Nobody Puts Baby in a Pigeonhole!
Mother, friend, partner, coworker, best friend, housemate, boyfriend, patient, supervisor, boss, brother, doctor, client, the list goes on.
The number of names I have for people in my life is truly staggering.
Sometimes these names have power – for example, the patient/healthcare professional dynamic is important, in terms of trust, professionalism and the implicit knowledge gradient that it encapsulated.
Without the distinction between patient and healthcare professional, care is essentially impossible. I wouldn’t tell a guy on the street about the intimate details of my home life, but I expect it from my patients and clients, to a certain extent, every time I walk in through the doors of a clinic.
The name implies a pattern of interaction – pleasantries, history, evaluation, recommendation, implementation, farewell. Lather, rinse, repeat, for every monthly, yearly, n-ly appointment from here until the end of time.
Aside from the obvious benefits of expected patterns of interaction, the name also implies an obligation towards care. If I don’t want to be there, the name of ‘healthcare professional’ obliges me to be there, providing care and supporting my patient to the best of my ability.
However, this pattern of behaviour, while useful, has the fundamental drawback that it locks two people into a cycle that one of both may dislike or find unhelpful.
In healthcare, the advantages often seem to outweigh the disadvantages – and, indeed, a sizeable amount of research and development time has gone into ensuring that patient-healthcare worker interactions are useful and productive.
In more general interpersonal relationships, however, the question has to be asked – how much does this name reflect the relationship as it is, how much does it reflect the relationship as I’d like it to be, and how much difference is there between the two?
Particularly in complex, multicategorical relationships, are names or categories helpful or restrictive? Is it more useful to treat this person as my friend or my mother, particularly in a situation where different aspects of those two categories are coming to the fore? Is this person my coworker or my friend? What makes this person a boyfriend/girlfriend over a friend (besides the obvious physical aspects of an intimate relationship)?
Indeed, is the distinction necessary? I wonder whether we would be better off focussing not on what we should do, but on why we want to do – behaving in a manner that reflects that particular person, and the individual relationship that we have with them.
No rules. No labels. No holds barred.
No worries, mate!