Do Therapists Have to Report Abuse by Other Therapists?

It's not really all about protecting him. It's also protecting me.
I don't want to go through what reporting would mean for me.

I would tell your new T everything, because it is important to you and is always between. I tend to think if your new T reports if he feels obliged to, it is not you reporting or making the choice to report. Well I do think your ex T needs to be reported but I understand you are not up to it.

Spoke with Group T. Actually, in group, I said I was mad with her.... I got to speak with her privately for about 15 minutes though after group.

Group T is approaching her reasoning for wanting to report very differently than J. She said she's seen many people who had blurry boundaries before with therapist and has never felt the need to report before. She says she wants to do it for me -- not herself -- not out of obligation -- but because she wants to see accountability be placed where it belongs. And she also said that as one of my therapists, it's her job to protect me if she sees something like this. She apologized if she handled it wrong -- if she should've spoken to me before speaking to J.

My anger deflated. I am very confused. I don't know what's real anymore. I told Group T that S had not been telling everything to his supervisors, and she asked me "What does that say to you about how he viewed the relationship?" Kind of the first time I thought about it really.... it means he knew that he was doing things he shouldn't have been doing. Regardless of what he told me about how he'd defend our relationship to anyone... he was deliberately concealing things.

General consensus is that he is not a bad person, but that he just needs to do a lot of work on himself. He messed up. Even I can admit that now. He messed up. And, I already knew he needed to do a lot of work on himself.

I told her... I'm going to tell J everything. On Friday. If he's going to decide about reporting, I want him to decide with all of the information -- I don't want him to decide one way now and then have to decide again later if I disclose something else.

So. That's where I'm at. I feel many things. Many, many things.

The answer is no. Simple as that. Therapists don't have to report other therapists unethical behavior. It doesn't depend on the type of license they hold or anything else. I also don't believe there are states that have that mandate. So, the answer is pretty straightforward. Whether people are happy about that or not and whether they accept it or not is a different issue.

By the way, not only they are not required to report their colleagues, but they might get in trouble for doing so without the client's written authorization as this would constitute the breach of confidentiality.

You, as a client, are the only one in the position to decide whether your ex-therapist should be reported. No other therapist can do it without your permission.

The NASW Code of Ethics is here:
https://www.socialworkers.org/pubs/code/code.asp


I’m not the expert of your situation or the code of ethics, of course. But, nowhere does the code state reporting someone is required or mandatory that I can see. The use of the word “should” is prevalent throughout the code which perhaps leaves things open for interpretation. Like I said, my t and my daughter’s t are LCSW’s and follow the NASW code also. Before I was ready to consider filing a report myself, they both told me they would have loved to report my ex-t but they didn’t because it wasn’t mandatory and because they knew it would have greatly hurt me. I hope your t has the same findings.

I agree - there is no "have to."

There are only "shoulds."

J (my T) is contacting the NASW call line for advice for his own sake.
I do not think anything is going to be reported as I have made it abundantly clear that it's not what I want.
Even so, I'm going to go ahead and tell them both everything -- starting with J -- so that they can have their own clear consciences or whatever and so that we never have to have this debate again.

Ideally, we will move on from that with them leaving the ball in my court -- I would just like to process it all and heal. And, if I cut S out of my life completely, I want to be the one to do it. I don't want it to happen because my T reported him and he's angry at me. I want to be in control of this. Not anyone else.

J told me to be selfish in this.
To not worry about S's future clients. That my only obligation is to myself.
So, being selfish, right or wrong, I do not want to report any of this. I don't want to go through that.

It's just...if J does report it and the board asks for more information or considers it bad enough to do something about and asks for my participation...THEN I will feel hugely obligated to future clients.... it's one thing to talk about the "what ifs" ... it's something else to actually have to put my foot down and say "No, I will not give you information."

I am hoping they do not put me in that position.

I certainly could not and would not allow other adults to make that kind of decision on my behalf if the laws of our land do not consider me fully mentally incapicitated. My parents did that when I was their responsibility and it lead me to not feel I had control over my destiny, so as an adult I allowed my parents and others to make decisions for me that I was against or was unsure of. I would feel like those therapist are treating me like a child and at great emotional expense. You are not respond for your therapist to get a clean conscious. Besides, how can they have a clean conscious without your consent and cooperation.

You have no responsibility when it comes to your mental health to look out for what may or may not happen to others. You have to do what is best for you for your emotional and physical well being. And, if you want to report your ex therapist then go for it. You deserve to have that control.

My position exactly. I would be furious if any subsequent therapist reported my ex-therapist without my permission and also if they were pushing me to report. I would feel utterly disempowered. I also get pissed off when people imply that anyone has moral obligation to take care of other clients of the unethical therapist. In most cases, reporting because you want to "protect his/her other clients" is a lie. People report because they seek justice for themselves, not because they want to protect others, so whoever makes that false claim, please, spare me..I wasn't born yesterday. If we were talking about children who were in danger of getting harmed, I would feel differently, because children are often unable to leave harmful situations on their own without an outside intervention. But when adults are concerned, while I understand all psychological reasons that make it difficult to leave unethical therapists, objectively people always have that choice. Their psychological struggles around leaving are theirs to resolve. No one can do that for them nor should they attempt to. These are highly personal struggles that hold a lot of potential for self-empowerment for the person, but he or she should make that choice alone.

It sounds like you didn't refer to S much (or at all) by name when speaking about him. So there could be some element of doubt in J about whether the person on the forms is the person that he wishes to report? People after all can have multiple past therapists. It is unlikely anyone will make a report unless they are 100% certain who the person is.

So one way out of a mandated reporting would be to refuse to confirm the name of the person on the forms is the person you have been speaking about (S).

Anyway: don't let them pressure you into this in any way. If your gut instinct is that this will damage you, you are probably correct in this. This is a difficult situation, take care.

Deleted because I ended up calling my T and asking, and she wasn't thinking of saying anything to him or reporting, so no need to leave this question here! Back to the thread...

I don't believe he can report that without your permission because of confidentiality.

I agree – be selfish. Your emotional well-being is what is most important so being selfish is far from wrong.


My t told me that if she had reported my ex-t without my permission, she would have had to list me, the client, as “anonymous.” Confidentiality rules will protect you if your t does submit a report. So, the board will not be able to contact you unless you give your t permission to list you as the client.

When I hear therapist talking against other therapist and what the other therapist is giving a client that they are unwilling to give a client, especially if they share the same client, I don't think of professional ethics first. I think of the therapist feeling inadequate. "The clients emails are too many and too long, they've called me in the middle of the night or on my vacation. If they're getting this from another therapist they'll expect me to do it too. Don't they know etiquette? I only offered because I feel inadequate."

I would also have to ask myself why I would need to bate her with or others certain statements. Is this a part of my pattern? And, maybe I should talk to my therapist about it? For me this would be the triangle of mom and dad issues.

How someone else practices therapy by allowing phone calls of 2 hours or 100 emails a month is not a justifiable reason to even consider reporting someone.

[QUOTE=AllHeart;5744446]I agree – be selfish. Your emotional well-being is what is most important so being selfish is far from wrong.


My t told me that if she had reported my ex-t without my permission, she would have had to list me, the client, as “anonymous.” Confidentiality rules will protect you if your t does submit a report. So, the board will not be able to contact you unless you give your t permission to list you as the client.[/QUOTE

In this case, if the therapist lists the client as "anonymous" in her report, the board will throw it out. They won't bother to investigate because there will be no person with first hand experience of abuse to confirm the facts. Everything in the therapist's report would be just hearsay impossible to confirm. In fact, the California board says it clearly. They say that anyone can report unethical therapists, however, the reports from the third parties have a low chance of being investigated and anonymous reports don't get investigated for obvious reasons that nothing in them could be confirmed because the therapist who was reported would obviously deny everything.

[quote=Ididitmyway;5744471] That may be true in CA. It is NOT true in my state. A report filed directly from the client, or named client, certainly would carry more weight in my state, but, a licensed, professional therapist filing a complaint in my state is not dismissed so quickly, thankfully. I'm sure it would be dismissed if a friend or family member submitted the report listing the client as anonymous though.

My ex husband was on a review panel for behavioral health complaints in his state for ~6 years. He left resigned ~2 years ago. He also says that anonymous complaints NEVER get investigated. If the situation is so outrageous and someone is in harms way, mandatory reporting laws are meant to deal with the issue. But, when it comes to clients, other therapist or friends, neighbors and family of the client reporting anonymously it get regulated to the back file, then to be moved onto the trash. He has always stated that there is not enough resources to do justice to the cases that they already have all the names and cooperation of the alleged injured party(s).

[QUOTE=AllHeart;5744474]I just don't see how it could not be dismissed if nothing can be verified. All the board can do in cases when the harmed party is not named is to contact the therapist and to question him about the information they received. The therapist would obviously deny everything ant that would be the end of it. Why would any board bother even start? As AB said, they don't have enough resources to properly investigate even the complaints from clients with convincing evidence because they get tons of them every year. Who would bother to look at anonymous reports whether from professionals or not?

What does exactly your state licensing board do when they get reports from professionals who don't name the clients they have received information from? How exactly do they investigate it if there is no one to question?

I referred to S by his first name a lot. I'm not sure if he has his last name.
I really hope it doesn't come down to me having to refuse information to anyone. That's not how I want this to resolve.... J is my therapist, and I like to think he's on my side... same with Group T

You won't have to be in the position to refuse information because your current therapist is not allowed by law to report your ex-therapist without your explicit written authorization. If he does it'd be a breach of confidentiality. Simple as that.