therapist just terminated with me

So I was thinking about this some more today. My father was a lawyer and once tried to explain "tort" to me when I was a little girl. Didn't make much sense but the idea, as well as my confusion about it, have remained with me. Here's a link to the article on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tort

Relevant quotes from the article (hope this OK under copyright law!):

Note the "emotional" injuries.

I'm also working on an idea that legally competent people come into therapy with interpersonal incompetencies which is part of what they/we are there seeking help for.

My situation with my last T is not enough in my opinion to warrant the trouble of a lawsuit. And, in fact, we may be working out our "dispute" via email and snail mail. Yet to be determined.

But . . . somebody who has had more "harm" than me, and some backing or resources to take something to trial, could shine some light on this situation?

Just a thought.

I have emotional and psychological injury plus financial injury.
Caused by professional negligence.
I think I have enough for a tort.
The trouble is if I take him to court for this, the NHS will hire the best lawyers in the land, as they have OUR tax money to play with and I only have my own small pot.
He will be pulled in for questioning in the next day or two.

IF you could find a first-rate champion law firm, willing to take your case pro bono ("for good", that is, for free), or maybe just a firebrand young advocate, maybe there's a chance it could start turning things around. It could be good press and "kudos" for them, if it would set a precedent. But, I know, it's hard to know if there is anybody around who is interested. Maybe your advocate would know of somebody? But maybe there's not anybody.

Very much too bad that your NHS is more interested in "defending" itself rather than finding ways to correct what went wrong. And it did go wrong and you were hurt, and you have support here on PC from people who have been through similar stuff and understand. Even if our governments don't, yet.

The NHS may very well also choose to hang him out to dry. They are not necessarily going to be invested in protecting a therapist who left under the pall yours did. It sounded from the beginning of your story as if something had gone very wrong with him. There may be more evidence against him than you imagine. Male therapists who snuggle with female clients are rarely well received among their peers.

Maybe I am off base here, but how would you "understanding" protect other people who might be victimized by this guy? He needs to be held accountable in whatever way is possible IMO. I don't think motive matters, what he did was wrong and what you are doing by reporting is right.

I am with you kecanoe - I guess trolls are everywhere and someone wanted to wade in and be nasty to me. It wasn't on this site, thank goodness.

Yea doesn't really talk about the harm itself at all.

"On the other hand, psychological harm can be overestimated. A client who deteriorates after starting psychotherapy might
well have deteriorated anyway. In fact, undertaking psychotherapy could have slowed down their deterioration."

Notice how they don't apply this logic in the reverse situation -- if a client improves during the course of therapy, they might have improved anyway. Oh no, in that case it had to be therapy. Crazy.

"Clinicians generally react with resistance to client feedback systems."

Speaks volumes. Who needs to hear what the client is feeling. The therapist can just tell the client what they are feeling, because the therapist is omniscient.

These articles are so predictable. They start off talking about approach and technique. Then they reluctantly acknowledge that the therapist matters more than the approach. And finally, they talk somewhat desperately about technique again, because they don't want to admit that little of this is reproducible or evidential, and is instead largely experimental and possibly often just plain out of control.

"Some therapists had a lot more clients whose state of mind deteriorated than others although, Parry pointed out, that could be because they had more difficult cases. And some may have got worse whether they had therapy or not."

Here we go again with the rationalizations. Keep reassuring yourselves, therapists, that everything is as you want it to be.

The therapist IS the most important factor in successful therapy. If the therapist has good boundaries, is kind, is steady, is strong, is insightful, is rock solid, is loyal, is ethical, is moral, is professional, is loving, is able to listen and not judge, is compassionate and is well supervised with good CPD and mentoring, then the client might actually improve.

If the therapist ditches the client, after cuddling her and hugging her and relating to her body in an overly familiar way - and protesting always that he will not suddenly end - then the abuse is awful. I feel more damaged than I have ever been. Bloody therapists!

But how is it abuse if it ended due to circumstances beyond his control?

I personally think that the term "abuse" has been bandied about, mostly by psychologists, too much in the last couple of decades. When it comes to interpersonal relationships, things can get complicated especially when, for example, parents (and I am one) treat their children poorly sometimes, even when we try our best to be aware of and go to therapy for our stuff (possibly to excess sometimes, leading to other imperfections as a person and parent).

So, life sucks sometimes.

But in this case the person who was acting "parentally" was not MariaLucy's parent. He was acting improperly, possibly/probably because of his own issues that were "out of his control". But he was doing it in a professional capacity.

Here's the Wikipedia definition of abuse:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abuse

I think there are lots of ways that what happened to MariaLucy could be called abuse. I like the "tort" idea better, that he (and the supervisory employer NHS) "wronged" MariaLucy. I'm wondering if maybe people should move more toward that term, but that may be another thread.

we do not know why he ended with me - all he told me was in the only letter I got from him five weeks later (?!?!?!) saying ' I have reached a point where I can't offer you anymore' which sounds like him bailing out. Wanting out.
Apparently according to the police they have to find out WHY he bailed out. It will be part of the investigation.
We suspect he will say that all touch was therapeutic but it will probably land him in deep **** with his professional body. I have video and photographic evidence of him holding me so he can't deny that. I wasn't adverse to that, as you know. It is the inappropriate touch that is the problem. anyway, I am worried that he can google and find this thread and read it.

I like the tort idea a lot. I might pursue that on behalf of all deeply wronged clients.

I can understand that fear. But, realistically, do you think that could make much difference? If he did find it and read it, he might be appalled instead of defensive.

That's what needs to happen, I think. Well-meaning therapists somehow need to understand how we've been hurt and "wronged" whether the therapists intended that or not. But they're not doing it just on our say-so. Understandable, maybe, still needs to change, if society holds to the value of valuing every citizen.

I don't know how any mortal can live up to this. Nobody is that selfless, patient, nor psychologically and emotionally coherent. If the stereotype of wounded and neurotic therapists has any truth to it, then it's even more unrealistic.

By not declaring their own defects, they imply that they have none. The lack of transparency is a setup for failure and a rude awakening. There is too much secrecy. Seems many therapists are seeking their own corrective experience from their clients, and either do not share this or do not even know it. Therapists need to give a full accounting up front of their true self. They need to present a mental health CV. Otherwise it's a dangerous farce.

The level of risk is not properly acknowledged. The last thing certain people need is to pay someone for help and instead get a dysfunctional and failed relationship that scars them emotionally. What happened to you is just wrong on many levels.

Wow..This is quite a thread.

I haven't been able to read all the posts, but, I think, I get the picture.

MariaLucy, I am so sorry you've been made to endure such suffering. I am someone who was harmed in therapy as well, and, even though, it didn't happen exactly the way it happened to you, I can see many similar dynamics of this, as far as how therapists act and how the victim feels and all the stages of emotional turmoil they go through. I've been through this. At first, I felt as though my heart was ripped out and I thought I wouldn't be able to survive it. I did survive and I came out a stronger and wiser human being as a result. You can do it too.

Your therapist is an A-hole. There is no justification for unethical termination, professional boundaries violation and emotional exploitation of client. You know he was in the wrong and that's the most important thing. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about it.

You have the right to take whatever action feels empowering and beneficial to you, as long as it is legal. It is you and only you, who is in a position to decide what is and is not in your best interests.

Best wishes and best of luck in your recovery process.

If you plan on taking any legal action against him,I would be worried too.It could possibly be used against you or backfire in some way by posting about it.Idk that for sure though,but you never know.

Since OP is not naming names, I don't see how this could cause trouble. Am I missing something?

Yes,probably just the same level of paranoia I have.

I agree, realistically.

But I also understand the fear. It's something that I have been dealing with myself, in a way, and I think it's more the general fear of something backfiring or being used against me when I talk about things that come from a "vengeful" place in real life.

That fear, I think, led me to "dissociate" from my feelings of vengefulness, which after my most recent experience with my last T (and the support and opportunity to "vent" here), I am now coming to "own" and maybe understand.

Realistically, I'm coming to think/feel that a feeling of retribution or vengefulness or "If you hurt me, I'll hurt you back" serves a purpose. For me, as maybe for others who find ourselves posting here, that feeling was disallowed, disapproved, made me like a "bad" person in the eyes of important people in my life whom I needed (parents, aunts, grandmother, etc.)

Yes, it's a "bad" feeling. It can lead us to "hurt" people. But. . .I'm also finding, in me, that the gut feeling of vengefulness is a necessary base for a more "developed" feeling of retribution-seeking or justice on my own behalf. You count, I count. I can't really get there by denying me.

Thanks
He is an A-hole. He is now suspended from all his work. Yea! He so misused his power over me, he so mistreated me, his termination was abusive, his violations huge. I feel like I am coming out of a fog. I don't even love him anymore. I did for the first couple of months post termination. But now I am just horrified at him and glad that he is getting some comeuppance.
I am sorry you have also been through this hell. I really am. thanks for your supportive and kind words. I actually know one person in real life who has been through what I am going through. They are still livid three years on. I don't want to be like that. I want to move on and shake his dust from my feet - and make sure he knows what a ***** he has been.
Stupid man.
thank you for sharing and posting

I found this post really helpful.
It took me two months to get to the place where I could report him to the police because I was hurt and angry and I didn't want to act from any feeling of revenge or vengefulness. That didn't seem right. But eventually, with a lot of input from professionals like Victim Support people, they explained that I was going to feel vengeful but that didn't mean I shouldn't report him. Everyone points out that if he is innocent, then he can say so. And I can say what he did to me. both of us just being honest here.
but he will probably be struck off or at least severely reprimanded and have to go into retirement earlier than planned and with his tail between his legs.
When I heard he was suspended from all work pending the investigation - I suddenly started to feel better. Up until that point, he was going about living his life as normal whilst I was in hell. That didn't seem right. I am fed up of men treating me badly and getting away with it.
And he thought he could. He wrote 'this is how it is'. Well, mate, this is NOT how it is. As you have found it. There are CONSEQUENCES!
I refuse to be a powerless victim yet again.

I am now in the process of writing my complaint to the NHS. It is very long as not only did my psychologist let me down, but so did his centre and his centre manager and his line manager and his supervisor. Where were they in all of this?
I have been through so many feelings this past week. Sometimes I feel awful for 'betraying' my therapist by telling on him, sometimes I feel so angry I can hardly breathe, sometimes I feel so betrayed by him I can't stop crying. What I am going through is so devastating. And to think he thought he could just do all those things and get away with it. Why do these people hurt us so badly? Why do they think they can do all this and walk away?
I think what he has done to me was the cruelest thing for a therapist to do.

The hurt will last for a while. There will be times when you'll feel better and times when you'll feel awful. Just roll with it, it's the best you can do really. Just as you'd let the waves of the ocean go through you. As you know, when you swim, you have to adapt to the waves, not resist them, if you want to stay afloat and get to your destination.

Thanks
I keep telling myself positive stuff like 'I am swimming great - I can cope with these waves - I am doing brilliantly - look at how well I am doing' and that helps. I try to watch out for when I am thinking 'I am going under, I am drowning' and reverse it.