Podcast about horribly Svengali-like shrink

The podcast page says producers have heard from other clients since the series began. I hope at least one joins Marty in complaining.

According to this article there is going to be a 7th installment this week!

'The Shrink Next Door': New revelations about the Jewiest, screwiest podcast ever - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

I think this sort of thing happens more than anyone wants to admit, possibly on not as grand of a scale, and clients are too ashamed to tell anyone.

I very much agree and, in fact, know a few cases via my work. Sometimes I actually feel that a really professionally managed, ethical provider-client relationship in the therapy field is is more scarce than all those that mix and match and blur everything in between.

An update episode includes an interview with Jan Wolhberg of TELL. She mentions seeing many cases where the therapist "took over the life" of a patient. She says she's seen therapists use patients for tax returns, legal advice and baby sitting. She talks about how (both sexual and non-sexual) grooming and isolation going hand in hand.

My therapists didn't exploit me outside the consulting room, but had detrimental sway over my life. I "stood up to my parents" according to the therapist's recipe, which was disastrous and had no effect. I also left a stable job for an unstable one just so I could please the therapist by demonstrating how I was "changing."

Wondery - Feel The Story >> The Shrink Next Door

The "Update" episode has a grab bag of topics. Discussion of psychiatric abuse and then an interview with Wolhberg begins about 22:36.

The Update also mentions two important developments. After episode 6 Marty finally was interviewed by a lawyer from the New York Department of Health. Then in the last few days the psychiatrist resigned from his faculty position at NYU.

Two new articles have emerged around The Shrink Next Door, a new one...
'The Shrink Next Door': New revelations about the Jewiest, screwiest podcast ever - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

...and this one from 2006 which corroborates and important aspect of the podcast's assertions:
Celebrity Crazy - The New York Times

Though the psychiatrist isn't named, author Auslander does so in other writing.

yay! glad to hear that there have been some positive developments since the release of this podcast.

just finished listening to this episode and the information that Jan Wolhberg provides is excellent, especially in regards to the 'grooming' process. and, as she says, it's not necessarily grooming towards sexual encounters, she is also referring to Ts grooming clients for other various manipulative and/or exploitive reasons.

this was very validating for me to hear, but at the same a little unsettling too.

Yes, I think once a therapist presents himself possessing superior, even supernatural, insight to a client’s life, a foundation begins for dependency and manipulation. Likewise this could happen if a client is pathologized, or, like Marty, shamed for “flaws.”

The kinds of things the psychiatrist responds to the accusations in the 6th episode reminded me quite a bit of the sort of stuff my first T said defensively, when I criticized him. Also how Ike apparently said he resigned from NYU and the Ethics Board to save them from the adverse reactions. Once I told my T that I could report him for some of the things he said and did and his response was something like "I will no longer be able to protect you if you do that". It was a jaw-dropper for me, how can someone even come up with such twisted nonsense, to protect ME?! These people must really have psychopathic traits, no sense of remorse. One really needs to be born with a predisposition to these things as some of what they say and do would never even occur to most people, I think.

I agree. The therapist’s reported comments and defenses show an extreme god complex.

huh?!?

it's interesting how quickly the facade can drop and Ts will expose their true colours when confronted or challenged on their BS.

That’s exactly what happened with me. He gaslighted me in therapy in front of the therapy group to invalidate me. Then he portrayed me as untethered to reality and twisted a timeline in his written response to my complaint. Dr. Compassion threw me under the bus to escape consequences for his unprofessionalism.

The psychiatrist in the podcast was just as disrespectful to his patient and equivocating.

Indeed the facade can fall when their folly threatens to be exposed.

After the patient's 10-year effort, the psychiatrist lost of license.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

So glad for this client who kept on fighting and won! The fact that it took ten years indicates to me how much he had to fight against. These deplorable health professionals need to be tossed out. Far too many of them in the field.

It took ten years, a widely-heard multi-part podcast, an upcoming television series and egregious transgressions.

This is an egregious and extreme case. But it illustrates the difficulties that clients can have in recognizing the problem and the difficulties and time that it takes for other people and authorities to recognize the problem, too.

But then -- it's not just a "problem". For the people involved, it is lives and emotional and social and financial damage.

Is it so hard to imagine that less egregious cases are happening, too, and they never make the news or the ethics boards? Society has lots of problems these days but this is one that needs to be looked into more closely, too.

thanks for sharing this long awaited for update and the positive news!

It's also being made into a show by Apple.

Apple lands “The Shrink Next Door,” starring Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd - Apple TV+ Press

yeah...i saw that. it's interesting...they are making it into a dark comedy. hopefully the TV series is as good as the podcast and gives justice to the underlying story.

I just started episode 2.

This now is a dramatized series on Apple+. It might not be an easy view for anyone who had or has a traumatic bond with a therapist. I found it horrifying but largely insightful.