Received a strange request in the post

[tmreunion]

I received a letter yesterday in the post to the 'current owner'.

We bought our house 15 years ago from a normal family - mum, dad, teenage daughter and younger son. Been very happy here.

I received a letter which reads -

'Dear current owner,

This is a very odd request and I completely understand and respect if you do not feel comfortable with this and therefore, there is no need to respond if that is the case.

I grew up in, what is now, your home. I experienced a lot of trauma in the home and have been working through this for the last few years. I was wondering if I would be able to come and see the house again, as part of my healing. This was suggested to me by my therapist and I feel it would be beneficial. However, as stated, I understand this is an unusual request and my healing is of no importance to a perfect stranger, so please do not feel pressured to agree to this.

If you were to kindly allow this, I would of course expect to be accompanied round the house and this would take no more than ten minutes.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter and if you would like to contact me my name is 'name' - 'contact number'. If not, I wish you and your family well.

Best wishes,

Name'

I added the number and it is indeed the teenage daughter who was part of the family we bought the house from. She is now in her 30s. I feel really odd about it and almost distrustful. I also don't like the thought that she experienced trauma in our home, almost like she's trying to taint it.

My husband thinks that although it's odd, she is clearly doing some inner work and why wouldn't we help someone who is in need?

What do you think? WIBU to ignore or should I text and feel it out from there?

Well, i suppose nobody knows there alright. I just doubt there'd be a drama. i'm coming at it from my own POV of visiting my own childhood home. I think i'd be emotional, but not psychopathic ;)

I’m a CBT therapist and treat people with PTSD. It can be a normal part of therapy to revisit where the traumatic event happened. This allows the brain to process the memory. If you feel able to facilitate this then it would be a really value part of this person’s recovery.

How incredibly brave of her to write to you. You’ve found out she’s legitimate, so she’s not there to case the place. I’d let her walk around alone if it were me. She’ll just want to stand in the rooms, remember, let it go. It may be the key to her healing; how wonderful if your generosity could play a part in that. I think you’ve been given an amazing opportunity to be a good person.

I understand revisiting the site. However, when it involves going into a stranger's house?

Can I ask why that would be good advice in this instance, outweighing the risks? It also makes part of her recovery incumbent upon a stranger. What if they say no, leave her hanging, or worse, act in an unsympathetic way, even an abusive way?

Wouldn't 'look at the outside of the house' or 'sit in the park you frequented as a child' be safer and more solid advice?

If this comes up as part of your practice I'm not sure you should encourage it so literally.

As a therapist, do you believe that the right way to facilitate such intensive therapy is for the patient/client to directly contact a stranger who now lives at the site of their trauma? Are there ethical/professional guidelines that address this?

Do you think there should be any risk assessments?

Do you think it is appropriate that they enter a strangers home and process this trauma alone, without any support?

How would you minimise potential harm happening to either party during this meeting, if you were to recommend it?

I linked to the paper to demonstrate that this is a normal and helpful part of trauma processing for the benefit fo those wgo felt it was a fake request as no-one would ever make that request and it would not be part of therapy. It's easy enough to revisit a public place. If it's somewhere private, all you can do is write a respectul letter, explaining the context and making the request. Knowing you may get no reply or a no. Which is exactly what the letter writer has done. Most replies have been positive and most advice to OP has been 'yes sure, why not help her'. So despite the hositlity and negativity of some, it is still worth asking. Most people do agree! And those who are horrified and apalled and think it's terrible and would feel totally freaked out by the request, well fair ebough. Say no or bin the letter. But most people don't feel that way. As this thread shows,

ETA the therapist has suggested it, so I am assuming the therapist is the person doing the accompanying. And that there has been huge amount of successful imaginal exposure already and revisting of other places linked to trauma. So this is the final step in a lengthy process and very carefully risk assessed by the therapist before she reommendef the person write the letter. Site visits are usually the final step.

How is it risk assessed if it is a stranger's home though? I'm not suggesting all people are dangerous or unkind, far from it. But some are. It's the risk/ benefit balance that I'm interested in from the perspective of the therapist and their ethical code. How is this calculated if neither they nor the patient knows who will be present or what they may be like?

So surely the writer would have put "I expect myself and my therapist to be accompanied" no?

Jem7474, you are a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Trauma Specialist, I am a researcher.

I care about ethics, I care about my participants, so I’m surprised that you would dismiss someone raising concerns about the safety of a vulnerable person as hostile and negative.

The paper you linked to describes very different scenarios from the one that is presented here. It describes therapist lead treatment at specific sites, not a patient attending a strangers house alone (which was what the letter specifically requested). It shouldn't be used as a reason for the OP to accept this proposal.

For me it was very hard, I didn’t walk around sobbing but I struggled to be there, felt incredibly vulnerable. I held it together while inside. I had someone that I trusted with me. To others I probably just looked a bit odd.

I took less than 10 minutes because for me it was to say that I’m not scared anymore which was powerful (but probably looked ridiculous).

To be honest, although it appears in multiple flashbacks and nightmares the place didn’t mean anything, I felt no connection. That was probably the most helpful part, it was just bricks and mortar.

We were taken to parts of the place although others were off limits and some I couldn’t face.
Mine wasn’t someone’s home so it is very different.

Everyone is different. Who knows how she might react.

I would let her visit - with her therapist. To those saying meet her for a cuppa to suss her out first, she isn't wanting to meet you, she's wanting to visit the house so that's a ridiculous suggestion. Either let her visit or ignore. I personally would let her visit with her therapist, but make it clear you don't want to know any details as its your happy home now.

I think it’s genuine but I have never heard of this as a way to resolve trauma. I’d ask to speak to the therapist to understand why the therapist has suggested this.

How do you know what they are doing in the bedroom etc.

But it's none of your business and not for you to get involved in. Also confidential so therapist wouldn't tell you anything. If you had any doubts at all, you just give a hard no.

Read my comment. I am not asking what the trauma is. I am asking that the therapist explain the theory why it would be helpful. Eg Is it CBT based?

I would absolutely let her. Houses are full of memories and experiences, good and bad and she needs help to move on from her demons. You could help her.

I did read it and understood what you meant. You wouldn't need to know if it would be helpful to her or not, it's not something you would need to have any part in.

According to the two peer-reviewed research papers linked upthread, it is CBT-based. And the papers also give an indication that it's potentially a helpful form of therapy under this particular style of therapy.

What neither of them does is to tackle the ethical issue of recommending a client contacts owners of a private residence, of the risk-assessment procedures surrounding this recommendation for particularly vulnerable clients, nor explain what variables or practicalities are put in place to help them. They also don't tackle the associated risks for the owner of the residence, the therapist's ethical responsibility (which they do have, since they've decided to involve those completely unqualified, arbitrary bystanders in their clients' therapy), nor taken into account any potential negative consequences for either the owner of the residence or their own client.

When I asked those purporting to be therapists above why they'd immediately responded to the OP's question in the affirmative, without taking into account such rudimentary issues as these, not one of them could answer.

After I put one under pressure to do so - because that poster had asked me to explain myself for having challenged the ethics of her practice - she doubled down. I did explain. Having then found herself backed into a corner, she then informed me that what she said was not in fact what she meant, but it was all too complicated to unpick so she'd no longer be responding to my posts.

Quel surprise, eh?

It actually frightens me that people like this claim to have responsibility for traumatised clients. Not least, that they would glibly dish out what is IMO risky and ill-advised information to random strangers on the internet. However, they're apparently happy to advise their clients to contact random strangers IRL, in their own space, and without taking serious ethical issues as outlined above into account. I mean. Seriously, WTF?

I worked for two years with a professional psychotherapist who was nothing like this. He was in private practice, having become disillusioned with NHS policy on this, and he had little faith in CBT to begin with. His view was that this was designed for use in controlled environments with specific groups of trauma victims, that it was never intended as a 'catch-all' to treat any trauma as a go-to therapy, and that, in his view, when used outside its intended parameters it was ineffective.

I'm not competent or qualified to give an opinion on this view. All I can say is EMDR therapy was so effective with me that it's reduced my cPTSD to an incidental issue that no longer affects me, and that the therapist who helped me IS an eminent professional - a researcher in this field who attended key conferences and knew what he was talking about.

Lucky some people are, as this thread could be very offputting to those potentially seeking therapy otherwise.

Interesting… I think I would always look at my house differently knowing that bad things have happened there. That’s why I personally couldn’t buy a flat in what had formerly been a Victorian mental asylum or workhouse. The knowledge of the pain and suffering that had occurred there would spoil my enjoyment of the house. I personally don’t think the person should have told the OP that she was severely traumatised in their house. I think that for a sensitive person it could well impact on the perception of the house.

But the OP, were this a real situation which had actually come about, would be involved. It's her house. She'd have been roped into the therapy by definition as it's her space, apparently without any practicalities put in place for the protection of a traumatised woman, nor for the protection of the OP herself as home owner. Morally, if a therapist is choosing to advise her client to involve total strangers who are uninvolved with them and with the therapy, then they do have an ethical responsibility to that home owner as well as to their client. There should be a clear plan as to how this situation should be managed to minimise risk (this at least is in the first peer-reviewed paper, although nowhere does it make reference to private residences).

Some of those claiming to be therapists posting on this thread are clearly ignoring this. Their stance is 'dr knows best'. They really don't like their perceived authority being questioned, to the point that they interpret any such questioning as 'negativity and hostility', and treat serious ethical issues as a mere inconvenience which others have no business asking them about. Meantime, they're advising random strangers on the www to invite tramua clients in, give them a cup of tea and a biscuit, telling them such behaviour is beneficial, and informing them that helping others with their trauma is a chance to be kind and do a good thing. All the while they simply assume that the world is a kind, altruistic place and what could possibly go wrong?

Fucking hell. Where do you even start with this? Ethical practices are important. They're there for everyone's protection. It's really not often a MN thread or anyone posting on it still has the power to leave me incredulous these days, but this one's a clincher.

It won’t help her. It’s your home.
id either ignore it or respectfully decline and wish her well.

I would definitely help her on her recovery journey but if it’s going to make you uncomfortable in your home then you’re entirely ok to not consider helping. She’s a stranger and you don’t owe her anything but I personally would want to help her.

I think it’s an unusual and rare request- however… what real harm would allowing her to have a quick whizz round what used to be her home? It will make no great difference to your life… but could help give her the closure and end suffering in her mind. I think it’d be very kind to seriously consider allowing her over. You wouldn’t be unreasonable if you didn’t allow her but I think it would be fair to say you lack compassion.

I think she’s not trying to do anything except heal. And I think she’s being exceptionally brave to contemplate this and to approach you about it. I have huge respect for her. I’m not sure I could face the demons from my past, and absolutely not accompanied by a perfect stranger. She sounds an exceptional person.
I would allow her and I would allow her to go unaccompanied. I wouldn’t want to impinge on her trauma and healing.