Paranoia in the helping professions

When are you as a helping professional afraid of engaging and helping someone because of the "gaze" of the criminal justice system?

How risk averse are you when it comes to lending a hand and standing in solidarity with someone in the minority?

Tim Snyder in his book, On Tyranny, calls it "Anticipatory obedience."

Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.

Snyder, Timothy. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (p. 17). Crown. Kindle Edition.

It is interesting that we are living in a society where the helpers are afraid to help because of being arrested, sued, and having their careers ruined.

We have created a society in which a person can no longer trust their doctor because the government has entered the patient - doctor encounter and dictated what the doctor can and cannot do.

The Hippocratic oath is “primum non Nocera” which means above all else do no harm, but withholding health care because of fear of governmental prosecution is doing harm and sometimes great harm contributing to death, This is where our society has come to. And the sad thing is that enough of our fellow citizens has voted for it to make it the law of the land.

There is a better way where doctors and patients interaction is confidential and sacred space which can be engaged in without governmental interference except in instances where the doctor harm the patient.