Please Pass the Kleenex

Jeff Levy, LCSW
(originally posted on Branching Out: The Live Oak Blog, June 2014)

Last week in the graduate social work class I am teaching, we had a conversation arise about whether it was acceptable to offer a client a box of Kleenex when they are crying.  One supervisor had told a student not to offer Kleenex because in an implicit way, it conveyed that crying was not ok, or at a minimum, the crying should stop. Another student shared she had received the opposite instruction, and that the offering of Kleenex displayed an empathic connection.  So many considerations for the small act of pushing a Kleenex box closer to a client.
 
Every time I teach a graduate course in social work, the topic of crying during sessions comes up.  In most instances, however, it’s not about what to do when clients cry that people want to talk about.  My students, and many of the therapists I supervise or with whom I consult, want to know what to do when they are crying—or how to handle it if a time arises when they find themselves crying in front of a client or with a client.

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