If you would like to share your own story of therapist abuse or professional misconduct and be witnessed by the community, you can:
- Post it as a comment on this page
- Submit a longer story for publication by contacting me through the Contact page and arranging to email it to me
Please DO NOT include the real names of the therapists or other parties involved. We want to avoid any potential legal issues that may arise from using people’s real names. Any comments in violation of this may be removed by the moderator.
You can read the following survivor stories by clicking the links.
Kelly’s Story – “Silent No More”
Maria’s Story – “From Charmed to Harmed: The Aftermath of Sexual Exploitation”
Michelle’s Story of Healing – “Reclaiming My Life”
Thank you for having the courage to share your stories!
Hi there,
I was sexually abused by my therapist 2 years ago. I did all the right things. I complained about him to the proper authorities and went through the excrutiating complaint process. In the end they dismissed the complaint because he denied everything and there was not evidence to support my allegations against him. Thats it. That was the end of it. Nothing else. He got to move on while I’ve been living with the hell of what he did to me. I’ve tried very hard to move on and get over it but I can’t. So I’ve decided I’m going to kill myself. I’m going to leave a suicide note explaining that he his the sole reason for why I’ve chosen this path. That this is the only way I can ensure he pays for what he did for the rest of his life. No one cares. So I will make them care.
What occurred to you is so wrong. Your former therapist violated boundaries that never should have been crossed and in doing so violated you, your trust, and the princples of his/ her profession. So you are living with excrutiating pain and it sounds like you have lost hope . I have been there and I am so angered when I hear of the pain that a therapist has caa person who has i he/she has to live with that. Was you complaint to a Medical Board ? A professional association?
I have experienced a similar experience and was abused by a psychiatrist / psychoanalyst for five years . It has taken me years of therapy to recover but I too felt that I could not survive through all the isolation I experienced . This type of betrayal is horrible and the therapist who abused you is a very sick person and sought to have his/ her needs met through you . What was of greatest help to me was the site TELL ( therapist exploitation link line) and formed a relationship with a responder whose support saved me .. There are articles and links that could be useful .
Many well meaning subsequent therapists do not understand all that a victim of therapist abuse suffers . Google “betrayal trauma” there you might find deeper understanding of what you are going through .
Do not allow this fraud to steal your hope away from you .
Seek help from other survivors as our hearts are with you .
God bless you .
Houston , Texas
Hey, do NOT lose your life over this. PLEASE. I’ve been through a similar thing. I know its hell bit your life is the one and only thing no one can take from you. Don’t let someone else rob you of it.
I know its incredibly painful to know this rat is out there, getting away with being evil. But please, use this as something that informs you about the world, and about you. I used to really struggle too, knowing a particular scumbag is out there, getting away with things. But after a while I started to learn that this was a lesson about the world. That there’s not only your former “therapists who’s a bad guy, but others too! And it made me wake up to something in life. The knowledge that there are some truly bad people out there.
But then that shows you how good you are. Think about it, despite all he’s done, look – you’re still you. You’re good. You would never so the things he did. And in a way this really is a reflection, a knowledge of how great you are you’ve encountered real bad and hurt now. Now you can see even more clearly how great and good and nice and kind you are. It’s against great darkness that a light can be seen even clearer, and you’re that light. I don’t want this to sound cheesy but I’m trying to illustrate the idea. He’s evil. You’re good. Keep your life, for you, and don’t worry about that guy much. He has nothing and im sure inside he suffers more than you’d think.
I feel for you.totally.I complained to the medical board and the hospital he worked for and staff there humiliated me, and I hate myself for telling him I wanted to have with him, because I thought he was going to be into it.He controlled my life and made me drop out of college and quit my job.He drugged me up and I went off EVERYTHING cold turkey and he wouldn’t see me anymore as a psychiatrist to help me with the depression and med withdrawals so I started 🚭 cigarettes and got abused by more men.He gave me nothing.No help ,no referrals he laughed in my face.He mafe fun of me
He blamed me for getting hurt.All I wanted was my money back for the therapy he never gave me and for him to admit what he did to me and pay for damages.
llse,
I care. I really do care. And I know others on this site also care about you. What he did is deplorable and the board was wrong in dismissing your case. I am so sorry this happened to you. Have you considered filing a civil suit against him? What about writing negative reviews of his practice? I know thesd are sooo small considering what he did to you. These were just a few that I just came up with. I know you are in a lot of pain but there are other options to make him pay. You are right, this isn’t something that one can “get over” or “move on” from. He has caused a lot of destruction in your life and a lot of chaos. And there is probably a lot of mistrust. Please reach out to a friend, pastor, or the suicide hotline. We do care.
Ilse, I care too. My abuser got away with it as well so I know some of what you are going through. I promise you it will get easier but you have to hang in there until it does. The system doesn’t work, but that’s no reflection on you – you did everything right. You spoke up and did your part. He has to live with the lies he told. Given the choice I would rather be us – telling the truth and sticking up for ourselves, than be him who has hurt someone and now has to live with the lies he told about it. I know it seems like no one cares, but people on here care, and there are others out there who will care.
Ilse, I care too. I also did not get justice. It is very disheartening to go through the cruelties of the system after the cruelty of the abuse. Please do reach out to someone as Kelly mentioned. The National Suicide Hotlines are: 1-800-SUICIDE / 1-800-784-2433 or 1-800-273-TALK / 1-800-273-8255.
I am twenty months out from a very messed up therapeutic situation. The pain I see and feel here from people more than resonates.
I am sharing my healing journey on a website:
http://www.thesandbox.life
It’s about healing from both trauma and traumatic therapy.
Very glad to have found this site as both resource and community.
I hope its okay if I just post a wordpress page to my story. It has nothing else on it but the story. All names and locations are censored. My story spans 10 years and I believe it shows a entire hospital system of abusers and a chronic problem in a entire city. I may not be a perfect person but mental illness should not be a reason to lose all your rights and be treated like a animal.
I have been through what I would define as literal psychological torture and in the end it resulted in me attempting suicide and blaming myself for my own sexual assault. They completely messed up my head and even turned my own parents against for me for awhile. I lashed out at the hospitals recently in a complaint and gave them even more ammunition to hurt me. I figured I would at least tell my story.
I have no idea how this is going to end or how far they will go to ruin my life even more. At a minimum I expect to lose my social security benefits due to my complaint but I will never be ashamed for speaking up. Its been 10 years and I as well as others have been treated horribly. I would define my experience with psychology as felony crime at a large scale.
People need to protect themselves and their loved ones from abusers. Psychology is not always what it is advertised to be. If they don’t back off, my life will end. Hopefully other people get better luck than I have.
https://healthcareabuse.wordpress.com/
I apologize for some of the formating. It didn’t translate perfectly to the website.
I am grateful for Kristi sharing her story and resources with us. I wanted to share my story with you.
I persevered through recovery, reporting and lawsuit, and found them to be therapeutic. The most healing of all has been working creatively. Author and survivor Rachel Thompson was kind enough to publish my story, which you can read, here: http://rachelintheoc.com/2014/04/scarapist-guest-jeanne-marie-spicuzza-part-one/, and part two that follows. You may see some elements of your own experience and journey in it. I also made a motion picture based on my experience, titled “The Scarapist.” It is my hope that others will find solace and resolution in it.
Thank you, Kristi, and thanks to all of you. We made it, and are making it, through. Stay hopeful, and be well.
I am currently 48. When I was 14-16, I was sent to a psychologist for depression and suicidal ideology. A few sessions in, the doctor suggested I do yard work at his private residence as a way to make money and gain independence, which he felt would help my problem. For almost 2 years, he was sexually molesting me and paying me for my services. My parents were unaware. At 17, my parents found a letter from him to me that removed any doubt. However, we had moved and so had he. We didn’t do anything about it, expect I was kicked out of the house. Fast forward to a couple months ago, I did a search and found him in the same town I work and live in. He owns a couple practices and works independently. I filed a complaint with Board and contacted a lawyer, but there is nothing I can do based on the statute of limitations. Once I realized he was going to slip through my fingers, I called his office and left a message with my phone number asking for a copy of my file. He texted me that night to say that files from the 80s are long gone, but we started a huge text conversation that has been going on the last couple months. He has admitted to everything, and even more than I was aware of, including his feeling and his fantasies. I am not sure where to go with all this. I led him on in texts to draw forth his admission, and it worked. Now what, if anything?
Steven,
I’m so sorry to hear about what happened to you. Thanks for sharing on the Your Stories page.
Generally, it is advised that people do No Contact with the perpetrator, since being in touch with them keeps them engaged and basically feeding off of you. In this case, you were able to get an admission of guilt, which may be what you need. If you feel like you now have the information you were looking for, I personally would suggest ending the contact. Do that in whatever way feels right to you, without feeling like you have to take care of this person’s needs. (You don’t!) And you don’t owe him any kind of explanation or anything else. You can be done.
If you feel that you want to continue, then you may want to ask yourself why and what it is you’re hoping to get from him — and that may be something to address in your therapy or in whatever healing practice you have. My opinion is that if you continue to be in touch with him, that will continue to engage you with him and with what happened, and that is not likely to be either helpful or healthy. Again, this is my opinion based on my own experience. You will need to decide what is right for you and then do it in the timing that is right for you.
Wishing for you all the best!
Kristi
Kristi:
There were a couple reasons for contacting him. First, my parents didn’t keep the initial letter from all those years ago, so it was a matter of proof. I have something solid now. The other reason was I wanted to see if he would admit or deny what happened. I also wanted to know if he felt he did anything wrong. He has not said outright that he admits he was wrong. Actually the way he boasts about past sexual encounters between he and I, he would do it all over again.
I have so much wrapped up in these text conversations that I wonder if anything can be done with them. I had no idea where he was until only a couple months ago. Prior to that, I believed he was out of the country.
Thanks
Steven
I had a very similar experience in the 90s with an older person who has stalked and written and mailed THINGS to me since I was like 3 years old. It gets to the point I dont want to open any mail or anything.
Hi everyone!
First of all, thanks so much to the creators of this site, Kirsti, and maybe others? It’s an incredible help to have someone on your side, fighting this battle for all of us. I have read the stories posted under “Your stories” and some more, and I’m so sorry. These maniacs should be made to understand and make it up to us somehow.
For some of you, it seems to get better with time. I have decided that it wil for me too, I just don’t know how yet. I have been sexually insulted by my therapist who I stopped seeing last year. It went on for half a year, and it pertains to more patients. I have evidence for that. I therefore thought I would be belived when I made a complaint to the institution he’s working at. But one should never be certain of anything it seems. The boss-man and boss-lady ridiculed me and threated me like I was both crazy, stupid and what not. It almost destroyed me. Or not really, I can’t be destroyd, I’ve experienced to much to be that disappointed or shocked. I know that I will not kill myself. Evil people are not worth my life, and it will only hurt the ones who actually love me (this is also a comment to you, Ilse: Seriously, don’t go there. Nobody and nothing is worth it. You are an important being, deserving of good and only good. And I know that somebody loves you, and if not, it’s even more important that you fight to get a good life. You can do it!)
I had to be hospitalized though. But I’m so glad I complained. The fact that the complaint is there increases the likelihood for him ever doing something like this again (right?). There are, however, more things I could complain about, that may lead to my being heard. Worst case scenario, it may lead him to loose his license. My thoughts are; is it necessary? He is a human being, and with this behavior stopped is it not ok that ‘nothing’ happened to him? He is clearly not all that sane, but do I have the right to destroy his life just because he harmed me (unintentionally he claims). I know I will heal, and get a good life. Doesn’t he deserve that too?
I’m feeling better after I complained. But there are still some lingering effects from this experienceI. I feel disgusted by so many things because of this. Just being around people who try to look attactive, or reading a magasin with pretty girls can make me sick. It makes me think about how he objectified his patients struggling with psychosis, suicidal thoughts, eating disorders, not to mention childhood sexual abuse. I don’t feel attractive and I don’t want to be either. My chances of getting into a relationship are diminished, as just the thought of anyone thinking I’m attractive or touching me, brings disgust. And it actually seems laughable and absurd to me. My trust in others, especially men, is less than when i started therapy. This was one of the main thing I hoped would improve there.
It’s also hard to live with the fact that he didn’t try to understand how difficult this was for me. It again showed me how little he cared for me. He refused to talk about it, and I’m most certain he loved the misery I presented to him when trying to get some answers and sympathy out of him. As I read in some of your stories, he too just seemed anoyed and mad at me for reacting as I did. Even though he doesn’t know the half of it. I felt broken, crazy, evil, immoral, and that I had ruined the fantastic thearpeutic relationship we could have had. Then therapy could have continued to help me, and I could be completely healed. (Halleluja!)
But still, how can I harm him? It’s not easy for me. I feel like protecting everyone, even him. I don’t think I could live with myself if I ruined his career and (possibly, but not likely) his familiy life.
I’m not done with this, by far. If any of you have any thoughts on this, it would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Andrea
Hi Andrea,
I just wrote this in reply to someone else and I’m going to repeat it here, because this is really important to get.
IT IS NEVER WRONG TO ASK SOMEONE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR BEHAVIOR. After all, if a child behaved badly and someone got hurt, you would discipline the child, correct? So why not an adult who has caused suffering? Should he not be responsible for his behavior? What he did is not your fault. The actions and choices were his. If it hurts his practice or his family, that’s because of him, not you.
So many of us have had this sense that somehow the therapist’s life is more important than our own, that somehow, by reporting, we are doing something harmful, something not okay. It’s okay for them to hurt us and cause suffering but heaven forbid we should ask for accountability! It’s as if we are in service to them, not the other way around. We were never supposed to be their caretakers or their servants! Our “less-than” status is a completely wrong perception on our part — and probably a major contributor to our vulnerability in the first place. You have every right — legal, ethical, moral, etc. — to ask him to be accountable for his actions, to ask him to take responsibility for his own wrong-doing. Pretend you’re a mother faced with a child who’s misbehaved and is likely to repeat his bad behavior. What would you do? After all, if he did it once and got away with it, and got what he needed from it (because doing it was not in service of the client — it was to fulfill his own need), then why wouldn’t he do it again?
You are worth him being held accountable. Period.
Also, yes, it is very hard to grapple with the lack of understanding and remorse. Very hard. If you read more about narcissistic behavior, you will see how common that is and how it’s really not possible to get what you need from someone with that type of personality disorder. And that may help you let go a bit over time.
I hope you are able to do some healing work with another therapist or a different type of practitioner. When you have been manipulated and abused, it messes with your head and skews your perception, and that needs to be unraveled and undone.
There are many stories and articles on the site that may be helpful, so I hope you continue reading and exploring.
All the best to you!
Hi Kristi (sorry for getting your name wrong the first time)
Thank you for your answer. I know you’re right, and it would maybe help me get some self-respect back if he was held accountable. It helps me that somebody else has this opinion. I will think about what to do.
I have read some things about narcissism, and he fits the description perfectly. I guess it’s just hard to realize it when you’re bonded to a person this way, and especially considering the responibility he has to help. It helps to see him with those glasses, even though I still feel confused about it all.
I will continue to read the things posted here. It can be devastating, but it helps with the understanding and the letting go part.
Thanks again for all of it!
The whole bonding/attachment thing is really confusing and confounding. We form those bonds and attachments on a very deep level, and not for rational reasons. It’s a very visceral and/or emotional thing — not an intellectual thing. So we can find ourselves bonded to people who are not good relationship partners and then have a hard time leaving (whatever kind of relationship it is). The rational mind knows it’s not a good fit but that doesn’t override the attachment, which persists regardless of what the head says! I’ve personally dealt with this a lot and it is crazy-making!
Just know that you’re not alone and that it will get better!
I was 21, my life was really difficult, my father have died five years ago, and my mother was destroyed, and then she lost her father. So my mother wasn’t able to help me. I moved to another city to study and leaving her and my lack of support from anybody make me feel a sort of depression and anxiety. Then I met R a therapist, he started helping me for the half part of his fee. I was student and It was really expensive for me to afford. I started working, but leaving my mother was an incredibly painful step in my life, so he started to do some things like visiting me at home, or inviting me a coffee. I told him that he was a support for me, but those things I didn’t like.
One day he told me that if I date with a boy, say “L”, he would never help me again. That was the beginning, then he started controlling everything, he told me how to dress, he gave my a bible, he started to tell me that I shouldn’t speak of intimate things with friends or my mother because she was guilty for all my pain, then he told me he loved me, he invite me to a short ride, and I didn’t know what to do. I was feeling alone, I needed his support,. was he starting to treat me as a girlfriend? Things went even worse, I started felling worse and worse… I told him that all my life depended on him.. and finally I tried to kill myself. But I failed. Now many years passed, I have a woman therapist that helped me a lot, but the first time I really take awareness of the tremendous situation was when I fell in love. Before that I couldn’t stay in a relationship for more than a month. Then I met “G”, and after six months everything came to me, all the hidden memories. Now I’m fighting because I love him, but I feel a terrible fear of being in a relationship, I´m always afraid of depending on him, afraid to find that he depends on me… My therapist told me all his problems and finally I was his support. My therapist had certain attitudes, physically, so it was a sexual abuse too. Now I´m 33, being alone was easy in certain ways, I worked and studied a lot, my work was a refugee, but now, love has come, and I’m afraid to trust in my feelings or thoughts that change everyday… but finally I always feel that I love “G” my boyfriend… so I will continue fighting for having a healthy love. “R” is death, I never did anything against him, I was weak… and then when I got better he died. Thanks for this blog, it helped me a lot.
I was emotionally abused by a therapist whose practices are so unethical that it is mind boggling. It is a complicated story. This woman lies and actually encourages her patients to abuse other people. She is successful and has worked at a prestigious hospital in the past. My experience with her has cost me my peace of mind and years of my life. It boggles my mind that people listen to her and act on her manipulative and harmful advice. People in distress who are naive will believe anything.
Hello Kristi,
I last posted about 3 years ago. At that time, my old T was selling his house. He unded up just moving a couple blocks away into a an office building. Lately, I’ve thought about sending him a letter, but its because I’m being triggered again. There is a guy at my new job with the same first name as him, his first name is not that common. When I see this coworker, it tears me up inside. I dont want to be reminded everyday.
Hi Leeann,
I’m sorry to hear about this triggering situation. It’s normal to get triggered by things that remind you of the abuser. Are you doing some healing work right now? Do you have some support? Everyone is wired a bit differently, but there are different things you can try. For some, CBT is helpful for dealing with triggers. For others, more somatic processes like EMDR, EFT (tapping) or Somatic Experiencing can be helpful. I encourage you to reach out for support and try some different things to see what works for you. It’s definitely possible to tame a trigger so don’t give up. In the meantime, do what you can to take care of yourself around this and learn what you need to do to calm yourself after a trigger and restore your nervous system. Let us know if you need ideas.
My therapist in England was Pat Radford (deceased, so there’s no defamation lawsuit to worry about.) She was a Freudian psychologist, trained by Sigmund Freud’s daughter. I went to her for 4 years, between age 9-13, twice a week. After I turned 12, she was constantly badgering me to talk about sex. for a full hour I’d have to listen to her say “we all love having great big willies and we love to look at vaginas, don’t we?” This was lame, especially coming from an old woman like her. This went on and on, twice a week, for years. It really screwed up my life. She took my gullible parents for fools.
I was psychologically abused by a beloved therapist. When I was finally able to leave her I had no voice and no reality. I did not exist except in her view of me.
For five years she enveloped me with her love, taking over my soul and my life. I then questioned something she did, and she became as cruel as she had been loving. I endured a year of this cruelty, not believing I would survive if I tried to leave.
I wrote a book about the abuse, but more importantly about my journey of recovery and the reclaiming of my heart, my soul, and my life. My book is my voice. The book won an award in the Paris Book Festival, and has a five-star rating on Amazon.com.
I am trying to bring my book to the mental health community – it is a story that must me heard!
Hi Analie,
Feel free to share the name of your book and a link to it. I’m sure people will be very interested in the story of the abuse and your journey of recovery. And I can add it to our Books & Media page.
Good luck with the book!!
~Kristi
Hi guys,
i feel so damaged by the abrupt abandonment of my therapist. I feel as if I was an object that someone threw out and forgot about it and moved on. She moved on with her life but I am so damaged and cannot function. I don’t know how I can possibly pursue my career plans as since it occurred I really cannot focus on anything else. I see myself through her eyes as I am the most obnoxious person on earth and will never be able to form a meaningful relationship. I feel I need help but am very isolated. can someone hear me here?
Hello dear,
I saw your message come through this weekend and I wish i would have responded earlier…I am so sorry you are feeling so abandoned and so alone. I totally get that feeling, ESPECIALLY in the immediate months following the trauma i endured at the hands/because of my unethical therapist’s actions.
You are most definitely not alone and truly, you are far more valuable and loved than you realize…and I know i have to tell myself this too…that damage cuts so deep.
Hugs to you sweetheart,
Becca
I was molested by my therapist when I was 13 years old. It’s been almost four years since this abuse occurred, and it’s honestly destroying my life. I have panic attacks, flashbacks, and depression. Some days I can think about it with minimal anxiety, and other days thinking about it sends me into an anxiety attack. I’ve been consumed with feelings of self loathing. I feel like I’m weak, and that I have no right to be this affected by the abuse because it wasn’t rape. It’s just an awful situation. I just want to move on but it’s stuck in my mind.
Hi Emma,
I’m so sorry to hear about this abuse and how much you’re suffering. Please know that you’re not alone. Many of us have gone through this and have come out the other side, and you can, too. Have you been able to get back into some kind of counseling? It’s important to work with someone who understands trauma and PTSD and can work with your nervous system to reduce the PTSD symptoms you’re having. If in-person counseling is not an option, there are many counselors who work via Skype. Also, check out the Resources for Healing page for some modalities that may be helpful.
All the best!
Kristi
Emma, Emma, Emma. You were 13. You are still so very young. This was not your fault. There is every right to feel affected, and I hope that you are sharing this hurt with one of your caregivers. Please google for Kent Hoffman’s Infinite Worth video. Watch the whole thing (about 20 min) when you can reflect on it.
I think every human on the planet should watch this video.
People, you know, there’s some really “SMART” nasty therapists out there, if you don’t do anything about it, this profession field is just gonna stink and sank.
My former male therapist cause reckless emotional harm to me to have me depend on him, pressuring me to must lay out sexy feelings to please and play with him, when I found extremely scared to go back, and I put that out soon he abandoned me, left me with more symptoms
He prevented me to retrieve clinical records out from him, and pretended himself as a fucking victim to the police department, when I went back to ask him to work things out in a begging mode, he then said I was harassing him.
The emotional harm was not reduced until two years later he contacted me “You played games with me! You ruined our relationship to a sexual one!”
People like that, will use anything against you to hurt you, and they would pretend themselves as victims, therapists are well trained mind readers.
I hope the board will do something against this guy, but they’ve dismissed my case as well and the board told this to me “You’ve had less evidence to prove you guys had a therapeutic relationship!”
Isn’t this scary!?
What’s wrong today in Americans psychological society, is there still justice!?
Human monsters treats other human in need of help, then becoming also monsters???!!
Hi,
I have had numerous therapists put me down and tell me how “immature” or “developmentally delayed” I am. Three of these were in the same treatment program and one in a similar program . This was after telling them my struggles with trauma and bullying throughout my life along with facing deep poverty. It was more important that I get a job than get better, so after losing several jobs for various reasons, i still struggle with the same issues. I feel it is confirmed that I am stupid and am not trying hard enough or worthwhile or good enough for treatment because I can’t keep a job. I also have a physical disability and when I am not working try hard to find work. The practitioners refuse to sign the disability pension forms for me. Even when I tell them about suicide attempts, they brush it off and dismiss that the near death experiences actually happened.
Thank you for listening.
Hi Miriam,
Thank you for sharing. I’m so sorry to hear about your struggles with these therapists. It sounds like they were themselves immature, in that they felt the need to pathologize you and put you down and not take your needs and feelings seriously. You are most certainly good enough and worthy and deserving of proper care and respect! I hope you are able to find some quality support and receive kind and respectful treatment.
Hi all, So… this is a tough one. My wife (we feel) was taken advantage of by her psychiatrist. We have reported him to the state medical board and are now waiting to hear if any action will be taken. It was a pretty traumatic experience for the both of us and continues to be, 9 months after it was all uncovered by me. I wanted to post my wifes account of the events that took place in her sessions with the psychiatrist here and get opinions on if He his actions were clear violations of the doctor/patient relationship or if he was just “Clumsy” in his therapeutic approach or something. We’re both still confused about what happened and are curious of other perspectives from people who have experience or who have experienced this type of thing. Thank you for taking time to read this. its a pretty long, detailed statement. Here goes…
I began seeing Dr. H in October or November of 2017. I came to him primarily for anxiety and depression management, but also had concerns that I might be Bipolar. My step father, a General Practitioner, had been refilling my prescriptions for Sertraline and Bupropion for several years. Around February of 2017 I decided to attempt to self-wean off one of my medications. I thought I would try to wean myself off of one medication and then the other with my end goal being that I would no longer take any medication. During the spring of 2017 I began feeling very creative and, at times, euphoric. My libido increased and I became increasingly flirtatious with men. By late summer/early fall of 2017 my anxiety increased significantly and I began experiencing short waves of intense depression, mood swings and irritability. I decided I needed to seek the help of a psychiatrist to help me get back on track with my medication and to sort out if my erratic behaviors and mood fluctuations were a result of my tampering with my medication or symptomatic of something more serious, such as Bipolar Disorder. On the recommendation of a past therapist, I went to see Dr. H.
During my first appointment I explained what was going on to Dr. H. I told him that, ideally, I would like to eventually stop taking medication, but that I wasn’t sure if that was feasible. He told me my increase in anxiety was likely due to my self-weaning, specifically that I lowered one medication while leaving the dosage of the other medicine, a stimulant, unchanged. I was unaware that the medicine I had not adjusted was a stimulant. We discussed bringing my medications back into balance and once my mood was stabilized we could decide if I still wanted to taper off my medications completely, under his care. While discussing our plans to wean me off my medication Dr. H said “We’ll strip you”, then he took a long pause of at least a couple of seconds, “of your medication.” I remember being surprised that he said that, wondering why he phrased it and said it in that particular way, but I didn’t say anything and decided he was probably just joking. I don’t remember much else about our first appointment, other than us joking around some, which I found endearing.
continued:
I believe our next appointment was two or three weeks later. This was the appointment that my transference began. I happened to wear a dress that day. When I walked into his office, Dr. H commented on my appearance saying that he liked my dress and that I looked good. He also told me that he liked my style. He commented that I must not be going to work that day since I was wearing that. I’m a massage therapist. He made this comment about what I was wearing and that I must not be going to work during several appointments. He reiterated that I looked good. I felt flattered. I was feeling much more stable now that my medication had been adjusted, though still feeling manic. We talked about my anxiety level and how I was feeling since the change in medication. Dr. H asked me about my libido, explaining to me that “Libido is a fancy word for sex-drive”, assuming I didn’t know the term. I told him that since the medication change I had not been very interested in sex. Dr. H appeared disappointed and said “Aw, that’s too bad. Hopefully that will improve, we wouldn’t want your husband to divorce you.” I thought his comment was inappropriate and, had I been a bit more insecure about my marriage, would have found it anxiety provoking. I told him I wasn’t concerned about my husband leaving me over that. At some point during our conversation I mentioned something about my crush. Dr. H responded, “Isn’t it funny that you can be married and have crushes? I’ve had lots of crushes, but I’ve never acted on them.” He told me that he suspected that his wife had a crush on a local vintage furniture shop owner, but that he didn’t care. That he would share something so personal made me feel at ease with him and made me feel special. He asked me if I was “acting outside the marriage”, I said ‘no’, but that I had urges to and that I was afraid that, given the opportunity, I might. I told Dr. H that I had a problem with compulsive flirting with men and that I was very curious what it would be like to sleep with various men and that I found this bothersome. Dr. H asked me what type of men I found attractive. This too, struck me as inappropriate, but I answered anyway. Then he said “So, you wouldn’t be attracted to the jock type?” I said ‘no’. I believe that he was referring to himself, though I didn’t catch it immediately. I told Dr. H that because I felt like I couldn’t control my flirting and my desire for other men, combined with my hyper creativity and feelings of hypo-mania and mood swings I was concerned that I might be Bipolar. He told me I wasn’t. I asked him how he could be so sure since he had spent such little time with me. He told me I didn’t have “pressured speech”, then asked if I was having trouble sleeping. I answered ‘no’. We moved on. I shared with him that I had an upcoming nude photography art project. He asked me how my husband felt about that. I told him that my husband wasn’t thrilled about me posing with “my tits out” but, that he was ok with it. Dr. H asked if I had done this type of “tits out” photography before. I said ‘yes’ and then put my hand to my chest and said “You said tits. That made my heart happy.” I don’t recall his response. His use of the word “tits” made me feel like he was comfortable with me and felt safe being genuine with me. We discussed lowering my medication dosage. I declined saying that I wasn’t feeling ready for that considering I was just now beginning to feel stable again. During this appointment we went over the allotted 20 minutes by 10 or 15 minutes. I didn’t realize we had gone over and so was expecting to pay $200. I was charged $250 (I believe. I am unsure of the exact amount.). I paid and didn’t complain. This was the only time we went over the appointment time.
I left that day feeling high. I knew that Dr. H had crossed some boundaries, but instead of being upset by this, I felt excited. I liked that he had crossed boundaries- it made me feel special. I felt like he was attracted to me and that he must have felt a connection to me to feel safe crossing those boundaries. I wanted more.
I believe our next appointment was 3 or 4 weeks later. I thought a lot about what I would wear, but decided not to get too dressed up because I didn’t want it to be obvious that I dressed up for him. I remember us talking about the photography project I had done. He said that maybe he would see my pictures one day once the “doctor/patient relationship had ended, maybe years after that”. I found this a strange thing to say because it implied that we would have contact after my treatment was finished.
I had decided to bring up my concerns about possibly being Bipolar again because I didn’t feel like Dr. H had considered it carefully enough when I brought it up in the previous appointment. I had thought a lot about wether or not I was actually Bipolar. There were a lot of circumstances and contributing factors that were making it hard for me to discern if I might truly be Bipolar or if I was just “having a moment”, so to speak. I wanted help sorting things out so that I could get the proper help I needed (medication or therapy). I planned out what I would say to Dr. H so that I could present my dilemma as clearly and succinctly as possible. It was hard and embarrassing for me to share what I told him, as it is hard and embarrassing to share it here too. I told Dr. H that when I was 8 years old my parents had a tumultuous divorce when I was a child. My mother cheated on my father with the doctor she worked for, who is now my step father. My father was very angry with my mother. We had never been very close, but after the divorce, I became my mothers surrogate for him, to an extent. He would drive my sister and I from our house to his (a two hour drive) screaming and yelling about how awful our mother was, that she was a “whore” and a “home wrecker.” One day, after we got to his house after one of those long drives, my father told me I was going to grow up to be just like my mother. I interpreted that to mean a “whore and a home-wrecker”. My father was sexually, mentally and verbally abusive to me. I felt like he hated me. When I became an adult and began having sex, it hurt, inexplicably. It always hurt and I never enjoyed it. I sought help many times from many doctors and nothing ever really helped and no one could ever tell me what was wrong. After I had my daughter, sex was no longer painful for me and began to feel good. I became very curious about what it would be like to experience sex with other men, now that I could enjoy it. On top of that, I was now approximately the same age that my mother was when she began her affair. I have always feared that I would fulfill my fathers prediction that I would grow up to be a “whore and a home-wrecker”. I may have fumbled and rushed through it, but I disclosed my darkest secrets for the first time to a male authority figure. After explaining all of that to Dr. H (I included more detail about the abuse when I told him), I further explained that it wasn’t clear to me if I was feeling hyper sexual and engaging in risky sexual behavior (compulsive flirting and wanting to sleep with other men) because those issues combined with tampering with my medication had induced these behaviors or if I had a legitimate chemical imbalance. I don’t recall Dr. H giving me any input into which scenario he thought it might be. What I do recall is that he got visibly angry. He told me firmly that he was sorry that happened to me and that my father should have never done or said those things to me. I have told therapists about my abuse in the past (all women), but none ever reacted to strongly. It felt good. I felt like he was being protective of me. His reaction felt similar to that of my husbands reaction or past boyfriends reactions when I told them versus the reaction one would expect a mental health professional to have. He said he didn’t think that I was Bipolar, but that we could try medications for that if I wanted. I declined since he said he didn’t think I was Bipolar. I told him that I was feeling ok on my current medication and didn’t want to be put on other medications that I may not need and that would be difficult to get off of. I also expressed concern about being labeled Bipolar if I wasn’t actually Bipolar. Dr. H said not to worry about that because he hadn’t written anything in my chart about me possibly being Bipolar. I’m unsure why, according to him, he chose not to document my concerns. I’m also unsure why he would be willing to put me on medication he didn’t think I needed.
It is difficult for me to remember the order of the events that occurred. I tend to only remember bits and pieces of conversations that we had.
At some point early on in my treatment Dr. H became my “main crush”. We often discussed my crushes during appointments. During one appointment I told Dr. H that I had a new crush. I told him that my new crush didn’t make any sense, that he was not my typical type and
I was unsure why I was so attracted to him. I told him that my new crush was a “ ‘safe crush’ because it exists in this vacuum”, I made a hand gesture indicating that I was speaking about the room. My attempt to conceal that Dr. H was my “new safe crush” was thinly veiled, at best, and I believe he knew I was referring to him, though at the time I wasn’t sure. He asked me if my husband knew my new crush. I said ‘no.’ I believe that Dr. H knew at this moment that I was experiencing erotic transference for him. During our final appointment on the recording when I reveal to him that he is my crush he says “Your safe crush, right?” referring to this moment. This would have been the moment to address erotic transference. He chose not to. Not at this moment or the numerous others that followed. Nor did he choose to have me transfer. Instead he said nothing and allowed my feelings for him to grow at my personal expense as well as the detriment to my marriage. Not only did he not address the erotic transference, but he continued to flirt with me, further deepening my attachment to him and knowingly allowing me to develop feelings of deep “love” for him.
During one appointment I told Dr. H that I craved male attention and that it was pathetic. His response was “Well, you’re very attractive. There was a long pause. I didn’t say anything. Then Dr. H said, “Men must hit on you all the time.” I told him that no, they didn’t. He was surprised. I told him that I knew that no amount of attention from males would ever be enough, and that was why it was a problem. He stared at me and said “Yeah, it would never be enough, would it?” This was one of the phrases that Dr. H would say at several points in my treatment. I told him that I craved the novelty of a new relationship, but that I knew that the novelty would eventually fade and I would begin to feel unsatisfied again. He said “Yeah, it would fade, right?” He said these things as if he were daydreaming and I got the feeling that he was talking about “us”. I was also thrilled that he had said that I was very attractive. I began making a point to dress up for our appointments after this, a classic sign of erotic transference, which he should have recognized. I believe he did recognize it because he made a point to compliment me on my looks and outfits at every appointment.
Dr. H is married, but throughout my treatment he hinted at his dissatisfaction with his marriage. Once I commented on his tie saying that it was Clemson colors. He rolled his eyes and tossed his tie aside and said “My wife picked it out for me.” I believe it was during this appointment that he made comments about “Maybe my wife will divorce me.” I asked him if he really thought his wife would divorce him, he said, ‘no’ and appeared frustrated by this. In several appointments Dr. H would mention his “second wife” or his “next wife”, however, I am only able to remember some of the context of one such comment. I remember him flipping through my chart to my intake form and looking at my birthdate. He then said “My next wife is your age.” I got the distinct feeling that Dr. H was referring to me when he would mention his “next wife”.
During this appointment I said to Dr. H, “I wonder who your crush is?” he said “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
During another appointment, I told Dr. H that I felt like my sexual desires for other men were continuing to intensify. I told him that I really needed therapy for my “daddy issues”. He asked me why I didn’t go to therapy was it “because I just didn’t want to deal with it?” I said “No. I can’t afford it.” At the time my insurance didn’t cover mental health services and I was having to pay Dr. H $200 dollars every month. I told him that I could only afford to do one or the other (see him or go to therapy) but not both. I had chosen to see him over therapy since I felt it was more important to make sure I was stable on my meds and to rule out Bipolar Disorder before transitioning to therapy. I did reach out to two former therapist I had seen in the past in an effort to get further help for my problems. I knew I couldn’t afford it, so I offered to trade massages for therapy, not realizing that this would be a serious ethical violation on the part of the therapists. Both therapists rightly declined. I felt like Dr. H was the only person that I could discuss this stuff with, so I treated our appointments as mini therapy sessions. It is interesting to me that Dr. H thought that I just “didn’t feel like dealing” with my issues considering I spent appointment after appointment telling him I had a problem and asking him for help.
Previous to seeing Dr. H, I had never considered divorcing my husband. As my attachment to Dr. H grew, so did my frustration with my marriage. I began to think about divorcing my husband and would fantasize about marrying Dr. H. I spoke about divorcing my husband on one occasion with Dr. H. I was feeling frustrated with my husband that day because he hadn’t fixed a leak under the kitchen sink. I told Dr. H about my frustration and that my husband was insisting that he would fix the leak himself and wouldn’t let me call a repairman. Instead of suggesting ways to better communicate with my husband, Dr. H compared himself to my husband saying “I learned long ago that I’m not good at that stuff and to just call a repairman.” I mentioned that my husband would sometimes get frustrated that the house was a mess and that I felt like he was blaming me for it. Dr. H told me that if my husband didn’t like the way I cleaned, he could do it himself. He asked me why I didn’t divorce my husband. I told him because that’s not what I really wanted for me or for my daughter. I told him that my husband was a good person and I loved him. I said I couldn’t do that to him or to my daughter. I also said that I couldn’t support myself. Dr. H said that my husband could pay me alimony and could live in small apartment somewhere so that he could afford the child support and alimony. At the end of this appointment Dr. H told me that, for now, I should hold off on divorcing my husband. He also mentioned that it would be best to wait until the kidS were grown. I only have one child and had told Dr. H that I didn’t plan to have more. I can’t remember the context, but I know that Dr. H mentioned “waiting until the kids were grown” on more than this one occasion.
At a later appointment, Dr. H attempted to stretch out the time between our appointments to 3 months. He asked me if I would like to come every two or three months. I told him I would like to come monthly. Dr. H exclaimed “Seriously?!” and then we made plans for me to come back in a month. By this point I was so attached to Dr. H and looked so forward to seeing him that I didn’t care about going to therapy anymore. I was quite willing to pay him $200 a month to flirt with him for 20 minutes, which is basically most of what we did. We would spend 1 or 2 minutes discussing medication at the beginning of our appointment and then spend the rest of the time talking about my “crush”, i.e., Dr. H, and various other things unrelated to medication. There were a couple of appointments in which we didn’t discuss medication at all. My focus had completely shifted from getting help to getting attention from Dr. H. This was another great opportunity for Dr. H to redirect my attention from him back to my own mental health. He could have suggested that it wasn’t necessary for me to see him so often and that I could use the money that I would have spent on appointments with him on therapy. He did not.
Sometimes we would talk about various art projects I was working on. I told him a about a dress that I was making and planning on modeling in an art fashion show. The dress was covered in mirrors. I told him that I had to submit a brief description about the dress. He said I should say it was a comment on self reflection. I told him I had considered saying that, but felt it was too obvious and then added something about how it was more about how we see ourselves in others. Dr. H said “Yes!” and then quoted an Eddie Brickell song “What I am is what I am. Are you what you are or what?” At our next appointment after the fashion show, Dr. H asked me about the dress and how it went. He asked to see a picture of the dress. He walked across the room to me and I handed him my phone so he could see a picture of me at the fashion show wearing the dress. He told me he liked “my attitude” in the picture. He told me he was proud of me. My heart melted. I began telling him how I wasn’t completely satisfied with how the dress had turned out. I explained that I had difficulties with the sleeves and had to cut them out and add a different material. I said I thought it would have looked better without sleeves but I had to add them so the dress would stay up. He said “I thought your breasts would hold it up.” I told him that I had had a child and they weren’t what they used to be. I also told him that the fashion show was fun, but that I felt weird modeling the dress because the runway was so close to the audience. Before I could finish saying this, Dr. H interrupted me and said “Why would you feel weird? You’re very attractive.You could be a model.”, I believe assuming that I was going to say that I didn’t feel pretty enough to model the dress. I finished my sentence and Dr. H said “Oh, sorry.”
At our next appointment Dr. H was dressed casually. Previously, He had always worn suits. At this appointment and the subsequent ones, he dressed casually. This may have been because It was now summer. Dr. H offered me water on the way to his office. I commented that this was must be a “new thing” as he had not previously offered me water. He told me he only offered it to his favorite clients. During this appointment I told Dr. H that he should come see me for a massage. I’m ashamed that I suggested this. I didn’t expect that he would take me up on it, but I hoped that he would. My motivation was to see more of him. I wanted to get know him and talk to him as two people would talk, not as Doctor/patient. I was fascinated by him and just wanted to be around him. In the back of my mind, I was aware that if he were to take me up on my offer, that it would probably eventually lead to a physical affair. I feel terrible that I got to a place where I seriously entertained this idea. Dr. H smiled and said it was probably a bad idea. He also complained that the massage therapist he currently saw never massaged his glutes.
At our second to last appointment I wore a fairly revealing dress. As we sat down in his office he said kind of under his breath, “Did you wear that for me?” I said “I’m not going to say yes and I’m not going to say no.” I said “It’s kind of an adjustment dress” he said “Why? Because you’re hanging out of it?” He asked how things had been. I told him I had just gotten back from the beach. He said “I know.” I found this odd because I had not told him that I was going to the beach. After and awkward moment he said “I know because you’re so tan.” I believe Dr. H had been looking at my social media and that’s how he knew I had been to the beach. Of course, I can’t be sure of that. Dr. H appeared nervous and a bit agitated. He said “I was wondering if maybe you should transfer because I’m having trouble focusing and getting psychiatric work done.” He said he didn’t like how he had acted in our previous appointment and felt like he had gotten carried away in his fantasy. He asked what I thought about that. I said “Yeah, I should probably transfer, but I really don’t want to do that.” He said. “I’m good at my job. I can help you, I can help you, I can help you.” Then he said “I’m very attracted to you.” he paused. I was shocked that he admitted his attraction to me. I didn’t respond. At this point things moved rapidly and Dr. H was clearly nervous and was jumping from subject to subject not allowing me enough time to process what he was saying or to respond. I may be getting things out of order but I will recount all the things I remember him saying in the order that I believe he said them in. Dr. H said that I have “sexual charisma”, he said that he would love to be massaged by me, that he would probably come every week. He said that it was probably a bad idea, though, because he didn’t think he would be able to control himself. He said that maybe I would be able to control myself, but that he didn’t think he could. He said that it would be very sexual. I made a disapproving face. He then corrected himself and said “It would be very sensual. There’s a difference, you know.” He asked me what I thought about that again. I was confused. I asked “So you want me to transfer?” he said “No.” Then I said “So, you want me to tone down the flirting?” he again said “No.” He told me that the APA said doctors couldn’t date patients for two years and that some suggested you never date a patient. Then he said. “I’m going to go with two years on that one.” At some point he said something about my looks. I told him that “It takes a lot to look like this.” He replied “Nope, I think you wake up like that. See? I shouldn’t have said that.” He mentioned “hooking up” at least three times, though I can only remember the context of one instance in which he asked “What would your husband say if we hooked up?” I said “I’m not trying to have an affair.” Dr. H said “You know you read as available?” I said, “That makes me feel bad, but thank you for telling me.” At this point, I think that because I still hadn’t admitted that he was my crush, he began to doubt that he was. He said that he has a high sex-drive, that it was “taken care of”, but that maybe that’s why he was “picking up on things”. He said he didn’t know, maybe that’s just how I was to everyone. He then seemed to be trying to figure out who my crush was. He said I must have a lot of male clients. I said, “No, I see mostly women.” Then he asked me about a grant my spa is involved with with the police department. He asked me if we were working with detectives on our grant. I said, “No, it’s all women.” Then he said “You, know that your crushes know that you have a crush on them, right?” I said “Yeah…” He kept asking me what I thought about that and to reflect on things. I didn’t know how to respond. I told him that I wasn’t expecting that and that I had expected we would talk about another issue that was on my mind. There was an awkward pause. He said “Well, now that I’ve made things awkward…” I said “I’m used to it.” meaning I am used to awkward situations. I believe Dr. H took my comment to mean that I was used to men hitting on me as he took this opportunity to say “Yeah, men must hit on you all the time.” I told him, as I had in previous conversations on the that topic, that , no, men do not hit on me all the time. He said “Really?” I said that I’m not very observant so, maybe I just wasn’t aware of it. I was feeling uncomfortable and I changed the subject to the issue I had expected us to discuss. I told him about teachers at my daughters school being concerned with some of her behaviors. I must have said something about my husbands reaction to the situation with my daughter because Dr. H said “Yeah, dads just don’t get it.” I said “Yeah, they don’t… well, except for you…” Dr. H said “Except for me.” There was another pause. I was feeling uncomfortable and began to think that my flirtation had made Dr. H uncomfortable. I told him I was sorry if I made him uncomfortable by being too flirtatious. He said that I didn’t make him uncomfortable. There was another pause during which it began to occur to me that Dr. H knew that I had a crush on him and was attempting to get me to admit it. I felt backed into corner, so I said “Well, if I’m being honest, I’m very attracted to you.” I don’t remember what he said. I was embarrassed and couldn’t make eye contact with him and told him so. I stared at a wall with diplomas on it. I felt very uncomfortable and tried to change the subject by mentioning that my best friend had graduated from Emory too. I don’t remember anything else except him saying “So, see you in a month?” then as I walked past him when leaving he said again, “Reflect on that.” I said “I already do.” He said “What kind of things do you reflect on?” I shrugged my shoulders. I felt incredibly high after this appointment. I felt like I was completely in love with him.
I was very confused about my previous appointment with Dr. H. Dr. H had spent the first couple of minutes asking me if I thought I should transfer, but then he spent the rest of the appointment saying wildly inappropriate things and discouraged me from transferring. He kept telling me to “reflect on that” and I was confused about what he was wanting me to “reflect on”, exactly. If he had wanted me to transfer, why didn’t he just say that? Why did he say “no” when I asked him point blank if he wanted me to transfer? Why did he suggest we make another appointment if he wanted me to transfer? About a week later I decided to text a friend about what had happened and to try to gain some clarity. I explained everything that had been going on and told my friend about the last appointment. I told him that I thought Dr. H was in love with me and that I had feelings for him too, but didn’t understand why I was so attracted to him. About a week after that, my then two year old daughter was playing on the iPad and tapped the Messages button and my husband saw the text conversation that I had had about Dr. H with my friend. My husband confronted me about the conversation. I told him that I thought I was in love with Dr. H. My husband was devastated. I thought my husband would divorce me. My husband thought I was going to divorce him. I told my husband I had to go back to see Dr. H in two weeks because I needed a refill on my prescriptions. I felt I had no other choice but to go back to Dr. H for my prescriptions because I was unable to get an appointment with another Psychiatrist before my prescription ran out. During the two weeks between my husband finding out and my final appointment my husband and I researched what was going on and realized that I might be experiencing erotic transference. I was unsure, I felt like I was in love with Dr. H and I felt that he may be in love with me too. I was in denial and didn’t want it to be erotic transference, but was open to the possibility that it might be. I decided to secretly record my final appointment with Dr. H because I didn’t know what to think anymore.
During our final appointment, Dr. H seems upbeat and and unconcerned with the way our last appointment had gone. I tell him I won’t be coming back and admit that he is my crush. He says “You don’t think you can get past those feelings to make it a therapeutic relationship?”, something I don’t think a doctor would say if he was wanting his patient to transfer. Dr. H’s tone changes once I tell him that I spoke about it with someone else and that my husband knew. At that point he begins saying all the “right” things that a psychiatrist should say and claims that he was trying to get me to transfer. He tells me that his remarks about “hooking up” were theoretical and that “Can’t happen because our marriages would be ruined and we don’t want the kids to go down with us.” He never mentions that it would be unethical. I was experiencing extreme emotional distress at home in my marriage and was experiencing intense anxiety during the appointment. I was confused and his sudden distancing of himself from the situation further confused me. I mistakenly thought that everything was my fault. I felt like I had caused Dr. H to behave unethically because I flirted with him. I began thinking that I had completely imagined his attraction to me. I felt like I was crazy. Dr. H allowed me to take the blame for most of it, only accepting minimal responsibility. He never addressed the erotic transference, even after I bring up transference. He makes no attempts to set clear and firm boundaries. He shows a lack of sensitivity by checking a text from his wife in the middle of the appointment, telling me about it, and then saying “Isn’t that funny” and chuckling about it. For someone who claims that he was trying to get me to transfer, he offers no plan for what I should once i decided to stop seeing him, even though I clearly still needed treatment. He didn’t give me recommendations about who I should transfer to.
Dr. H committed boundary violations throughout my treatment. He exploited my weaknesses. I believe he knew early on that I was experiencing erotic transference based on the reference he made on the recording to an earlier appointment in which we discussed my “safe crush”. I also believed that he knew based on his admission on the recording that he had gone to supervision to talk about me. Dr. H might be able to argue that he intentionally didn’t address my erotic transference for therapeutic purposes, but I can’t see how he can justify, in any way, his blatant inappropriate comments and flirting with me. When such a situation arises, it his job to help me become aware of it and work through it and to minimize the infatuation, not to encourage it by:
Telling me how attractive I am and that he is very attracted to me.
Commenting on my looks/ style/ outfits.
Asking me if men hit on me all the time.
Hinting at dissatisfaction in his marriage.
Dropping comments about his next wife/second wife.
Sexualizing my profession and telling me how he would love to be massaged by me and that he wouldn’t be able to control himself.
Mentioning the APAs guidelines on dating patients.
Undermining my marriage.
Asking to see pictures of me.
Making comments about my breasts.
Alluding to contact after my treatment had ended.
Telling me what I’m wearing is “hard for him” because he’s a “human being male”.
Telling me he’s proud of me.
Comparing himself favorably to my husband.
Allowing the focus of our treatment to shift from my mental health to him.
Asking me unnecessary questions about my sexual preferences.
Becoming upset when he thinks that I might be attracted to a woman.
Discussing his sex-drive.
Telling me I’m one of his favorite clients.
Asking me what type of men I’m attracted to and in a round about way, asking if I would be attracted to him.
Mentioning us “theoretically” hooking up.
Referring to me as a “sexual goddess”.
I find it hard to believe that whomever he consulted with about my case would have recommended he handle it in this way. Dr. H could also argue that he was “out of his depth” and was unsure how to proceed- something I also find hard to believe considering he has a PhD in Psychiatry and decades of experience, but giving him the benefit of the doubt on that, if he didn’t know how to handle it, he could have had me transfer. I know that Dr. H claims that he did attempt to have me transfer, and it’s true that during our second to last appointment he spent a bout 2 minutes of our 20 minute appointment asking me, the patient with erotic transference that is attached to him, if I thought I should transfer. Clearly, I am not the one to place that responsibility on, especially when he spent the rest of the 18 minutes of our appointment telling me how attracted he was to me, telling me he could help me, and flat out saying “No” when I asked him if he wanted me to transfer. I also don’t believe he actually intended for me to transfer because no plan was discussed with me as to who I would transfer to and how that process would work. I also believe that Dr. H was fully aware that he was not properly handling the situation based on his comment in my second to last appointment when he said “Nope. I think you wake up like that. See? I shouldn’t have said that.” He knew he was being inappropriate and yet he continued to cross boundaries and encouraged me to continue seeing him. If my husband hadn’t discovered what was going on, I believe I would still be Dr.H’s patient and he would still be taking advantage of me.
From what I’ve read, it is my understanding that when a patient experiences erotic transference, It is best practice to address the transference and to establish clear and firm boundaries. It is also my understanding that the patient is allowed to be flirtatious and express how she feels and it is the doctors responsibility to maintain those ethical boundaries, regardless. To be clear, at no point in my treatment did Dr. H address erotic transference or ethics nor did he establish any boundaries outside of not touching me. It is imperative that the doctor not engage in flirtation or reveal that he has feelings of attraction to the patient.
Furthermore, Dr. H lists Neurology as one of his specialties. As someone who is a specialist in neurology, I expect that he would be familiar with the chemicals produced in the brain and their effects. He should know that when a patient presents with erotic transference, engaging in flirtatious behavior with the client releases chemicals such as Dopamine (also activated by cocaine and nicotine) and Serotonin in the clients brain causing them to crave further such interactions. By consistently sexualizing me and playing on my emotional needs for attention from a male authority figure by saying things like “I’m proud of you.” or becoming angry and protective of me when I disclosed my sexual abuse by my father, he caused my brain to release those chemicals, causing me to crave those experiences more and more, effectively making me “addicted” to him. Those chemicals produced feelings so strong that I literally felt I had no control over them.
I believe that Dr. H knew early on that I was experiencing erotic transference and was negligent by not making me aware of it and by flirting with me, which encouraged my unhealthy attachment. I believe he took advantage of my compulsive flirting and my erotic transference and manipulated me by playing on my unconscious needs for attention from a father figure. Dr. H was an older male figure in a position of power, I projected aspects of my childhood relationship with my father on to him, unconsciously seeking to workout unresolved issues. I unconsciously sought in Dr. H a means to fulfill childhood deficits in attention, nurturance, and safety. I reenacted familiar patterns from my relationship with my father; the sexualization of a relationship that should have been non-sexual, becoming immersed in a nebulous relationship. I felt safe to explore aspects of my sexuality with him in a way that I had with no other man because I believed there was always the understanding that there was a firm boundary in place preventing our relationship from ever becoming physical. But, I found myself pushing the boundary further and further- we both did. I felt safe to unburden myself from my shameful secret that I was sexually attracted to other men, something I was afraid to discuss with my husband for fear of judgment and for fear of being seen as a “whore and a home-wrecker”. But, Dr. H is human and I imagine that he, like me and everyone else, has childhood issues he unconsciously seeks to resolve. I believe that my particular brand of issues spoke to some of his and, at times, he found himself unable to control his impulses. I sympathize with that. But that doesn’t make what he did ok. The crucial difference is that at the time, I was not self aware enough to understand what was happening, but Dr. H, having his PhD in Psychiatry and having many years of practice under his belt, should have recognized that eroticized transference and eroticized countertransference was occurring and he should have addressed it. If he had addressed it and handled it properly it could have been immensely helpful to me. It could have helped me understand my behavior and motivations. He could have served as a safe male figure for me to practice how to communicate effectively and appropriately with. He could have helped me practice how to talk to my husband about my problems with flirting and sexual curiosity allowing my husband and I to be more honest with one another and deepen our relationship which would have improved our marriage. He could have helped me be more self-aware, giving me a sense of power over my emotions.
Instead he robbed me of an opportunity to achieve these things in a way that would have avoided deep pain and suffering. Because he chose not to address the transference and allowed it to go on for so long, I believed I was in love with him. This shifted my focus from my mental health to Dr. H and how I could win his love. Because I was allowed to believe I was in love with Dr. H I began to believe that it meant I was not in love with my husband. I became increasingly dissatisfied in my marriage comparing my husband to my idealized image of Dr. H. I began to seriously consider divorce, something I had not considered before I went to see Dr. H. It caused me to be dishonest with my husband because I felt I had to hide my feelings for Dr. H from him.
I feel like my childhood trauma with my father was reenacted by Dr. H. He took advantage of me and sexualized our relationship. When I attempt to tell people in order to get help, I’m routinely told that nothing can be done because he didn’t touch me or have sex with me. It makes me feel crazy. It makes me feel like this is all my fault. It makes me feel like people think I’m being dramatic and/or making it up. I felt these same things in regard to the situation with my father. Because of this re-traumatization I now experience intense anxiety and depression, much more significant than I experienced before I went to see Dr. H. I am now very uncomfortable around men, particularly men of authority. I feel vulnerable all the time. I am suspicious of any male that is nice to me, wondering if they are flirting with me and fearing that they are going to try and take advantage of me. My husband has greatly diminished trust in me. I don’t even feel like I can trust myself. I avoid social situations because I’m too ashamed to tell my friends about this, but it’s all I think about and I feel like I can’t have a normal conversation anymore with this constantly on my mind. I avoid going out because I’m afraid that I will see him. I used to enjoy dressing up and now I question every outfit I wear. Am I too dressed up? Is someone going to think I’m dressing like this to impress them? Does this outfit make me “read as available”? Last week when I went to therapy to talk about all this, I wore a dress. I began sobbing as soon as I entered my therapist’s office because I felt like I shouldn’t have worn a dress. I have intrusive thoughts about Dr. H. I feel like he raped my brain. I feel like I can’t escape him. I feel constant guilt and shame. I feel I am unable to give my full attention to my daughter because I’m so consumed with this. She is steeped in the tension between my husband and I on a daily basis and I can only hope that the stress she is being exposed to will not negatively impact her when she is older. I feel unable to be supportive to my husband who is also suffering because of this. He lost 30 pounds in three months due to stress. He had to go on blood pressure medication. He experiences anxiety daily, something he never dealt with before. He also experiences panic attacks because of this. In attempting to seek justice, I have had to reveal my most intimate secrets to several people, mostly men. That, in and of itself, is traumatizing. My marriage is a mess. My husband, for understandable reasons, now doubts my love for him. I apologize to him and try to prove my love daily while also struggling to move past these false feelings of “love” that I feel for Dr. H, remnants of those doses of brain chemicals that were released when he chose to flirt with me. My husband has had to console my broken heart for another man and the guilt and shame I feel for that is immense.
Dr. H, seemed not to care about the potential consequences of his actions. He seemed willing to allow me to fulfill my father’s prediction, my deepest fear, of becoming a “whore” and a “home wrecker” by potentially engaging in a physical affair with me himself or by encouraging me to do so with others, with little to no regard as to how that would affect my psyche. He appeared willing to allow me to divorce my husband and destroy our family. It seems he could have cared less how this would affect my husband and my child, all of our futures- our entire lives. He was supposed to put my best interests first, instead he used me and chose to put his ego first. While in the moment, I was complicit to and even enjoyed my interactions with Dr. H, Abuse is defined as “treating (a person or an animal) with cruelty or violence, especially regularly or repeatedly”. What he did was abuse. It was cruel of him to allow me to believe that I was in love with him and to feed those feelings. I shouldn’t have had to have him touch me or have sex with me for this to be taken seriously, because the effects on my and my husbands mental health are certainly very serious.
Here are some things I remember him saying during my treatment, but I can’t recall the full context of the conversation or when these comments were made. I’m including them here because I feel that they are important and should be considered:
-I remember him saying to me once that “you wouldn’t want to end up like your mom.”- referring to the possibility of me cheating on my husband. I remember thinking how manipulative and almost mean that felt, but also not caring. He followed up by saying, “But, we come to understand things our parents did when we’re older.”
-In mentioning that an old crush was moving he said “Are you going to hook up with him once before he leaves?” He mentioned me possibly “hooking up once” with my crushes a few times, even saying that “it would never be enough.”
– On one occasion, I believe I was discussing my difficulty in discussing my sexual preferences with my husband, he interrupted me and asked if I liked “rough sex”.
-When talking about my crush I remember him interrupting me mid sentence and saying “Her?! is your crush a girl?” He seemed strangely upset that my crush might be a woman. I said “No, you must have heard me wrong.” He said “No, you said ‘her’.” I said “I did? I must have misspoke, then. My crush is definitely a man.”
Dr. H told me that “Maybe being a sexual goddess was my cross to bear.”
There it is. Since this all went down, we have actually learned to communicate better than we ever have before and are doing a really good job working through all this together. Its strange to think that this trauma in our marriage may have very well saved it, in spite of the Doctors attempts. But we both are still struggling, pretty much everyday. Any opinions or perspectives provided would be greatly appreciated.
To Don C regarding the Flirty Psychiatrist,
There is a reason that several states have begun requiring PhD degrees before entering a role counseling patients. Psychiatrists have gone to medical school and gotten an MD, followed by a specialization course in treating psychiatric patients with drugs, and a short practice period in a psychiatric setting (hospital, outpatient clinic, etc). They really aren’t psychotherapists, and I have found that they are not too suitable as psychotherapists for the following reasons:
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1. Medical school spends a lot of time beating your empathy for humans down so that you can handle the demands of making hard choices about their treatment. Now contrast that with proper psychotherapist training that is about listening to your patient, connecting with them on a level where you can provide help through the trust bond, and true empathy for the individual. I have only met one psychiatrist that actually was a great psychotherapist. Most psychiatrists treating patients are the pits.
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2. Empathy does not mean predation. When this psychiatrist first noticed the erotic transference, he should have brought it up with a discussion of why you would feel that transference. “I see that you are beginning to carefully craft your appearance when you come to one of our sessions. Are you having sexual thoughts or feelings about me? Let’s talk about how those feelings may be an echo from a past experience with your playing out in the office and find a way for you to interact with me by recognizing that those thoughts may not be real.” “Yes, I know they feel real, but transference is pulling much of that from an ancient hurt that hasn’t been addressed.”
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3. It is completely natural for a patient to have feelings for a therapist. They all are aware of it and talk about ways to defuse the situation while remaining in control of themselves enough to help you see why these patterns come up. And think about it….you are entering a small room and talking about intimacies with a man who is paying attention to you. The therapist has to maintain eye contact and focus on you. How many other people do that for a partial hour at a time in a week or a month? In fact, sex therapists have specific exercises for troubled couples that require the couple to engage in gazing at each other while building rapport. Don’t beat yourself up because you fell for the delusion –it’s designed to build trust but that guy used the exercises.
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4. The psychiatrist has nowhere near the amount of training in how to approach patients and help them that psychologists do. For pill distribution, fine. For head re-wiring, no thank you. Find someone who has knowledge and understanding of attachment disorders and can help you with your need for attachment. It sounds like you are one of the anxious attachment types that need a lot of attention from a partner to feel secure. It also sounds like you love your husband. You need someone who can unravel the previous abuse from your father layer-by-layer without triggering your need to cling. Well, triggering happens, but they shouldn’t be feeding it. That psychiatrist should have gently pushed back on your transference with constant reminders of old patterns being replayed and how you could feel calmer around him without needing to trigger the old pattern of attention.
Read about attachment theory. It’s awesomely potent stuff and can be predictive of future behavior. That doesn’t mean you are trapped in those cycles forever. There are ways to change your behaviors and feelings. Look for work by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth.
Oh good lord, I re-read that comment of the Psychiatrist: “you wouldn’t want to end up like your mom.”
You aren’t your mom. Your father attempted to shape you to be like your mom through his constant beratement of a child’s natural affection for a parent to be something it wasn’t. Your shaping wasn’t your fault and the issue you need to address isn’t your mom but your father’s hypercritical stance of your only worth as being some toy. Please understand that a child has to cling to parents –it’s a biological imperative to promote species survival from predators. Your need for flirtatious behavior and attention speaks to the lack of positive attention from a father-figure and possibly also from a mother that led you to insistent behavior to get them to see you. It manifests in a lack of confidence and a constant need for confidence reinforcement later on in adulthood.
I’ve had numerous therapists over the years myself. Five of them were psychiatrists. None of those were any good at psychotherapy. I met one psychiatrist much later who re-trained himself in not only child development but also in attachment therapy and how to respond to trauma in individuals. We spoke several times, but I was never his patient. He was the only one that I thought was decent at psychotherapy.
Please let your husband know that the therapeutic relationship is designed to link people together. The other guy took advantage of weakness while you were pulling up pictures from childhood. The medication overload may have goosed the process along, but the process is designed to allow the work to happen. The psychiatrist was truly taking advantage of his unique position to feed his own need for attention.
Thank you for reading and your response, JIll reads. Yeah, That’s one of the many parts of the story thats confusing to us. This Psychiatrist has a PhD and does perform psychotherapy, with over 20 years of experience! So, not sure if this guy handled the countertransference clumsily or was he just trying to very carefully seduce my wife in order to have an affair?
My wife and I both really believe he was attempting to have my wife transfer so that he could start going to her for massage and start having an affair with her. We think this excerpt here is where he was basically saying this without actually saying it ” Dr. H said that I have “sexual charisma”, he said that he would love to be massaged by me, that he would probably come every week. He said that it was probably a bad idea, though, because he didn’t think he would be able to control himself. He said that maybe I would be able to control myself, but that he didn’t think he could. He said that it would be very sexual. I made a disapproving face. He then corrected himself and said “It would be very sensual. There’s a difference, you know.” He asked me what I thought about that again. I was confused. I asked “So you want me to transfer?” he said “No.” Then I said “So, you want me to tone down the flirting?” he again said “No.” He told me that the APA said doctors couldn’t date patients for two years and that some suggested you never date a patient. Then he said. “I’m going to go with two years on that one.””
If he was actually intending on having her transfer and had her best interests in mind, Why would he say all of that? Why wouldn’t he have brought up transference and at least tried to work through it with her? Hes so vague that he leaves it all up to interpretation. Honestly, At this point, We (especially my wife) would really just like to know what his true intentions were and if his behavior does call for some form of discipline from the board… Its all so crazy making.
Hi Don C.,
Let’s clear up a misconception about the psychiatrist’s Ph.D. He likely went through an MD-PhD program. That is typically a 7 yr program resulting in both a medical degree and a Ph.D. in a subject of research. It is designed for medical research, not clinical counseling though participants do have an intro to counseling sort of course. Don’t even kid yourselves that it is equivalent to a full-blown Clinical PsyD (Doctorate of Clinical Psychology) where the individual has about 3-4 years of training to be a counselor (not a medical doctor or researcher) followed by another 3 years of mentored counseling practice. MD-Ph.D.’s have two years of med school coursework, followed by two years of Ph.D. subject coursework, followed by three years of a combination of med school clinical practice and their research thesis. That Psychology subject coursework is not in how to be a supportive therapist but is about how to diagnose clinical illness and newer treatment methodology which these days is neuroscience and usually about things like drug delivery and use and novel treatments like Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS).
I don’t think that you are incorrect in your assessment of his intent. His comments about the massage practice are not just out of line but completely irresponsible and reckless. He may not have started the treatment with seduction in mind, but it is clear that by the tail end of the course of treatment he was wrestling with a full-blown desire that he knew he couldn’t act on but then didn’t want to let go. He should have transferred her. And just so you understand his comments about years, once a person is no longer your patient, there is a two-year waiting period before any personal contact can occur between the therapist and patient. Only two years. Now, a Christmas card is in that gray area of “ok, that’s probably alright,” but a letter correspondence or constant chat for two years is definitely not ok. I waited two years before I sent my retired therapist a cheery Christmas card with a short thank you for his help, and I did ask in our last session if sending a card later would be ok. We didn’t plan out a full-blown “campaign of longing” to wait for the two-year mark like this guy obviously was fishing for. After two years you can see a former patient non-professionally and date them, have sex with them, etc, and the board doesn’t have grounds to discipline.
I pity this a’hole’s wife. He’s already planning to cheat. He may or may not be conscious of that plan, but I tend to think that he is aware of it. I pity his patients who are getting substandard care even more.
I should also mention that I am not a psychotherapist. After my last good therapist retired, I decided to end the mystery and started classes on a B.S. of Psychology as an additional degree. I am in my last few remaining credits and thoroughly enjoying the coursework and the “A-HA!” moments. I do not plan to be a psychotherapist and my primary focus is social psychology though I have deep interests in evolutionary psychology, the psychology of terrorism, and counseling therapy. I’m too old –they’ll never accept me into a graduate program. But I’ve read widely on trauma in various forms and treatments of trauma.
Ethics is hammered into Psychology students at all levels of study for precisely the reasons you’ve covered in your posts above. This kind of reckless behavior can destroy a patient. It happens quite a bit in esteemed older gentlemen who have a lot of accolades that are getting ready to retire and simply don’t care about losing their license. Or love the thrill. This psychiatrist, with 20 years of experience, is roughly late 40’s-early 50’s. A dangerous age, and a very narrow miss.
I cannot stress enough the point that the therapeutic relationship is designed to engender trust quickly and has certain methods that are required to build that trust. Eye contact is stressed. Soothing voice. Here is a person paying attention to you and solely you. It’s (supposed to be) a one-way dialogue, so the patient is the star in the center. Therapists are trained in a basic counseling lab class on what kinds of things to say and not say and how to approach a patient. And proximity. You’re in a room together once a week. You may not spend that much time with anyone else. (That is a sad comment on our times.)
If you add a startle to the patient in that mix, you likely have the beginnings of a romance. Your brain has to interpret the racing heartbeat and since the patient doesn’t want to examine the bad stuff from life too closely, the next thing the brain clings to is that it’s a romantic attraction. It isn’t a conscious choice –it’s done behind the scenes by the brain’s unwillingness to face the bad stuff. This is really basic social psychology. They teach it in PSYC 101, and it’s been known since 1979. Here’s a paper on how to experimentally create attraction in the lab:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01650604
So, what happens in therapy? You get jolted into a startle by memory. A lot. Reinforcing a false belief over and over.
And this is why the ethical grounding is so pervasive in all levels of psychology study. Your wife fell into a trap that is set up and known, but the therapist should have guided her out of it safely. Instead, he pounced in a halfway fashion that leaves everyone confused and was designed to leave the full blame on her shoulders. If she’d been less devoted to you, the end of the tale would have been even more awful.
Look, even when therapists look like trolls they end up with most of their patients in love with them. If they’re remotely presentable then it’s a raging crush. I’ve seen it happen.
Now, can you bring him up for discipline? Yes. Will the board actually discipline him? We don’t know. It depends on how many other patients have complained and how persuasive he is at alluding to your wife’s “unstable mental condition” of anxiety. How he has been misrepresented in your scenarios. That the poor thing has unsatisfied desires to cheat and has twisted his words. It’s ugly. From a justice standpoint, I’d love to see that shrink go down in flames. But because there was no sexual contact, only innuendo, it is likely that the most he would get is a warning. The few cases that I’ve seen to get more than simply shrugged off by the board are cases where the individual had undeniable proof or an involved third-party complained on a patient’s behalf. (One case the therapist claimed that she was coming on to him so strong that he had to tell her that he had herpes and showed her his penis to prove it because evidently she needed to see the evidence. [heavy sarcasm there] She described his penis to the board with a different story of his come-on, so he came up with the excuse above which definitely shows something was going on. Another case was brought by the mother of a late teen daughter against the therapist [who was treating both mother and daughter] who impregnated her daughter. He claimed that she was no longer his patient, but texts on her phone showed that the break in the treatment happened after the daughter became pregnant.)
So, mixed thoughts on going to the Board. I would love to see him get a track record started. But be prepared to not win. And know that just because they didn’t discipline him doesn’t mean that what he did was ok. Your wife is not at fault here.
One more stray thought. Your wife worries that she’s bipolar. He diagnosed her based on the lack of pressured speech. Pressured speech is very distinctive and common to most bipolar patients. Sertraline (Zoloft) is used for anxiety and depression, and Bupropion (Wellbutrin) is used for major depression –whale shit on the bottom of the ocean depression.
It is possible to be bipolar and not have the episodes of mania which usually have racing thoughts and pressured speech as the hallmark symptoms. But she thinks she was manic. (I don’t think so. I’m definitely not bipolar but creativity and bursts of happiness may almost seem manic to someone who is very depressed.) If she was manic and creative, I wonder if she dropped the Zoloft and got the double punch from Wellbutrin’s nicotinic receptor binding that would increase acetylcholine reactions (that’s the stuff that enhances cognitive function) and the fact that Wellbutrin’s loss would drop serotonin which is calming. It’s not dopamine. And even if she dropped the Wellbutrin and not the Zoloft it is almost certain to cause an episode of mania. Like I said above, depressed people react to the changes too.
I think he told the truth there. No reason to doubt his medical judgment. It’s common to have bouts of mania when withdrawing from antidepressants. The brain is waking up again. Here’s a study about it:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12776393
And remember, that’s only the notable cases that they wrote about so even though they mention bipolar disorder (BD) they specifically also say unipolar depression.
Look at the literature for “anxious attachment”. Here’s a bare-bones outline from Lifehacker:
https://www.lifehack.org/820247/anxious-attachment
I know this shrink has soured you on therapy, but a decent therapist who treats with CBT (cognitive-behavioral therapy) and Mindfulness and is knowledgeable about attachment issues would be helpful. Here’s a study contrasting whether CBT or PDT (psychodynamic therapy) helped more individuals. CBT won. Because it turns out that therapies like mindfulness that make you more aware of yourself seem to adjust internal trauma a lot better than just talking endlessly about pain. Donald Altman has a good book on that and it’s about $20.
Tonight when I get home, I’ll find that link to the simplified online ECR-R that helps you understand your attachment style. Both of you should take it privately and honestly. There’s a more complex version with a LOT of questions that therapists use, but the simple one is used in undergraduate courses. This link has a questionnaire and then helps interpret the results in a simple scaled way.
Found the close relationship questionnaire site online by googling “ECR and graph of results for undergraduates”. The instructor of my course on development had us pick the non-registration version (Survey B) and test it out and then sign a form saying we had done so (no numbers required. She just wanted us to take it, not know what we got.) I think the surveys are the same but the first one has you register a login so you can take it again over time and access results and changes in those results.
I was going to post the link, but I think it best not to do so. If you want to find it, you can. It’s just kind of weird and creepy to put the link up here because I could be anyone. Googling it to get an untainted site is best. There’s an ECR Browser out there that is for looking at genes that is not related to psychology or attachment styles.
Thank you so much, Jill Reads. Ive searched through so much info on this subject and have found plenty of info on it. but usually, Ive only seen stories and accounts of medical board actions for Doctors that have actually had physical contact of some form. Not so much on Doctors that were making vague and indirect attempts at taking it to that level. So, thank you for giving us some clarity on it.
You Hit the nail on the head! He is in his late forties and has his own private practice. I get the feeling that he’s probably having a mid life crisis or bored with his marriage or himself or something and probably was just enjoying the thrill of these sessions with my wife, with no concern of the outcome for her family or her. I don’t think he will get into any trouble from the board either, unless there’s been other complaints made. Damn shame… Seems like they would recognize the language he used with her was a clear violation, but, like you said, He’ll probably use her “unstable mental condition” against her and persuade the board to agree with him. If that happens, we still have social media to #metoo his ass, If she feels it necessary. We live in a small town and don’t have very many psychiatrists. Would be nice to have it known publicly that this person does not have others best interests in mind and will at least have to take responsibility for his actions, socially, if not professionally.
Currently, my wife and I are both going to individual therapy. Shes been going to someone else for therapy since this all went down. I just recently started seeing an actual psychotherapist (that is certified in CBT/ACT) for the issues I’m having with all this and I think I’m already beginning to feel the fog lift a bit.
These days, Our marriage has been stronger and more honest and genuine than it ever was before. We’re doing a really good job at communicating our feeling and thoughts to each other and are actually “Listening” to what each of us are saying to the other and doing our best to understand the others perspective, without falling into old mechanisms like, getting defensive or argumentative and attempting to shut the other person down. It sucks that it took this kind of experience to get us here, but at least we are here now. I do believe in time, we will both be better people from going through this together and better partners to each other. Both of us now see the struggles that get thrown at you in life as more of an opportunity to learn and doesn’t mean that one of us are terrible people or something is just inherently wrong with us or our marriage. Marriage is hard work and so is life in general. Learning how to navigate it together, openly and authentically makes it so much easier in the long run. Onward and Upward!
Thank you so much for taking the time to read and respond to my posts, Jill reads. your points and perspective have definitely given us more clarity around all the psychology surrounding these events. Much appreciated!
So when I was 19 I was abused by a therapist, that was 20 years ago now and I went through quite a lot in between in terms of recovery. I had gone to a crisis centre to come to terms with sexual abuse which had occurred between age 8-13 and was engaged in both one to one and group therapy. The dynamics of the group therapy were particularly damaging in that we would all go out drinking after the therapy with the therapist and over time I began staying overnight at her house as I was a student and had no way of getting home late at night. This moved on to having sex with her and I fell apart, everything that I was having so much trouble with got so so much worse. My self harming got out of control as did my drinking and drug taking ( a lot of the alcohol and drugs came from her). It did end after about a year but she remained very much a part of my life and my self destructive patterns continued to spiral until I finally became a member of aa and got sober at 28. It was only then that I began to understand what had happened was wrong but I shelved it and had so much more to heal from that I didn’t really go back to it. I knew she wasn’t working due to a bereavement and every now and then I would google just to check there was no sign of her practicing again. Anyway I checked again a couple of days ago and I saw she has started a private practice and is once again volunteering in rape crisis services and I went to pieces. Had a full scale physical response, legs shaking, felt terrified, sweating etc, followed by feeling washed out and numb. Since then I can think of nothing else all the memories are back and vivid and keep running through my head. I keep having uncontrollable emotional moments like bursting into tears on way to work this am. So far I am keeping it together on the outside but I feel like my world is suddenly crashing down on me and I don’t know how to cope I am 12 years sober now and am not thinking of doing anything self destructive I just don’t know where to start.
I found this site and reading through some other people’s stories it just feels so familiar to what I went through.
Hi Ruth,
Thanks for sharing your story. I am very sorry to hear about what you went through. That this therapist is back in practice is shameful and I can totally understand why you feel like you’re falling apart. It sounds like you may now be experiencing symptoms of PTSD. I strongly encourage you to get some support for that, whether from a new therapist, a doctor, an acupuncturist, a support group — anyone you feel is trustworthy and whom you feel able to trust. If you can find someone who has experience working with trauma and PTSD, that would be best. This is something you need support around, not something you should take on on your own.
Take good care!
Kristy
Thanks for the reply, I just saw it now. I am feeling like I have my legs under me a bit better again. Haven’t been bursting into tears and although I’m still struggling to concentrate in work and I’m just about covering what I need to get done. I’m also doing a part time PhD at the moment so I don’t really have time to fall apart but fortunately I’m a bit ahead of myself there too so I have been able to ease off, I took 4 days in a row away from work/studies recently and I think that helped a bit.
I have talked to my husband who has been a rock and a couple of close friends who have also been great so it helps to have that support!
I can get therapy through my university so I’m starting down that route, waiting to hear back from them about an appointment at the moment.
Not so much a crisis now but realise I have so much to work through, still not sleeping great and thinking a lot, but more positive in terms of feeling that I can get through this! Hopefully before my work/ studies suffer too much would also be great as I’ve worked so hard to get to where I am now
Thanks again
I have given up on the idea of therapy, I had two sessions recently and when I tried to talk about what happened he basically shut me down. Did say that relationships with clients were unethical but also went on to ask if I was the same person I was back then and when I said no suggested that the abusive therapist may not be either and that because therapists have to get therapy themselves that maybe she had worked through her issues! It’s really not what I needed to hear and I was really disappointed because I had had high hopes of working through all this. Though I’m not feeling in crisis and seem to be able to concentrate on work/university again. I got that book ‘ the body keeps the score’ and it’s helping a lot, even just in understanding what’s happening with me, I have spent much of my life feeling like I am in some way fundamentally flawed and I’m now beginning to see that actually I’m really just a normal human being who has reacted to various traumas in exactly the way humans react. Makes such a difference to know that!
Hey there
I am reaching out having put a complaint in against my former therapist.
It is so lonely and it is taking a long time for the complaints body to process it due to covid and a backlog of complaints apparently. He will not be informed of it until mid-late August although I submitted it in May.
I don’t want to say too much about the details because it is not over yet…but I just feel so isolated and like there is a massive thing going on in my life that people who have never been involved in something like it can ever understand.
I have a new therapist now, it is going okay but it has not been easy and sometimes I think he is like the complete opposite of the first one, he can seem really cold like he is terrified of me getting the wrong idea or something. Maybe Im just imagining it.
But just wanting to reach out like I say.
x
Hi Jasmine,
Thanks for reaching out! You are not alone. Many of us have been through the complaint process, which is, as you say, lonely and long. Just keep hanging in there. Someday it will be done and you will be through it. For now, it’s important to find other things to put your mind and energy into, since you have no control over the complaint process. Find some things you enjoy doing and put your energy there.
Yes, it’s true that many people will not understand and that can be really hard and lonely. I hope you find some solidarity on this and other websites. It’s good that you have a new therapist. Don’t be afraid to be honest with him about your experience with him. If he’s a good therapist, he’ll be open to feedback and open to discussing his approach. The more you can show up for yourself and honor yourself and your experience and advocate for yourself — that’s a big part of healing and moving forward.
Wishing you all the best!
Dear Jasmine,
I never filed a complaint, I had no faith in the process. In trying to pick up the pieces, I tried to share my story with a few other therapists – only seeking to restore my self-esteem and serenity. I was met with a concrete wall of incredulity/total indifference (FWIW, I never gave his name). It was humiliating, hurtful and destroyed forever my trust in “good” therapy.
So, first of all, kudos for your courage. Secondly, I understand completely your feelings of isolation and loneliness – a few people know a few things, some people suspect, other people have been hurt- but he is, for all I know, just fine. I had to move away.
So, after 15 years with him and 4 without, I am scarred deeply but it doesn’t overwhelm me anymore. It’s a piece of me that will never fully heal and never be resolved – much less shared.
And believe it or not, I can honestly say that he’s 100% a narcissistic asshole without anger. Take good care, Jasmine. You’re NOT alone out there.
Hey Jasmine, I am also currently going through the complaint process after being exploited and abused by my previous therapist. I can totally relate with what you said and the feelings of isolation. If it’s ok with you, maybe Kristi can give us each other’s emails so we can communicate and support each other through this stressful process?
Dear Noelle
The things you write are my experience too. I’m so sorry for all of us. My complaint wasn’t taken seriously and the sick clown is still in practice. The last therapist I went to, to handle the after effects of the abuse. My problems because of it are getting more and more severe. However, the new therapist just wanted to discuss the possibillity that I was psychotic and therefore just imagined being abused (and not just this, but all the other times someone has hurt me)! I keep losing faith in the whole of humaity, but I try to work on things on my own now, with the help of youtube-videos. Highly recommendable, as you are then more proactive yourself, which is crucial for improvement.
I wish you all the best of luck, especially Jasmine and Elle, as you are going through the proces right now. May we all heal and be happy again.
Yes Andrea, the only realistic outcome comes perspective and time – a lot of both. And a ton of pain. I expected that it would ruin me forever.
Yes, my trust is busted. I’ll never be able to seek therapy again although I need it. But I’ve learned to compensate and live with that huge chunk of life wasted on lies and fantasies and manipulation.
I see him as a small insecure needy narcissistic man who I happened to fall for.
Game over. Be well.
You are so right, Noelle. Perspective and acceptance is what has helped me somewhat, as well. I’m glad you at least can see him for what he is now. Thank you, and you too!
When I was 15 a saw a psychologist a few times, and she wanted me to be investigated by a psychiatrist since she thought I had “bad reality assertion”. I was investigated by a child and youth-psychiatrist, and she said that I “was a weird one, that didn’t fit in anywhere, and who no-one knew what to use for”, she made it a strategy to always laugh of me, even when I told her about the time I was beaten by my father. Later on I was handed a diagnosis (unspecified personality disorder), which she had given me, but when I asked about the diagnosis, she laughed at my question and said that it was just something administrative, and showed that it was funny and unnecessary that I even asked or felt worried about it.
I entered into a therapeutic relationship with her, unofficial and unpaid, since I had turned 18, and she wasn’t allowed to work with people over 18. However, we never clarified what the purpose of therapy was, what method she used, and we never made any kind of evaluation during the process. She sometimes laughed and tried to be comical about it and said that if I decided that it didn’t work for me I could stop, but it was never in a serious way. I never felt she took me seriously, I felt belittled all the time. And she treated me like a wasn’t entitled to my opinions or own emotions or experiences, but was just a “funny little thing”, which everyone could wreck and “tease” and if I felt something was over the line, she just laughed about it. I was sad that I couldn’t enter into a serious dialogue with her about anything, since she wasn’t the “talkative type” where you actually talk things through, but rather would just laugh at me and “my silly judgment”, which I was too “funny” and “silly” to understand, and therefore she insisted that we couldn’t talk about it or discuss it. As if I ever benefitted from her laughing at me. When I told her about that I didn’t like it when a male colleague started talking about his dick and my naked body and genitals, and repeatedly tried to make me enter into a sexual approximation I wasn’t interested in, she once again laughed and said that he sounded like a caring man that had some sexual fantasies about me, and that “if it goes, it goes”, and then that discussion was over. I was so ashamed that a psychiatrist called me “weird” and constantly laughed at me, and dared not challenge her, because it felt so shameful, and I was also raised to believe that I was responsible for everything that happened to me – it was not permitted in any way to be a victim of anything in my family, so if I was insecure, or was mistreated by others, or had difficulties believing in myself, then I was the only one to blame, and it was hurting other people. So I felt so entrapped. Nowhere to go, but to be shamed for who I am as a person. I continued going to her “therapy” till I was about 22. Later I’ve felt that I completely wasted my time, and never actually learned anything constructive, and I felt quite manipulated and silly. When I was about to pick an education she said that in terms of music “I had to tell myself that it didn’t happen to me, and that is something everyone needs to be able to tell themselves – that it didn’t happen to them”. She was of course not interested in my experience of what I wanted to achieve musically – which of course never was fame, but merely expression and working creatively. She then told me that I should start university, and use my clever head. I felt belittled by her trying to decide and interfere in my private life, because it felt as another way to hit me in the head – not even my future was I allowed to juggle alone. The whole experience has been overall negative for me, and actually there is nothing I regret more having spent time on. I felt so ridiculed and belittled and ensnared and stepped on. Why did she think she was allowed to intervene in my life? What was it that she wanted to “give me”? Don’t see how anyone gains anything from ridicule from a psychiatrist – I really tried to probe into her assertions when she claimed something, but she never entered into dialogue with me but just laughed at my very attempt to understand what she meant. Probably the worst and most frustrating experience of my life.
Frederikke,
I’m so sorry to hear about your experience. This woman sounds awful and so completely diminishing and dismissive of you, your feelings, and your experience. I hope you have been able to heal from this.
Hypnotized and groomed for sex for 4 years by a ISF psychologist in Courtenay BC, then when I refused his sexual overtures, stalked and targeted in community for another 6 years and even my disability services stopped by him and targeted by his whole toxic family including his counsellor daughter stalked me at his office and minor/ underage troubled gf when he hypnotized her, and even some colleagues. Look out for IFS therapists if they think you high hypnotizable and this one a paedophile groomer of adolescence and disabled. Took him being caught by another colleague to get him stopped but the trauma, medical damage and destruction of quality of life, never to recover ( cancer and he forced me into a severe adrenergic flare for over 2 years endangering my life) Evil narcissistic horrible immature predatory men out there , cowards behind job titles willing to kill clients to cover up who and what they really are, evil incarnate groomers masquerading as good men in community. He would have raped me and raped in another way anyway. He was given years to be accountable and refused, instead stalked in community, at my home and his highly groomed gf a pathological liar broke not a credit account and many other illegal activities. Still hard to believe myself. When the sick get educated and groom others, they try to kill for what they think they can steal. Again beware the IFS therapists and hypnotherapist.
It’s hard for me to think of my story as abusive because it wasn’t, not in the way most people’s stories are on here. I was an extremely willing and persistent participant and my counsellor said he would help me get through my transference after I admitted it a couple sessions in, very shortly after he would admit his own transference but would keep it hidden well. He would always allude to my looks or my mental attraction but because he displayed signs of professionalism everywhere that I was so glad it was a nice confidence booster. So I blamed myself for reading into this kind confidence boost and being obsessive. The service was free as it was part of my job agency so us emailing back and forth after work hours about professional things but also things of a friendship nature seemed fine and I assumed he would do that with all clients. Again little drops of remarks to my attractiveness would be sprinkled into the nice friendly moments and professional nature so , again, I was reading a lot into it. Fast forward to him changing tones from being professional to being friendly. I genuinely believe he was very conflicted as he was married. I felt very bad for him in a sense. At one point I was trying to make my relationship work with my ex partner but my counsellor knew how difficult it was because of the extreme erotic attraction I had to him so I had to remove myself from sessions for a couple months. He would reach out asking how I am and arranged a coffee meet up away from work. So I agreed and was back to square one with my deep obsessive attraction to him. He said his had disappeared so I was relieved but also extremely devastated. We tried keeping things professional But He would always slightly flirt back and would end up taking sessions with me to parks where we would eventually get to try hugging even though it was admittedly wrong on his part. I felt so safe and so excited cause he was extremely professional still even though he made a lot of sex jokes and would indulge in slapping me as my sexual kink. U started sending risky photos after I told him about my sex toys and he said he would like to see me in a collar. Things spiraled quick but he still had slight reservations all while admitting he developed feelings for me over a 6 month period but knew it wouldn’t work out because I discovered his wife was pregnant on his website. I was so heart broken But kept comforting him as his life atm was extremely difficult. We discussed What to do after countless sexual emails and fantasy stories and I kissed him and it went from there. We were physical in the park and another day in a hotel. Sex was very surreal and weird at first but I knew I would get over that weird feeling cause it’s what I’ve wanted all along even though the whole back and forth situation made me self harm a lot which he knew. After We had sex He would email the next day being cautious and second guessing what we were doing cause he felt horrible and I once again tried comforting him, ignoring my agony and addiction to his heroine over the 2 year span. I freaked out and reassured him that we can make something work. I dealt with panic attacks so the thought of losing this ecstasy really fucked with me but I tried hiding it as to not lose him. We’d go on having sex and indulging in a lot of our kinks and desires but it hurt every time he went back to his wife and soon to be child and lying to everyone about this intense passionate affair that meant so much to me. I even tried being a shoulder to lean on after the birth of his child which makes me sick to my stomach to this day that I participated in such a thing. I was very dependant on him and knew he showed most interest in me when it came to sex , or so I perceived it that way even though he said he had feelings for me but it wouldn’t work. I believe that He believed He made a mistake. Back and forth for 6 months until I couldn’t take it anymore and disclosed it to the agency. Part out of bitterness and part out of throwing my heroin syringe away. I felt guilty for so long Cause I betrayed the one person who knew all my weaknesses and insecurities and ruined his life, as he angrily let me know how many people’s lives are now ruined from this and that it shouldn’t make me sleep well at night. Fast forward to a year long investigation by health commission he was banned for minimum 5 years as he showed no remorse or accountability, he tried to say I lied and blackmailed him into having sex with me and that I would self harm if I couldn’t have him and he was just appeasing me. They didn’t believe it after all the emails they saw. I dealt with a suicide attempt during the investigation. Mid last year He contacted me apologizing and I got extremely angry at him. He got defensive because I called him selfish he turned it around on me and said I was selfish from the start and I wasn’t innocent either. He viewed our sessions as possibly making a friend and seeing where it lead. It obviously lead to nowhere good. He contacted me a couple months ago saying he hit a low and wanted to have sex again but I declined. His life Is ruined and I used to feel bad but I don’t anymore.
My story isn’t abusive but it is negligent. Yes I wanted it all but I felt safe in that transference. Once I got a taste I was hooked and still to this day 3 years later my body gets transported back to that ecstasy and unwillingly gets aroused at it even though I am exhausted from those thoughts that my mind goes blank.
I don’t wanna sound like a victim at all cause I think it was just a case of meeting someone at the wrong time and he’s not a monster he’s just dumb.
I almost wish I was abused as it would be more black and white to me but I wasn’t. It was extremely consensual even though it took a while.
Hi L, The definition of abuse is to misuse, cause harm or use something for a bad purpose. You were 100% abused because your counsellor had a fiduciary duty to you to create a safe place for you to feel and express whatever you needed to. He created a dangerous dual role with you when he invited you out to coffee and he exploited the power imbalance to his advantage when he sexualised your relationship. He broke his code of ethics and the law (depending where you live). Please, please, please do not say that this was not abuse. It truly was! Look up the Therapy Exploitation Link Line for information and support.
Thank you Andrea. I must confess that the Pandemic (minus the tragedy) has provided me with a bit of a silver lining. The man thrives on attention and adoration. He always spoke of his wife in very indifferent and demeaning terms.
And now he’s shut down. At home with his wife. Probably eking out every Zoom nickel he can find, and I’m sure he’s doing it well. But karma. Sweet karma. He lives for the physical. I still think of him frequently, and I still consider those years among the biggest mistakes of my life. But now I can finally giggle. I hope one day you will as well.
Thank you Noelle, I really hope I can too 😀 Yes, at least the pandemic made it hard for sociopaths to torture others. A little blessing in all of the tragedy.
I just had a whole weekend of sexting with my therapist. He egged me on and encouraged and directed me on what pictures and videos he wanted me to take and send and then we FaceTimed and he showed me his penis. I suffer from BPD so this little rendezvous completely flipped my world upside down. I became obsessed with him needing to talk to him every night which he is happily obliging since I have screenshots and I’m sure he thinks I have him by the balls at this point which I guess I do but not on purpose. Did I do this to myself? Did I seduce a man who is human at the end of the day and manipulate him because I’m BPD? I’m kind of reeling here. I can’t talk to literally anyone about this but him and he promises he’s going to help me get through this. Can someone help?
Penelope,
Is he human? In the sense that he probably walks upright and has opposable thumbs, I suppose he would be classified as such. But he’s a manipulative predator who is using you as a fetish. Unlike many of us, you have hard evidence to back you up. REPORT. There are a lot of good resources right here to help you get started. Do it to save your own sanity and sense of self-worth AND for all of the victims who remain unheard and dismissed by the system which clearly favors its’ own.
I don’t know how to emphasize enough that you have been victimized. So it wasn’t a gun to your head, and in a way that makes it even more insidious because he allows you to bear the burden of your “free will” – and he knows damn well what he did. They think it’s the perfect crime. Please don’t despair and don’t give up. We’re all pulling for you.
Penelope,
This man had committed an egregious violation of ethics and boundaries and should be held accountable. He is completely responsible for all of this. He manipulated you and made you think things were your choice but they weren’t. I agree with Noelle that he should be reported, but ultimately that decision is yours. It’s important that you do what’s right for you. If you decide not to report him at this time, please do keep all the evidence in case you change your mind in the future.
Honestly, the best thing you can do for yourself right now is to cut off all contact with him, because he will certainly keep manipulating you. I know it’s hard, but trust all of us, that it’s for your own sanity and well-being. Then please get some good support for yourself, whether from family and friends, another therapist, or some other type of counselor or helping professional. You need people around you who you can trust, who believe you and will support you in whatever you do and however you move forward.
All the best to you!
My 31 year old son told me last night that he knows about the abuse done by my therapist 15 years ago. The therapist apparently has breakfast with clients as a social thing. During one of these breakfasts he told a client about how he was going to lose his license for having sex with clients. He named me as one of the women. That breakfast client happened to be the brother of my son’s best friend. I have never been so mortified. Grant ed, I know and they know that I was a victim of abuse. However, the shame and embarrassment comes right back. It’s a whole other love to have my children know. I feel like I come so close to healing, and then all the progress I made is pulled out from under me.
Ellie,
I’m so very sorry this happened to you. I can imagine you felt very powerless in this situation and I can really understand the mortification and shame. Please know that we all take steps forward and back, and even though it can feel like progress is lost, that’s not actually the case. It’s just another layer and level of healing. Healing isn’t linear. It spirals and goes back and forth, and over time, we get better, even though we may not realize it until we look back and see how far we’ve come.
Please be good to yourself and give yourself all the love you need. You deserve it!
Hi. I need to share with people who get it. 10 years ago next month my abuser surrendered his license rather than go to trial. I’ve worked with several other therapists, and had finally gotten to a place of understanding and a good amount of healing. I’m a 3rd grade teacher. This year I’ve had an undiagnosed emotionally disturbed student. He has become violent several times in the classroom. The last time he hurt me and almost another student. I was hurt protecting that child. At this point the parents put him on independent study with the promise of seeing a behavioral specialist. I called the parent to check in and ask about the student’s work. She was telling me about the her son had been doing and the evaluation. She dropped in the name, Ed, like he was a mutual friend. When I asked who she meant, she confirmed my fear. It is my abuser. Then she said, “Yeah, Ed said that he used to work with you, too.” I’m in utter shock and turmoil. Fortunately, I was able to talk to my principal. She is moving him out of my classroom immediately. This evil man has no license. He is operating as a “life coach” and even advertises that his classes are more stringent than court classes for anger management. I don’t understand how he can be a behavioral specialist and counselor with no license. I understand that “life coach” is the big loop hole for these animals to use to keep operating. I just don’t know if there is anything I can or should do. It took all I had to submit the complaint and subsequent interviews, reliving it over and over. I thought what I did mattered, but now I just don’t know.
Hi Ellie,
I am so sorry to hear about this. What an unfortunate situation! That is just crazy.
Yes, the life coach thing is a big loophole because coaching is not regulated. Whether it’s a life coach, a spiritual coach, a business coach… Pretty much anyone can become a coach without licensing or certification. I would have thought there would be some restrictions on working as a behavioral specialist, but I think if people want to buy what he’s selling, they’re just going to go ahead and do it, regardless of whether or not he’s licensed or certified. And unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do about it. It’s possible you could write something on social media or Yelp, if he has a presence, or get friends to do that for you. Maybe someone else has some ideas. I think that for those of us who report, once that’s done, there’s not much left that we can do. And it’s very true that filing the complaint, even when it results in the person losing their license, often does not provide a satisfying long-term effect, because only the person’s circumstances have changed, not their personality or behaviors. And they will continue to find a way to do what they do.
Just remember that you are not responsible for his bad behavior. He is. This is tough and I’m really sorry you’re going through it! But you will get through it. So take good care of yourself and make sure to give yourself what you need.
I was abused by my therapist in England – Patricia Radford – from 1988 to 1992. Here’s what she put us through:
1. She insisted on two sessions a week (Monday and Wednesday) because I “might forget what I talked about on Monday, and this would give me a chance to continue talking about it before I forgot it.”
2. When my mother told her how much I disliked the long twice-weekly car rides to her office, when I’d rather have been at home after a long school day, she told my mother that I was showing “signs of anger” and that the therapy was more important than ever.
3. After I turned 13, she would talk nonstop about how “we all love to have great big juicy willies, and we love big wet vaginas, don’t we?” She would badger me for hours to talk about my penis. I’d spend that time chanting “I-am-not-going-to-listen-to-this”.
4. She never gave us any feedback. When I was 13 I said to my mother “well, after 4 years, what’s the result?” At this point my parents agreed it was time to give up.
My parents have never been 100% square with me on why the took me to Radford for so long, but I have a feeling that they had trouble coping with their marriage, their religious group, and more. Taking me to the therapist was probably a way for them to avoid having to listen to me complain about school, my siblings, etc.
Hi name is Hadassah Chavivah A.K.A ‘Kimmie” and I a survivor of Jewish Clergy Abuse and also professional misconduct . I am also am a Underrepresented artist and awardwinng filmmaker, Songwriter,and artist with a documented mental health disability.
I am at attaching the link for my award wining short film documentary called ” Hidden in Plain Site ” also known as a ” A Reynah” in Exile, as well as a link to my blog post that I wrote goes into more details about my story as a survivor and the symbolism of my film.
In my short film there is no words and I have used the art of allegoric story telling to show the audience in real time what it was like being in a one of the most vulnerable class of citizens in the US looks like( by having a documented mental health disability) and the distress I went through as I tried to escape my capteror ( the professional provider who had me psychologically bonded to him and could not leave for many years).
I believe that not being able to access the long term mental health quality care I needed from a female provider for many many years because of the inequities and disparities for men and women like me who are the in the most undeserved category in our society and only having govment insurance made my ability to escape such circumstances even harder to do.
My hope is that my blog post and film will let other women and men know they are not alone and that their is still hope despite horrific systemic oppression and hardships if their is quality trauma informed care and trauma focused care available to all who need it especially the most vulnerable to really heal and move on with their lives.
Thanks
Hadassah Chavivah A.K.A ” Reynah”
https://www.tzedeck.com/-hidden-in-plan-sight–our-awardwinning-short-film.html
HI here is the link for my blog post with more of the details about my story and also film. I hope my story can support your journey to. Hadassah Chavivah
https://www.tzedeck.com/hadassah-chavivahs-voice-blog/hadassah-chavivahs-voice
Hadassah,
Thank you so much for sharing with us!
Thanks!
I hope that others will get the safe quality care mental health care they need ( I am still struggling wit this) so they can heal and move on with their lives. All the best Hadassah
I’ve been in and out of therapy for many years and finally got to a point I felt ready to work through some sexual trauma from my childhood. I saw a trauma therapist for about 3 weeks and during that time I started to feel so twisted up and worse and I couldn’t figure out why. A few days ago, he kissed me and told me he was in love with me. I’ve been so confused and lost on what to do. I thought I was doing the right thing for my care and instead this happened. I feel so ashamed and like no one will believe me if I tell them, or they’d think I wanted it. Reading the therapist abuse checklist on here, I was horrified at how many things I was ticking off.
I feel so stupid and I have no idea how to move forward from here. I’ve tried reaching out to crisis lines and they haven’t been helpful to me. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I feel lost and alone, and like even if I did report nobody would believe me.
Thank you for having this website where I can post alongside other people who won’t judge me… I didn’t know who else to tell.
Hi Sarah,
I’m so very sorry to hear that this happened to you. What your therapist did was very wrong, and I understand why you would be feeling confused and lost. Do you feel up to finding a new trauma therapist? Preferably a woman? If you know someone who can provide a referral that would be a good start. Or you can check out the PsychologyToday.com directory. It’s important that you get yourself some support as you go through this, whether that’s from a new therapist, a friend or family member, a coach (there are trauma coaches out there), or anyone who you feel you can trust who “gets” it. You can also check out TELL http://www.therapyabuse.org to see if they have some email responder support for you.
Once you’ve got some support. then you may want to consider reporting. This is most certainly NOT YOUR FAULT, and this therapist crossed a line that should never be crossed. It was his responsibility alone to uphold the boundary – that is his JOB, it’s what he was trained to do – and he violated it. Someone who understands the violation can support you in deciding about reporting, either now or after you’ve done some healing work.
In the meantime, I’m glad that this website has helped you feel less alone. We all have our own stories. Often, it’s through sharing our stories that we find healing. Feel free to post wherever you like.
I hope you find some good trustworthy support!
Dear Sarah,
What happened to you is beyond heinous. Every case of therapist abuse is a scarring breach of trust not only towards the perpetrator but also towards ourselves and others. I have not and likely will never seek therapy again though I am very conscious of the fact that a good therapist could really help me become a happier human.
But your case – wow, the strength and time it took for you to begin to excavate such extreme trauma only to be so brutally betrayed…I do hope this individual pays dearly at some point.
I don’t know if you feel ready – or ever will- to try to trust again in the process. I would NOT recommend the recommendations from publications like Psychology Today – they are basically paid advertisements – therapists pay a monthly fee to be included. Perhaps NIMH or the APA directories would be useful, though the best are usually strictly word-of-mouth. In the meantime, I recommend writing in a journal as if you were writing to him. Detail the entire experience; the hope, the relief, the shock, the sadness, the guilt, the anger. Let it all out on the page. I do NOT recommend sending it, but if you can’t resist save a copy. There could be a lawsuit later, or a hearing regarding his license to practice. Don’t rule out anything at this time. Focus on yourself. I am so very sorry this happened to you. Take care.
I am just “waking up” from the abuse that I have been through for the last year. Your stories are so encouraging that there is a light in the darkness. I am working through all that has happened and trying to find ways to put one foot in front of the other. The worst part is that I am married and having to go through my own betrayal as well as what he feels as betrayal. Our marriage counselor has told him that my choice was removed from me and that it wasn’t me cheating on him. He is having trouble coming to terms with it. I don’t think that I am ready to tell my story yet but I appreciate knowing that when I do there is a whole group of people to come to.
Hi Dawn,
I’m glad you’re finding some encouragement and reassurance through the stories here!
I hope you are getting the support you need as you wake up and start to heal. It’s a process, for sure! I’m glad you have a marriage counselor who understands. It’s common for a partner to have stuff come up, so I hope your husband can get the support he needs as well.
All the best!
Hi, fellow survivors of cruel and unimaginable crimes.
Thank you so much to everyone sharing your stories here, especially Don. I cried as I read them. I cried for us all. Somehow I also feel less lonely and scared.
My story is so so similar to Don’s wife’s except that I did end up having a one-year romantic and sexual relationship with my counselor. He was trained in counseling psychology. I even brought up to him as I was starting to grow new strange feelings for him as a “daddy” and “lover”. I asked him bravely yet scared to death if these feelings were normal or sick. I even did some research online and asked him whether this was transference and countertransference. He laughed and said that my Google skills could not make me a psychologist, and that I knew nothing. As he rejected my self-observed hypothesis, I was confused and lost trust in my inner voice and instinct. My inner voice detected the red flags, but I didn’t trust it, as I trusted him more as a professional.
As we continued more sessions, he finally shared my “crush” feelings for him, just like in Don’s wife’s case. He emphasized that my feelings and his reciprocity were definitely neither transference nor countertransference. He couldn’t explain it but knew for sure that we just happened to genuinely fall in love with each other though we weren’t supposed to. He never felt this depth of love before, not even with his wife, whom he claimed to be hostile, cold, and emotionally unstable.
He repeated many times that I was such a special human being and he never met my kind before. I was gifted, he said. He sympathized with my childhood trauma and C-PTSD. So he vowed never to leave my side and would do everything he could to save me. Of course, with his top psychotherapy skills and love.
Seriously, he said this.
As my disturbed inner voice grew louder, I started looking for new psychotherapist and psychiatrist at the same time. I told him that I was doing that to rescue us both. He discredited them all as incompetent according to him as an insider in the mental health industry.
But then we had sex. He encouraged me to let go and do as I wished. And we loved, or at least I believed that it was love. Except that he never left his wife for me though he kept sharing stories about her abusive behaviors. He swore he stopped having sex with her entirely; I made him feel safe and warm. He brought his young son to me, though staged as a stranger who accidentally ran into them. I became very confused and couldn’t make any sense out of all the paradoxes. I tried to intellectualize the whole thing, but he countered it all. My flaw lied in my choice to omit “intentional exploitation and abuse” from all of my speculations. It was because I could never even for one second believe that this man would or could hurt me intentionally. No, not like my dad. Not after him hearing every single nightmare I had to endure since childhood in our sessions. Not after him seeing me cry and lament over my dad’s cruelty and how I still can’t get over it. Not after he knew all my past trauma of sexual abuse by other men. Impossible. He even cried for me once. How can another human being be that cruel? Because I don’t have the capacity to do that, I automatically assumed that no one could. So I deleted this possibility and went around trying to find other answers to explain our feelings. I tried to rescue us. He said I was his personal therapist and the only person in this world whom he confided in.
At this point, I realized that I became what my society would call a “minor wife.” It was against all my former proud values which centered on transparency, consent, rights, and family-ness. I was so confused, shocked, pained, disoriented, and partially in denial. I suffered in burning hell and felt shameful and guilty. I had nightmares about him, his wife, and even his little boys, alternated with my dad often in the same scenes. I lost sleep. I felt inferior to his wife.
At that time she was portrayed as a demon, and him as a domestic violence victim. My young days’ role of rescuer came into play as I would caress him who came to rest his head and injured soul on my laps from another fight with her—the unreasonably temperamental wife and mother.
In the late months of our one-year dysfunction affair, I began to see through more and more. So my self-hatred grew. I was also fearful of being exposed as an immoral person, hypocrite, and home wrecker. I thought about suicide. I punished myself by intentionally not doing things that would bring me success, because success wasn’t what a slut like me deserved. I deserved pitched-black bottom. I ate and ate and ate, and I gained 45 pounds. I stopped dressing up. I avoided social or ethical issues conversation.
To these days, I cry, both silently like when I was a little girl on my bed in the dark house that enshrined my narcissistic and violent dad where sobs in the blanket were safer than loud cries, and uncontrollably loud in my own place now miles and miles away from him.
But you know what? The time i cried the hardest wasn’t when I thought about myself. It was when I imagined myself as his wife. What if what he told me about her wasn’t all true. I imagined myself as her and how she must have felt when her world, the only world she knew, tumbled down into nothingness when she found out about the affair. The pain was unbelievably excruciating. I thought I would die and my body would just stop breathing because of the pain. It was a million fold of my pain which I thought was already unbearable.
That was when I decided.
It was so hard to leave when you saw your abuser as your new and better version of your cold, cruel, and unloving parents. There were also guilt of leaving and withdrawals from addiction to your ideal love and “home”.
But I gathered all my strength to rise and crawl to any help I could get. I left him, finally successfully after a year. I went through 4 more therapists and psychiatrist. I used up my savings, but I finally found a female therapist who gently re-educated me that I was not an accomplice but a victim of highly intelligent and power-abusive psychopath disguised as a healer. And one day, she reassured me, I will become a survivor. I will still remember all of this, but it will no longer affect me as much.
I hold on dear to those words, though I constantly find myself doubting it and returning to my accomplice role narrative.
Like many of us here, what is tormenting me is to see that the therapist is still in practice and even growing his business among celebrities, politicians, and social elites. He’s becoming more and more influential.
He’s gaining more press interviews and becoming a hero. He is upgrading his social and financial status.
I wonder if I am not his first and last one.
The place where I and he live doesn’t have legal measures or licensing boards for this. When I plummeted into darkness and despair, battered by trauma flashbacks and self-blame, I came to this place and read all of your stories and the kind words of people who actually see and care.
It’s my solace. Thank you.
One day I will be a survivor.
I will rescue and prevent other fragile souls who have been tortured in their young days from going through this hell again.
But first I need to heal. And I wish all of you kindness and growth. Let’s be survivors together. And let’s do something we can to stop this. Something within our small power and means. I refuse to be a bystander. Though I am now very afraid, I will give myself time to work with my therapist and use healthy resources to progress. I will make wise moves for my life and others. I will be wise enough to see what I can do and what I can’t. Then I will act to contribute to a positive change no matter how small it will be.
Because even just one more victim is already too many.
To my dear fellows, you are not alone. And thank you for letting me know that I am not alone.
Charlene,
Thank you so much for sharing your story. I wish you all the best in your healing!
Thank you, Kristi. It means a lot to me.
Thank you for telling your story. Mine is very similar. I have PTSD, too. I was abused by my husband. My therapist gained my trust over the course of a year, and then used it to have sex with me for ten months. He told me he loved me over and over, then denied it after he broke off the “affair.” I was also suicidal for a while but thankfully it turned to anger. I reported him and he surrendered his license. I am now suing him. The craziest things are that I still love him and miss him. That’s the power they hold on us. It’s frightening. I don’t know what I’d do if he ever approached me again. Probably crumble.
Sarah,
I’m so sorry for what happened to you. Congratulations on taking action against him! Yes, it can take time and a lot of healing to break that hold. It’s such an egregious abuse of power and trust. Good luck with your suit and all the best to you in your healing!
Hi all, I’m so sorry to hear about what happened to you all and I’m wishing you all well on your healing journey. I came across this website after feeling very much alone in my experience and having to basically counsel my counsellors whenever I seek help because it’s something that they don’t consider can happen.
I was 14 when I saw a therapist, I am not sure how long for, as I have blocked it out, but it was over months. He emotionally abused me, tried to cut me off from family members by trying to convince me they were abusive sociopaths, and got me to cut off friends. If I argued back, corrected him about my loving family, or didn’t follow his guidance exactly he would get very angry. I was in a very vulnerable position and to be told things like no one loves me whilst already feeling depressed leaves a mark. When I was a bit older I realised that he was grooming me and I remembered that during the sessions there was a time where he would get me to close my eyes to meditate for at least 15 mins. Little things like that now that I know his true intentions haunt me (like what was he doing whilst my eyes were closed). He would invite me to more sessions at his house (which I didn’t go to) and would keep telling me I needed more sessions without setting goals with me. He would also tell me details of other patients he was working with which not only breached confidentiality but was also extremely distressing. I got out when my mum came in because he wanted to chat to her and tried to convince her that everyone in my family are sociopaths. I never got told what they talked about but she stormed out and said she’s never taking me there again.
I found out a few years ago that he sexually abused someone who also had therapy at the same time as me and they were even younger. I spoke to them over text and their experience followed the same pattern of him trying to convince them that their family members were sociopaths. I lost contact, but I think they started a legal case against him. However, I recently found his personal website and it sickens me seeing what he claims to specialise in.
My family reported what happened to me at the time but I still feel a lot of guilt that he was still practicing and still able to harm other people. I also have to remind myself that I was very young and that of course I trusted a respected counsellor who I was referred to by my GP. I’m almost 21 now and it still effects me quite a bit, especially if I see someone who looks like him or when it comes to intimacy. Mainly it’s just the guilt of what he got me to say or believe and me constantly telling myself that it “wasn’t that bad” compared to what other people have experienced. I also have extreme anxiety surrounding medical environments and have an issue with trust because I followed all the procedures of seeking help and still got unlucky. I’m still on my healing journey and people in my life are confused as to why it still affects me because they see it as happening so long ago, but sometimes it still feels like yesterday. I was even called a burden behind my back by an ex boyfriend because I was still affected by it less than 2 years later. I now have a loving boyfriend who is helping me to heal.
Hi Izzy,
I’m so sorry to hear what happened to you and at so young an age.
It completely makes sense that you feel the way you do, and you are not alone in those feelings. I still get some of those “it wasn’t that bad compared to others” thoughts, while at the same time recognizing that in fact, it was that bad for me. It’s so important to honor and acknowledge your own feelings and experience, and especially to learn not to compare yourself to others since we are all unique, with our own unique backgrounds, bodies, and brains.
So glad you have a loving boyfriend to support you! I hope you also have some trustworthy and trauma-informed practitioners to help you on your journey.