah Arendt
Sources:
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