Are You a Pillow or a Sponge?

One of the things that brings people to therapy is the tendency to take on other people's problems and anxieties as their own. There is a fine line between human kindness characterized by good listening and friendship and enmeshed caretaking where the helper "absorbs" the pain and suffering of the other. Psychologists call this phenomenon "Secondary Trauma". I like to ask clients if they can be a pillow rather than a sponge. Can you?