Abstract
The anonymity of the telephone encourages many to call who would otherwise not come for help. The tentative nature of their reaching out makes it especially important that the volunteers working on the crisis phone service respond as therapeutically as possible.
Three major areas are involved in preparing the volunteer group: non-judgemental response to sexual behaviors and concerns, even when at variance with expected norms: awareness of the dynamics that prompt variations of sexual behaviors; techniques of intervention.
Of special note is the problem of the person who phones to masturbate while talking with the volunteer.
The telephone crisis line can be a helpful adjunct in the fields of both sex education and sex therapy. For this to be the case, however, the individuals who respond to the callers with sex problems, need to be carefully selected, rigorously trained, and appropriately supervised and sustained. Particularly in the instance of contact with the telephone masturbator, the volunteers need help in learning to respond rather than to react.
Telephone calls to “hot lines” cover a wide range of issues, even in the instance of crisis lines that choose to “specialize” in a given area. Only a sample aspect of the overall role of telephone work will be dealt with in this article, however.