Should a Teacher Date a Student in the Yoga World/Spiritual World

There are various opinions and guidelines, and I thought to share my own here. Without writing a book or extra long article, I want to mention some key concepts in this discussion: boundaries, safe container, transference and counter-transference, dual relationships, power dynamics, exploitation and abuse, trauma, time after teacher-student relationship, training, supervision or oversight, and community.

Some people say that a teacher and student should never date or have an intimate relationship and apply the same criteria as mental health practitioners onto teachers. Teachers are not mental health practitioners, do not have the same training, do not do the same type of work, and have a different purpose. First let’s summarize why mental health professions have such a hard line of not having and intimate relationship with their clients before we look at Yoga teachers.

In the early part of the 1900’s when modern psychology was developing, there were not rules for therapists to not have sex with their clients. What we have learned is that when people go into a therapeutic environment with a practitioner, they open up their private inner world. This creates an intimacy that can quickly become sexual between two sexually active human beings. People who are more aware of this situation, will not feel safe to open up to their therapist. By using clear and discerned boundaries to create a space where the client knows that there will not be any sexual or other intimate relationship, it gives them the safe container to explore their inner world and issues with the therapist. Safe space is part of the healing process [please read about attachment theory for more on this]. When these boundaries are broken, and the client is left feeling betrayed, violated and otherwise unsafe by someone they trusted, they often suffer worse than without the therapy. Therefore, in the mental health field, intimacy with one’s client is seen as causing the client harm. The therapist is the responsible person in the relationship and it is their professional duty to protect and help their client.

[Note: Feeling uncomfortable does not mean one is unsafe. Feeling uncomfortable spaces is sometimes needed for growth. Experiencing unsafe feelings even in a therapeutic environment can trigger those with trauma.]

One of Freud’s most beneficial contributions to psychology was the explicit understanding of transference. This is the understanding that the client will project (transfer) past relationships onto the therapist relationship. This is used in a beneficial way by the therapist to be able to understand how a person understands social interactions, interacts with others, and where they need help in healing their inner world. Sexual transference happens when the client, upon feeling so deeply seen by the therapist, projects an intimate relationship and feels like they are in love with the therapist. These feelings are natural, most relationship people have are filled with their projections of what they think a person is more than what the person may actually be like. These projections can be used beneficially by a skilled therapist to help a client understand their tendencies in relationship. They can be an issue in the therapeutic relationship when they are reciprocated and violate boundaries (as mentioned above).  Countertransference is when a therapist projects another relationship onto the client. If the client is an older woman, and the therapist starts to treat her like their mother, with all the positive or negative elements associated with this relationship, then this can disrupt the clarity of the relationship. A therapist can project intimate feelings on the client as any other feelings, and a therapist is trained to recognize these and deal with them in a supervised environment outside the client-therapist environment so that they do not disturb the safety of the healing environment.  

When someone is our lover, then that is their relationship to us. When someone is a client, then that is their single relationship to us. Dual Relationship means that we are engaging in more than one type of relationship, such as lover and business partner, or boss and friend. Therapists avoid having a dual relationship with their clients to avoid any conflict of interest based on the other relationship. I often caution friends and lovers from creating dual relationships going into business together, which can sometimes create various types of conflict. That conflict can be worse in the therapist-client relationship as it can create an unsafe environment through conflicts of interest.  

Power dynamics will exist in any environment that you have someone holding a position that is more powerful than yours. This happens when people go to a doctor, they feel like the doctor has more say than themselves. In psychology, the therapist is seen to know more about what is happening inside than yourself. Having an intimate or sexual relationship when there is a power dynamic questions of the free consent of the person with less power. Because of the need to have a safe container, avoid transference and countertransference and the unavoidability of the disambiguation of power dynamics, a therapist is unethical to have a relationship with a past client for at least two years according to the American Psychological Association.[1] Yoga Alliance recommends 3 months for a yoga teacher-student relationship. Some say that it is never ethical as the power differential will always exists. Others say that it is narcissistic to think that the power differential remains between a teacher and the student after some time, and to believe that this power dynamic can’t change is extreme. My opinion is that there are very different teaching situations and they need to be evaluated according to particular circumstances.

The biggest issue that comes with power dynamics is the potential for exploitation of the individual who has less power. There are overt situations where the person holding the power explicitly holds it over the other, such as not giving a good great without a sexual favor. There are also other times that this dynamic my be unconscious such as the need to please the person in power or fear of the one with less power to say no. Those that take advantage of their position of power exploit those without it and cause them harm. This lack of respect for the other, whether consciously or unconsciously is abuse and leads to trauma. Those with a trauma history are more likely to put themselves into a situation where they are abused by negative power dynamics, exacerbating their trauma and making the situation even more severe. The result of a traumatized individual suffering an abuse will bring up feelings from the event ambiguous with feelings of previous trauma.   

Mental health professions are trained in recognizing these dynamics. Yoga, meditation and other spiritual teachers are often not trained in understanding these dynamics and are therefore less able to understand how their position of power impacts those they teach or advise. Those in the mental health field often have supervisors or support groups that they can discuss issues with and there is an ethical body that has oversight and gives clear guidelines.

For the purpose of context, I have training in western psychology and have been a Vedic councilor (Jyotiṣaka) for 21 years (as of 2019). My clientele includes yoga teachers, meditations teachers, people considered Gurus of hundreds or thousands of people, Lamas, priests, heads of spiritual organizations, psychologists, and others who live within large power dynamics. I have clients who are married and single and in various sorts of relationships. I have clients who have large power differentials, and various levels of ethics.

From my experience, I think the teacher-student line is different than the therapist-client line. A student doesn’t come to teacher and tell them all their most intimate details and have their psyche explored from a vulnerable position, they aren’t putting everything on the table to have their inner world reworked. The power differential exists in both relationships, but the therapist has a completely different responsibility and different access to personal details that require a safe container to be created by having a clear line of no relationship. 

I have seen many good relationships that have arisen from teacher student situations that were based on a common love of the topic of practice. I feel it would be inhuman to deny teachers and students from having a “healthy” consenting relationship, therefore “guidelines” are more important in this context than the hard lines drawn in psychology. I will share how I, personally, advise in these situations.

I personally believe that it is unethical to have sex with students, and very unethical to have multiple sexual relationships with multiple students. This creates an unsafe environment which is fertile to breed exploitation, abuse and trauma.

I think it is ethical for a teacher and student to get to know each other more deeply. This would be dinners, discussions and other activities that allow to people to mutually get to know each other. If a persona is not able to control their sexual appetite, then this can be an issue. But the cultivation of a friendship is a healthy beginning to a relationship outside the teacher-student relationship.

If a friendship is developed, one’s friends and/or parents agree that the two people make a good couple, then I don’t see anything unethical about pursuing a deeper relationship. I like the three-month guideline first used by Yoga Alliance for a teacher-student situation. And I also focus on the social context of the relationship.

The advice and agreeance of social context will vary depending on the field of study. Agreeance of ethical action may be with other teachers in one’s organization, it may be with the community itself, it may be family members only as privacy of personal life is normative, it may be discussion with supervisors or a couples therapist, it may be friends from both sides of the relationship. I place a lot of value on educated humans to support other humans to be kind, caring and ethical, particularly if there is concern for the ethical well-being of those involved. This non-sexual dating time not only protects the student but also protects teachers from false allegations about sexual activities later if either the student becomes disgruntled over other issues. Non-sexual dating time with community/supervisor support and interaction helps protect against some of the issues of projection and blurred boundaries in either the teacher or the student.   

The bottom line is that I support loving healthy relationships. I aim to help people make choices that will create and support loving healthy relationships. I support safety (do no harm) and respect (do not exploit).  

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[1] https://www.apa.org/ethics/code/
10.05 Sexual Intimacies with Current Therapy Clients/Patients
Psychologists do not engage in sexual intimacies with current therapy clients/patients.

10.06 Sexual Intimacies with Relatives or Significant Others of Current Therapy Clients/Patients
Psychologists do not engage in sexual intimacies with individuals they know to be close relatives, guardians, or significant others of current clients/patients. Psychologists do not terminate therapy to circumvent this standard.

10.07 Therapy with Former Sexual Partners
Psychologists do not accept as therapy clients/patients persons with whom they have engaged in sexual intimacies.

10.08 Sexual Intimacies with Former Therapy Clients/Patients
(a) Psychologists do not engage in sexual intimacies with former clients/patients for at least two years after cessation or termination of therapy.

(b) Psychologists do not engage in sexual intimacies with former clients/patients even after a two-year interval except in the most unusual circumstances. Psychologists who engage in such activity after the two years following cessation or termination of therapy and of having no sexual contact with the former client/patient bear the burden of demonstrating that there has been no exploitation, in light of all relevant factors, including (1) the amount of time that has passed since therapy terminated; (2) the nature, duration, and intensity of the therapy; (3) the circumstances of termination; (4) the client's/patient's personal history; (5) the client's/patient's current mental status; (6) the likelihood of adverse impact on the client/patient; and (7) any statements or actions made by the therapist during the course of therapy suggesting or inviting the possibility of a posttermination sexual or romantic relationship with the client/patient. (See also Standard 3.05, Multiple Relationships.)