I'm back

I've had a bit of a break from blogging lately.  For two reasons:

The first reason is that I have been very busy.  Juggling three jobs is taking up more than all of my time at the moment.  I am currently waiting for the first paychecks for my two new jobs to come in.  When they do, I am sure the effort will begin to feel like it is worth it.  At the moment, I just feel busy and tired.

The second reason is a bit harder to explain.  I've felt a little bit trapped about what to blog about.  The return to work in my "real" job has seen me having flashbacks to ethics lectures about confidentiality and representing the profession, and on and on and on (that last bit is a little in-joke for any of my fellow alumni).  So, I have been thinking about what would happen if a client of mine (or a supervisor) stumbled across my blog.

There is nothing I have written on my blog that I would not be wililng to stand behind in person.  There is nothing I have said about anyone that I would not say to their face.  That is not my concern. 

I don't think that having a personal blog per se is a breach of any ethical guidelines, as long as I am not talking about work related stuff.  Obviously, I would NEVER discuss details of any of my cases with anyone (online or otherwise) and breach professional boundaries, but some lines are a little blurrier than others.  What if something a client says causes me to reflect on my own circumstance, and then I blog about that similar topic?  I obviously wouldn't preface a post with "I had a client who...", but even so, if they read it, and felt they identified with something, it could get tough. 

My concern is that one of my patients could come across my blog, and misconstrue something as being about them, or triggered by them.  Alternatively, that they might read and feel an unwarranted closeness to me, which could blur boundaries, which need to be there for a whole host of reasons. 

Ultimately, I think I can manage it, I just have to think a lot harder about being a bit more anonymous.  I have gone back and editing some previous posts, mostly removing any potential identifying information and some identifying photos.   My avatar is gone. :-(

I am still happy to give people pics of various things, but I will have to send them via email.

I don't know how far I should go.  Do I take out any references to being a psychologist at all, and go completely cryptic?

It's difficult, because I wanted this blog to be a forum in which I could be open and honest about my current internal self, and I don't want to lose that openness.  I think if I can have the blog in a format where I am less identifiable, it will allow me to keep doing so.  So, ironically, in order to stay in the spotlight, I have to step into the shadows.