This was addressed to HD but I will answer, too:

I had been in treatment with the abusing PDoc for some time, maybe over a year, before sessions definitely turned into something else.

Now, looking back, I can see there was a grooming process where he gained my trust, raised my self-esteem and gradually sexualized therapy.

He had to do this gradually; If he had initially suggested we engage in sexual intimacies as part of therapy at our first appointment as my psychiatrist, I like to believe I would have dashed out and never returned.

But I thought he cared about me, I thought he wanted to help me, he made me believe I was intelligent, reasonable and special.

I was very wrong. He used our sessions to learn I was gullible and unworldly.
Quite frankly, looking back, I think he viewed me as a ‘mark.’ And I was.

At the time, I didn’t know intimacies with a psychiatrist was a felony in our state. I didn’t know it was viewed as unethical. He did tell me our relationship could be ‘frowned upon’ and to keep it to myself. I didn’t know how our relationship could hurt me. Also, I thought he was honestly wanting to help me with a financial situation but I couldn’t have been more wrong!

Now, looking back, I realize I was emotionally, sexually, financially and psychologically exploited by this man. But by the time I started having questions about his conduct, I wanted to believe- perhaps he was a good man who made a bad mistake with me.

He had even treated me horribly in the end when I started to ask too many questions. He wanted to end the physical relationship (I guess) and at the end he told me he had really been intimate with me because he felt sorry for me...like he felt sorry for ‘street people.’ He tried to make it all my fault by saying, ‘You promised you could handle this...Why cant you handle this!’ He lied and told police and lawyers that I was a ‘known prostitute.’ This was the man, the psychiatrist, that I cared about and believed he cared about me.

He had raised my trust and self-esteem and trampled all over it...an ultimate betrayal. He was my doctor! But I wasn’t quite convinced, not yet. I was so foolish!

Then, one year after our intimacies ended (but he was still my psychiatrist !) an article appeared in our local newspaper that he had been arrested for keeping a female patient in his motel room against her will, administering drugs to her and being intimate with her.

That’s when I realized what had happened between us was not a mistake, that I had been a victim, and that there was at least one other victim.

ShouldHaveWalked, this occurred years ago and I’m still trying to figure things out, too.

You are not alone.