old therapist sued - how would you feel?

I goggled my old therapist of 20 some years ago - I was in therapy with him for 10 years, I left because I did feel that he was appropriate... In that one time he came over to my house - and that really did it for me.. invasion of my personal space...nothing happened.. but at the time it was just yaza... not what I wanted..

He was recently sued... and the 2 women won... it has really thrown me for a loop..
He married one of his patients too.. is that OK?

I just don't know what to think..

I have no idea why I goggled him last night.. was just out of the blue.. for me...

I guess I'd just feel glad I got out when I did.

priceless... thank you....

Sounds like you made a good decision to leave when you did.

Marrying a former (or even current) client/patient is unethical at best. IF the therapist is also a licensed psychologist in the USA, it is against APA guidelines. (Though there might be some mitigating circumstances.)

i think... there might be a 2 year rule that is endorsed by the American Psychological Assocation.

2 years after the last theraputic encounter... one is allowed to date / marry / have sexual relations with an ex client.

despite this being the official American Psychological Association guideline there are some therapists who believe that therapists should never date ex clients because the basis of the relationship (what the therapist and client know of each other) is based on transference/counter-transference - given the nature of the prior interaction.

i'm not sure on the guidelines of other professional associations such as the Psychiatric Association, the Councelling Association, the Social Work Association etc etc etc. The 2 year rule? Not sure...

Personally... I'm of the 'never' frame. But then... I don't believe that there is only one person who is right for every person so I don't fear that there is a danger of that happening with my therapist. I think that there are a fair few different people out there who we could potentially make things work with. Because of the nature of the theraputic relationship... It is simply not allowed, however. As forbidden as incest IMHO. It would be wrong for a parent to approach their child sexually... And even if a child were to approach their parent it is the parents job to gently refuse. I feel very strongly about this.

Sounds like your therapist had poor boundaries and that therapy was likely to be more about doing what he took to be best for him rather than doing what was best for his clients. He might have thought he was doing what was best for them but it sounds like he was seriously misguided. Yeah, I'd be glad that things ended when they did. Well done you for seeing that something was up and getting the hell out of there :-)

Well it seems like your former therapist was being inappropriate more often than not.

I have a friend who is married to her former therapist. They have been together for a pretty long time now. She was only in therapy w/ him for grief counseling and for about 6 months.

Nothing happened during therapy but after it was over my friend contacted him and they had coffee together and now they are happy.

End of story

end of story, or to be continued...
hard to say, i guess.
of course it is possible that they will stay happily together...
but then it is also possible that one day she will come to be of the opinion that her feelings for him were largely based on his being kind to her and willing to listen to her etc when she was at an extremely vulnerable point in her life...

if she were to do therapy again i expect she would be likely to struggle with issues around whether people can only care for you if they have sexual feelings for you etc etc etc...

i guess we won't know until it really is case closed (ie with her death) when we attempt to make sense of her life in hindsight...

freewill, I'm glad you had good instincts and boundaries when he came to your home. good for you!

i had a T who disappeared suddenly while I was seeing him. he was arrested for having a relationship with a client. I was devastated to lose him and felt bad for his (2nd) wife and all his kids.

Finding this out abour your former T must be hard.

hugs

I had a ethics teacher ask about this idea. I think there was a two year rule in the social worker's ethical principles although some argue that once a client always a client.
I stated that I could see doing it if the therepeutic relationship was short-term. I used the example of a police officer having a few sessions after being forced to shot someone. Then, the two meet again three years later or so. If the relationship was short-term and superficial (not in depth therapy), I could see someone marrying a client. Another example for me, would be if you were a member of support group/group therapy for brief time and then married the person. I would have trouble enforcing the idea of never being able to date.
However, if the relationship is long-term and/or in-depth, I am opposed to marrying/dating. I doubt that I would ever relate to my current T quite like I do other people because of what she knows about me and transferance.

i am glad you left when you did, but perhaps googling therapists is not always helpful.

i had a therapeutic (not) relationship with a therapist who wasn't. What i mean is that the guy was supposed to do basic counselling at my school then hand me off to a real therapist... he had no real training. But i am guessing he had been in therapy himself or was reaidng about it or something and decided he could do it... because he took me on as a therapy client/patient/whatever. It was free and i had zero idea what he was doing.. none. He never said this is therapy or anything, he just kept seeing me every second week to talk... but he started actively digging into my past, etc. He talked about it taking a year or more. i became a basket case at some point and he discovered he had no idea what to do with what he dug up... pure "insight" for me didn't help and made things worse. Evenutally his schedule became "too busy" and it ended with me hanging.

Long story but the point i am getting to is that i became so very deeply attached and he knew it. He had no idea what to do about it. We never talked about it and i believed i was in love with him. How would i know differently? i was almost obssessed. And it lasted more than 10yrs. How does that reflect on the two year rule?

Can true love ever develop when the possibility for transference/countertransference is so strong? Even Carl Jung was involved with a patient. There are many stories out there of relationships which have gone well, and those that have not. How can an association or board or anyone really judge what love can or cannot be?

In this case, the client went to my old T for counseling during her divorce proceding, following the divorce completion - they married.

So she was a current client so to speak.. but not because as soon as the divorce was final..they didn't let grass grow under their feet... I don't believe that she had an opportunity to heal from her divorce.

For me all of it was very odd and strange as I found out different pieces - I worked at the same place as the wife - and got to know her professionally... and then found out who her husband was... she had kept her maiden name in the professional environment. That blew my mind.

Then to top it all off, my ex-husband did some work for his the T brother who was a college professor and then I inadvertly found out more. grrrr.

I also found out per goggle that my current T (the one since Dec that I like) and my old first T go to the same church - so they may very well be friends.

So I no longer like my current T and am going to quit.

so it goes...things always get complcated for me...

Yeah there is a 2 year rule... which, to me, is laughable... a rule shouldn't even have to be in place... therapists shouldn't be marrying, dating, being friends with, having sex with, or doing anything besides giving therapy to their patients!!! Ever!!! Doesn't matter if it's 2 years or 10 years. Anyway, I think you should be proud of yourself for having excellent judgment, and the strength to remove yourself from a possibly harmful situation. I'm sure it was very difficult.

Hi Alex!

You bring up good points. We won't really know I guess. But then again, we could never speculate about anyone's marriage.

What I meant by "end of story" was that as far as I can tell nothing odd or weird has gone on with them. I've spent a lot of time w/them both and they are just like any other couple to me.

In fact, the subject of how they got together is rarely if ever discussed. They both said they are confident they would've met anyway

Old Therapist that married his patient - divorced so all was not well... Old Therapist is on yet another marriage.. Goggled current Thearpist and discussed with current T, that he was in the same office at the same time that I was in therapy with old Therapist...
Found out that they all went to same church..know each other socially...

I quit therapy!!! why bother, I mean really....why bother... what a "xxxxxxxxxx" mess..

I don't think that the fact that they seem to be having a happy marriage excuses major league malpractice anymore than a child seeming to be happy excuses incest...

Um...okay.

And thank you both for reconizing my feelings on quiting therapy...

Freewill, I'm just not getting why you need to quit therapy with the therapist that you have felt good about until now, because s/he goes to the same church as the other one. Do you trust your current therapist at all? Would you consider talking to your therapist about this and then making a decision after discussing it?

Unless you have signed a release, they can't talk about you. I've never heard therapists at church discussing their clients there. They are at church for their own spiritual needs, not to talk shop, and they generally need a break from work.

About your old therapist being sued, that's an icky feeling, but maybe a relief that you got out when you did. I've been in a similar situation too. One of my past therapists did seem a little weird to me, and one time he came to my house too, and that felt wrong. After he had terminated me and some time had passed, I heard that he was being sanctioned for having an affair with a client. For anyone else reading - therapists who go to your house may be a big red flag. Although there was another one who visited at my house, and that was different because he worked at my husband's office, and they were friends, and it was before we got into a therapeutic relationship. After I was a client, he wouldn't accept a dinner invitation. At the time, I was hurt about that because of the loss of friendship. It would have been better to go to someone else for therapy, but choices were limited in that place, and I had issues with trusting someone I didn't know. BTW, he knows my current therapist too. I'm not sure that the previous therapist knows that I'm going to the current one, but he probably figured it out when he saw me waiting in the hallway to see the new therapist, and he asked if I was there to see someone, and then asked if I was there to see someone other than him.

Freewill,

I don't think the church thing would bother me but the social aspect defnitely would.

Good luck with finding a new T.