My Therapeutic Bias

As a therapist, my job is to provide a place where people can feel accepted for who they are. I am supposed to "check my biases at the door" in order to empower my clients to make their own decisions.

I have learned to remain calm and impartial when students have told me about selling marijuana to 6th graders (he was a Senior), stealing car stereos for fun, and blackmailing parents for ransom money. Recently, I have sincerely made each of the following statements without any sarcasm or irony:

"So even though your boyfriend has given you STD's four different times, you still do not want to have protected sex with him."
"What I hear you saying is that graduating from high school is not as important to you as owning a gun."
"Oh, I am so sorry that your 14-year-old girlfriend had a miscarriage. That must be really hard for you."

But there is one thing that I can not accept. One thing that makes it almost impossible for me to work with a client. One thing that evokes all my prejudices and biases:

adolescent male mustache hair.

I'm talking about those long thin wispy dark hairs on the upper lip. The ones that look like they belong on the leg of a 13-year-old girl. This is not a statement against full-grown man mustaches; my beloved grandfather has had an attractive one his entire life. I am coming down against boys who are in denial about their ability to grow a real mustache and no one has told them that the pubescent beginnings of one are just gross.

My teenage brother Steven grew a mustache once - ironically. We made the above video as a joke. Unless you are purposefully trying to be ridiculous, this should not be done.

When I talk to the boys in question, I feel like a man talking to a woman who is purposefully trying to avoid looking at her chest: I purposefully try to avoid looking at their upper lip by maintaining strict eye contact. The problem is that instead of focusing on what they are saying, I am focusing on not looking at their face. When I do accidentally glance at it, I have to focus on not gagging. This is not an effective approach to creating a strong therapeutic bond. 

If I am going to provide meaningful counseling to these boys, I am going to have to figure this out. I can not let whiskers effect how I feel about them! I can not let personal grooming keep me from being able to create a safe and accepting environment!

I think I am going to start keeping a basket of free disposable razors in my office.