Does your T work with other therapists or has solo practice? I prefer the former.

Mine is basically a solo practice in a center that houses a group of solo practitioners if that makes any sense. They share office staff, etc., but he owns his own practice. The main pdoc is the owner of the center and basically others lease space and staff and services from the center. That is a different set-up from my pdoc whose practice is a corporation basically owned by a group of pdocs who are partners in practice.

As far as safety goes, honestly, I've never worried about safety with my therapists, but they have all been in office space shared with other therapists or doctors. I have no idea how I'd feel meeting a therapist alone in a office with no one else around since I haven't had that experience. I might find that uncomfortable, but I'm not really sure. I've never had reason for a minute to be nervous about my safety around my therapists; they have been consumate professionals.

Apples and oranges. This is a study investigating a vanishingly small sample of therapists, all of whom are psychologists, all of whom live and practice in the same country, and it is only about one specific type of abuse. So we are really nota talking about the same thing - quite apart from the fact that no study based on a population of 59 individuals is representative of anything other than those 59 individuals.

My T has a private practice in an office shared with one other therapist in private practice. They have a receptionist. However, my sessions are at a time of day where T and I are the only two people in the building. I'm not worried about it at all. I have a very strong intuition to warn me when things feel hinky. I am not even minorly worried about my therapist's behavior as a private practitioner.

I fully understand that this is a complex issue which can't be fully discussed in this context. An offender is probably going to offend regardless of the office they work in. The practice type alone is not protection.

My intent wasn't to imply that solo practice should be considered a "red flag". It's most definitely not. Solo practice doesn't turn Ts into abusers, Ts who are abusers are just more likely to prefer working solo. I said nothing about assuming the safety of a T no matter what setting they work in - an unethical therapist is probably going to be that way whether they work in a hospital or out of their home. And it's important to note that most therapists are by and large ethical, so we are talking about a small percentage here anyway.

My point was to support the OPs original theory that solo practice may provide an ideal setting for offenders to offend and I still agree that it does. Maybe I'm unjustified in feeling this way, but to me its just logical. It's a minor piece of the puzzle, I get that, but it's still a piece.

Mine shares an office with one other therapist.

My pdoc shares his office with a therapist, just not my therapist.

Thanks for the reference.

Are you responding to my post or to an imaginary post? I never said correlation is causation. I've gone to college, I know the difference. Neither did I say the conditions of practice determine the ethics of a practitioner.

You don't have to defend your choice of seeing a therapist in solo practice by distorting what I said and call it a fallacy. It's your therapy, it's your choice, you don't have to defend anything, I'm just sharing an opinion, not telling you what to do.

There are conditions that make certain kinds of unethical behavior easier. A licensed therapist for instance is less likely to act unethically. But that's also a correlation. Licensed therapists also abuse people. Nothing guarantees anything. We all try to reduce likelihood of getting hurt, that's why we rely on so many things to determine if a therapist is a good therapist for us.

Based on my experience, I advise caution, especially to people who have no supportive friends or family or others in their lives (even other professionals) who are knowledgeable or informed about this person's therapy. This is not the case with some people, as they are not alone, they know the difference between abuse and not abuse, they have supportive friends and family, they received recommendations about a particular therapist from other health professionals who know the therapist and even check in with the person to see how their therapy is going, etc.

But if a person on their own picks a therapist, perhaps from an ad, person who works in solo practice, and have none of these other people who care for this person and can alert them to problems they are unaware of, I urge them to approach solo practice with caution.

I responded to the topic of the thread as discussed. You can choose to put your faith in whatever you like, and if it helps you, that's fine for you. But I think cherry picking isolated bits of information out of context and using those bits as guideposts isn't very sound advice to others, especially when there is information out there which clearly describes a web of behaviors that taken together do strongly correlate with an increased incidence of abuse. Solo practice, by comparison, is a very weak correlation. For instance, seeing a licensed T doesn't decrease the chances of unethical behavior. It might make people feel better to believe it so, but research doesn't prove or disprove it. Licensing does increase the chances of competence, gives consumers access to background information, and increases the opportunities for recourse in the face of unethical behavior. All good reasons to consult a licensed T. But those are different from a decreased incidence of abuse.

BTW, I finished my therapy almost 20 years ago, so my comments are not based upon a personal preference, but rather wide reading in the field. Such info wasn't available when I was in therapy, but since @ 2000, many studies have been published, some of the most comprehensive by Gabbard, Pope, and Tabachnick, if anyone wants to know more about what sorts of behaviors should raise suspicions.