Guideline Reminder: Giving Advice

[Kizzie]

Hi Everyone:

Every once in a while when I notice a trend in not observing a certain guideline I will post a reminder.  I am seeing a tendency for giving advice rather than making suggestions so I am posting a gentle reminder to encourage members to follow our guideline about this.

The difference between giving advice and making a suggestion is saying for example, Giving advice = "You need to do this or that" versus "What about trying XXXX or XXXX?   I did this in a similar situation and it worked well for me."

Or,

"You are dissociating and you should .........."  versus "It may be that what you are experiencing is dissociation meaning you 'go away emotionally' basically so you don't have to experience difficult feelings.  I would dissociate when XXXXXXXX happened and here's what I did to help myself - XXXXXXXXX.  There are some resources here --links --- if you want to have a look and see if that's what you might be experiencing and what you might do about it."

We are passing along our lived experience which we are well qualified to do, but we are not qualified to give therapy or counseling.

Here is the actual section in our Member Guidelines (http://outofthefog.net/C-PTSD/forum/index.php?topic=1616.0):

Giving/Receiving Advice

While we encourage members to support and encourage others in theirs recovery, it is important to remember that we are each here to work on our own recovery first and foremost.  Many of us with CPTSD have been trained to be caretakers and recovery for us involves resisting the temptation to do so here at OOTS.   

Feel free to share how you have dealt/coped with various situations and to make suggestions (as long as they are phrased as such) - that's the purpose of this forum, but please don't make blanket statements like "You *should* do this and that" based on what you think and/or have read in the resources about CPTSD.  Another person's situation may be very different from yours.  Often, people need to come to their own conclusions in their own time frame. We are all coming from different stages, situations, and backgrounds. 

If a pattern of giving too much advice to others and not focusing on one's own recovery is noted, the member will be warned and if the behaviour persists, possibly banned.