Survivors of Unethical Therapy

Octoberful (user) found this amazing article about abuse within the healthcare system. I will post a link. Read this!

Sexual Abuse in the Mental Health System is Pervasive, Watchdog Reports

Thanks,
HD7970ghz

I dont want to start a new thread for this because it’s triggering but if you were sexually exploited by a therapist in any way how do you think yoir therapist chose you? How do you think they knew you would be receptive to their advances and keep it secret? Do you think they tend to choose people with a long sexual abuse history or that just seem quietter? Or people with diagnoses that they can easily use to discredit? Like how do they decide who are the targets and who are the ones they will treat normally so that they have many people vouching for them who “couldnt imagine” them doing that. I just ask because clearly they must be very very careful bc of the risk so who seems “safe” to them to exploit.

Good question! I was focused, had a good, professional job she saw as almost but not quite as important as hers, a Master's degree and two professional licensures, and she was physically attracted to me. I had a history of depression, but she hypothesized that this was related to the 23 years in an abusive marriage. My mother was a therapist, and I gave her the benefit of the doubt when any issues came up in therapy. Looking back, I can see that there was at least one event where she tested my limits for boundary violations. She created a screen name and joined a very small and carefully moderated group for lateblooming lesbians, which I had described at length during our weekly sessions. The test that I passed - I brought the issue up to her AND accepted a totally unbelievable answer that I had to have known was fake.

So, on Chemistry.com, I met all of her criteria.

Interesting. I can imagine that a longterm abusive relationship makes you more susceptible since it kind of warps your sense of boundaries and stuff. i feel like I fall way more easily for abusers and i have to watch out. I wonder if they start really testing when they know you have a history of some kind of abuse, and based on your demeanor too like if you are a people pleaser or seem deferential? like if there are people they just know will be too difficult? for the serial offenders I mean

my therapist says my depression is from my abusive relationship too and that it’s a form of my self-hatred

What are we going to do about this?

What do you mean Saltgirl? Are you referring to what can we do about the problem of unethical therapy?

Thanks,
HD7970ghz

I'm tired of keeping the secret. That's why I'm talking. I started writing a book - who knows how good. I've benefited from every survivor story I've heard. I keep thinking we need to be recruiting help from people who are able to do the research needed to understand this.

One of the things I have learned from this experience - I don't have to pay attention to every thought I have - I can consider each thought and decide which thoughts are helpful. Now I can apply this to the "lessons" I was taught in early therapy. Examine them, consider them, maybe run them by a safe person, then decide which ones work. Example - one lesson I have retained - she would repeatedly state, "you don't have to decide all of that right now " when I was tying myself up in so many knots that I couldn't make a decision. This works for me still. Other things not so much.

Look up Andreea Tamaian, contact her. She is doing research on Institutional Betrayal and word is she has heard many stories already and could potentially write a book.

If anything, she can help us.

Thanks,
HD7970ghz

Ex-Fox News Quack Doctor Keith Ablow Accused of Sexually Exploiting Patients

Thank you so much Precaryous!

Thanks,
Hd7970ghz

Found these today after 1 minute of google searching. Alludes to the cultural and systemic problems in healthcare:

Covering up cover ups: CQC’s revisionism – Alexander's Excavations

A disturbing picture of neglect abuse and cover ups at the Restigouche Hospital Centre | People's Alliance of New Brunswick

10 Things to Know About the Alleged VA Cover-Up

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nationa...f-cover-up/amp

NHS accused of 'culture of cover-up' after inquiry finds most investigations are not independent - Telegraph

Thanks,
HD7970ghz

That is sad and shocking.....t's should know how to help, and be knowledgeable that t abuse is so prevalent!

Long story,

For the past 4 years I have been a victim of corruption, cover-ups, smear campaigns, threats, intimidation, etc. All because I was harmed by an unethical healthcare professional and threatened a lawsuit.

What I experienced is called Institutional Betrayal. It is quite common in healthcare. I have since been red flagged and barred from accessing some forms of treatment.

There is a brilliant Article that I have ordered recently through my University entitled, "Alteration of Medical Records submitted for Medicolegal Review." It was published in May 1992, by author Robert L. Prosser.

As soon as I get it, I will share the insight in the article.

The abstract alludes to 4 individual cases in healthcare, where patients were harmed and there was a high potential for litigation, or litigation was threatened. In all 4 cases, health records were found to have been altered. In 3 of those cases, the patients had won lawsuits. The 4th did not choose to file lawsuits but was guaranteed a win if a lawsuit was ever made.

This is but a drop in the bucket of the cultural and systemic issues in healthcare surrounding alteration and falsification of health records; EI: Corruption and unethical malpractice / normalization of deviance.

Thanks,
HD7970ghz

It might be interesting to look up Dr Amir Hannan in the UK. He took over the medical practice of Dr Harold Shipman who was probably a psychopath and had been murdering his patients with morphine and then falsifying their medical records to try to cover his trail. It was obviously a very difficult situation to inherit and trust between patients and doctors had been pretty much destroyed. Dr Hannan pioneered the practice of turning the computer screen towards patients so that they could see what was written on the screen and watch while he typed. This is now common practice across the U.K. because it was found to have a lot of benefits (and maybe would deter any other lunatic criminal doctors out there?!) He also pioneered giving patients direct access to their medical records online. I have this at my surgery and it really helps me, because I have difficulty in trusting, but even if I had doubts about what a medical professional could have written about me, I can go and look it up. And what I especially like is that any medical professional I see knows that whatever they write in my medical record, I can read. So accountability is built in.
There are also auditors working for the NHS whose job it is to look at medical records and check who has accessed them and whether they had a valid reason. On my record there is an electronic audit that lists the name of everyone who accesses the record and the date and time they look (recorded online). My T told me about this as well, and that one time he needed to access a client's record in his NHS job (for a valid reason) and a few days later an auditor phoned him and quizzed him for quite a long time about his position and exactly how he was involved with that patient and the reason he had needed to access their medical record on that day.

Thank you for this! I am looking this up now!

Check out German nurse Niels Hogel. Convicted and confessed to murdering 100 clients through injection with insulin.

Niels Hogel - Wikipedia

Also Ontario Canada Nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer, who murdered 8 Elderly and attempted many more.

Red flags about killer nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer were ignored, inquiry documents show | CBC News

There are more. This is the kind of disgusting filth that continues to happen in healthcare because of the cultural and systemic problems that exist. Absolutely zero accountability.

This is an excerpt from the above link feom a public inquiry that took place:

I just found this too, kinda interesting. A nurse in ontario falsified documents to make it look like she was an RPN when she was not.

Vanderzwaag’s license revoked by governing college | Woodstock Sentinel Review

Here is another situation:

Hospital falsified chart, denied wrongdoing for years in birth injury resulting in $5.2M award: documents | National Post

And another:

Nurses jailed for falsifying stroke patients' records | UK news | The Guardian

And another:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.sac...le2573412.html

And another:

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/201...OpioidsRehired

And another:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.stl...64b70.amp.html

And another:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.des.../amp/353018002

Another Another:

http://www.wicz.com/story/38040517/l...me-county-jail

And guess what? Another:

https://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/...er_falsif.html

Oh but this isn't cultural or systemic right? I mean, still a few bad seeds?

Here's another:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.tel...s-addicts/amp/

And another:

https://www.therecord.com/news-story...tealing-nurse/

Oh boy, can't be another? This time in children care:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wpt...ge%3f_amp=true

More more more,

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bos...pSfrL/amp.html

And more, this one is interesting because nurses claim they were forced to alter medical records - which plays into the culture of fear and intimidation factor that is well known in healthcare, regardless of who is to blame, it is further evidence of this systemic problem:

https://www.beckershospitalreview.co...l-records.html

This is what 5 minutes of google searching finds:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mma...al-reports-mma

And another:

https://www.medicalboard.gov.au/news...suspended.aspx

And another:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.mia...e65441952.html

And another:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usa...om/amp/8602117

Oh boy another!

https://www.google.com/amp/s/ehrinte...ansas-hospital

More

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl/pr...s-and-computer

More BS

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bos...pSfrL/amp.html


That was 10 mins of google search, the first 30 pages that came up. Is it just me or does there seem to be a pattern here...?

Thanks,
HD7970ghz

Read this. It is quite insightful.

Altered Medical Records | The Significance of Medical Record alterations

Thanks,
HD7970ghz

Thank you for your reply. I am not going to read all those links because I personally find it too upsetting to spend a long time reading about the worst things we know about that have happened in healthcare. I already have trust issues and I don't want to spend more time thinking about more upsetting things.
The case of Shipman was horrific, what came out of it was improvement with what Dr Hannan pioneered and that is the positive and comforting thing I take from it.

I know how you feel and empathize greatly. This stuff triggers me badly too. I have to take breaks.

Thanks,
Hd7970ghz

Did any of your abusive Ts trigger you on purpose or try to make you feel worse so you would be dependent or too distressed

Like did you leave feeling worse and then remember things T said or did that seem suspiciously triggering or meant to keep you unwell

That's happened to me. But doing it makes you process it , so paradoxically you can end up in a better place although it's very painful.

I think my T does this sometimes

Why do you think they do this?

That was the end for me when it happened. I have heard of deliberate triggering in therapy ( where both client and T are working on something ) but if it's not that I would question what's going on.

yeah I am questioning it. it felt like he did this to me today and when I think back it feels he has done this before. but why? is it a trauma bonding thing? just sadistic? it feels sadistic. ugh

Long term effects are understandable. I was put on a number of psych meds in my late teens by a shrink who had no business doing it. Referral from a psychologist that saw depression, then on half hour of agitation (I accidently grazed another car in the parking lot and wanted to get the H. out of there. On that, diagnosed as bipolar and referred).

As a result, I do not trust any therapists, psychologists of psychiatrists. I'm sure there are good ones, and I know my opinion is simply reactive, but it doesn't change things. That was thirty years ago. I did get some justice though. The shrink was arrested and had his license pulled a few years later for doing the same thing to someone else. Gotta love karma!