Sexual relationship with T

It absolutely was abuse. No matter how much you wanted to, it the onus was 100% on him to make sure it didn’t happen.

It took me a long time to believe and accept that. I hope one day you will too.

You are hurting and in pain. He was trained to know that a sexual relationship with a client would possibly/likely hurt the client. He knew this. It was his responsibility to say no even if you wanted it. Not yours.

Report vs. don’t report. At least understand it was his responsibility to keep your best interest in mind. He didn’t, but he should have. And he knows it.

Not your fault. Not even if you begged, cajoled, or undressed in front of him. Not your fault..it’s his responsibility.

I agree it is 100% on the therapist to make sure it does not happen no matter how much the client wants it or how much he wants it. The minute he felt a ANY countertransference on his part ,that he could not let go of, he should have referred you out.

I for one do not ever put responsibility on someone else if I had a willing part in it. I truly don't care what rules say or what job someone has. I'll never put responsibility on someone else in a case where I was willingly part.

This hasn't happened to me nor would it but I'm just merely saying in a hypothetical thing. I don't like people telling me who i should blame etc. I will decide that myself

The law in most states.....says that sex with a client is a felony.

you can think and believe what you want but I suggest you don't post stuff likw this. it's super triggering for those of us who have actually been thru this situation. actually it feels damaging

this is one of those things that you can never truly know what it's like unless it happens to you.

I too would jump at the chance to have a relationship with my T if they allowed it even though I KNOW full well it would be a terrible decision with an inevitable negative outcome. That is the nature of transference/love. The feelings can be so powerful that logic and reasoning don’t matter. The client is in such a vunerable position and the power dynamic is so uneven which is one of the reasons why it’s unethical. Therapists are in a position of huge responsibility. They know the risks and the onus is completely on them to make sure that nothing does happen regardless of their actual feelings.

I've told my T that I want to have an affair with him and a part of me is in love with him. Therapy clients are very very vulnerable. It's on the therapist to take responsibility and draw the line.

I don't understand how this topic transformed from abuse of therapy's one sacrosanct taboo, to a personal requirement (from God almighty or an apparent unidentified "they") to blame someone.

But since this is a thread about enormous pain, consequence and violation, I hope we can respect and hear testimony from those courageous enough to explore it.

I'm confused on how so many are blaming the therapist...where is the accountability for the patient??? I understand some may be at fault, but it takes two to tango. If I was in a position that I didn't feel comfortable or was inappropriate I'd tell them, and if I still felt off about it a week later I'd switch. There are some lines you don't cross. Morals and ethics are not one sided either.

Informed Consent for Sex Between Health Professional and Patient or Client

“The possibility of "successful" relationships notwithstanding, one may indeed question whether the consent given in such relationships is truly informed, even to the extent typically expected for medical procedures. The following document is an example of what one might use to elicit such informed consent. I originally wrote this document as a tongue-in-cheek response to an attorney with whom I was informally debating this issue. Initially, I was reluctant to share it with victim/survivors, fearing that they might see it as traumatic or offensive. I found, however, that the document reflected the reality for many who had experienced such a sexual relationship, and I have been encouraged to disseminate it more widely. Read it, and ask yourself how many health professionals might be willing to solicit consent for a sexual relationship in this manner, and how many patients so informed might sign such a document.” ~ S. Michael Plaut, Ph.D.

http://www.survivingtherapistabuse.c...-or-Client.pdf

Some clients do resist. But the therapist/client relationship is inherently unequal. Many times the client is vulnerable and groomed.

Many U.S. states criminalize therapist/patient intimacies. It is a felony for a psychiatrist to have sex with a client in California, for example.

Licensing boards prohibit therapist/patient sex/exploitation. Different boards can have different rules about when or if a therapist and client may be intimate.

So it’s not just my opinion...it can be criminal, disciplined by licensing boards and civilly actionable.

The therapist is trained to know therapist/client intimacies probably will hurt the client. Therapists are supposed to have their client’s best interest at heart.
It is absolutely 100% the therapist’s responsibility to do no harm.

Tell Me More... - AdvocateWeb

edited...
not worth it

Hey why not add to the blame festival by reproaching spouse abuse victims, cults escapees and anyone else fooled by a con artist or pulled into traumatic bonding?

I'm happy to learn of folks with such flawless judgment that they're immunized against any scam, charlatan or abuse of power. No wonder they visit this discussion to flaunt their infallibility.

And since they are not subject to the vulnerabilities or temptations that afflict some others -- no need to consider their judgment as having any value about the kind of situation the OP was writing about since, as one poster with this view said

The rest of us can decide for ourselves who is to blame, too.

Various therapy associations have few agreements about ethics. The sole exception, the sacrosanct boundary, is prohibition against sexual relations with clients. The therapists is solely and always responsible and subject civil, professional and sometimes criminal penalties for transgression. The most superficial survey of psych ethics literature will uncover that.

At age 67, I've been entrapped by various charmers and charlatans and hope I'm better at recognizing them. But I can't foresee ever being so invisibly wise that no one will ever fool or exploit me again.

Hi all - OP here.

I thought I might weigh back in here. I certainly didn't expect this thread to take this course.

Relationships between T and patients can be exceedingly complex; this complexity makes blame about any specific outcome - good or bad - potentially less relevant. While the ethics of sexual relationships are crystal clear, I will say that I took a lot of responsibility (right or wrong) for what happened. Mine was a therapeutic relationship bound by poorly managed maternal transference and the child part's terror of losing his 'mother'. Therapy ended, I think, because of romantic attraction from the T to me; the post-T relationships that were 'offered' to me included none or sexual. With where I was at the time so deep in maternal transference, I had to take the sexual one. I couldn't tolerate being abandoned again. That was, in fact, what the therapy was about.

I have spent endless hours trying to sort out how it got there, what I did or didn't do right, how my therapist was so horrible vs the most amazing person I've ever known. The worst of it all is that it ended so suddenly (my choice) and we never even said goodbye. We never tried to figure out how to resolve things in a way that could minimize the damage - to both of us. Because while she may have violated an ethical boundary, she was undoubtedly ripped apart by this. Who's fault is that? Does it matter? The pain is the same. The damage is done.

I thought suing her could help me move on, and when that didn't work, it left me even worse. The horrible things her attorney said - I never knew if my ex-T said or believed them, or even knew about them - hurt beyond words. They violated every core belief I / Child part held on to about her care and love, held on to the certainty that she loved me no matter what. That Child part has now been victimized again, abandoned again. Worse for suffering through what was experientially for me an incestuous, abusive sexual relationship of child with mother.

You all can accept this or not. You can tell me I'm full of **** about the power of mishandled maternal transference. You can disregard my feelings of a child being sexually abused (and my heart goes out to those of you who have been victims.) But please try not to boil this down to an academic argument of who's fault it was and how I, or any other victim of therapist abuse, should have 'known better'. Because like it or not, all of us take responsibility in the aftermath. We have no choice because we're the ones left to try and put our lives back together. We're the ones who hate ourselves for what happened. We're the ones who see in it the validation of our own failures, weakness, and vulgarity.

My participation in this discussion is indirect: a therapist team scapegoated and bullied me before a therapy group. However I was seduced by a couple of "authority figures" and entangled with a married neighbor who sexually harassed me. A TELL responder recommended Susan Penfold's book, which said it was the lead up the sexual abuse that did the most damage.

I definitely blamed myself for a long time. I received almost no help from therapists themselves, most of whom seem terrified of discussion about exploitative therapists. Even Keith-Spiegel's "ethics" book "Red Flags in Psychotherapy" painted a fictional sexual abuse survivors as a clueless, oversexed starlet, and Amazon reviewers (presumably interested in ethics) rebuked me when I protested the disrespect of this.

I can speculate why therapists and their defenders castigate survivors of exploitation. It reminds me of cult lieutenants defending their guru and enforcing the hierarchy. The notion of the fallible, amoral therapist upends a sense of security and order. That is one of the many myths a survivor must examine when recovering from harmful therapy.

I can't imagine the hostility that overcomes those who interject in a painful conversation to shame survivors. To me, it replays the metaphor of families that silence its members trying to discuss exploitation and violation.

Here's the thing, though. You went to therapy for healing, for help. And, as you said in your OP, it destroyed your life. It wasn't right It wasn't. No matter what your participation in it was, it was not right, on the part of society's licensed "helper". So you sought justice. And received more injustice. I appreciate you telling your story, and so completely. Don't know what more to say It sucks. In many ways society sucks right now. So sorry the lessons were so hardly learned for you, but thanks for sharing them so perhaps some of the rest of us can learn something.

I have learned that blaming the survivor of Therapist/Client sexual exploitation is very much the same as blaming a small child for incest.

Anything could technically be triggering to someone. I merely shared my views. I don't consider myself vulnerable just because I do therapy. I am not saying others don't or aren't but it's not how I view myself

I don't need to experience a situation to know the kind of person I am. Ive never been the blame type unless I'm fully blaming myself. I know how I view the world etc. I'm allowed to view things this way just as others can view the world as they do.

Uh that's a bit ridiculous to assume everyone in therapy is child like. I for one am not and don't appreciate that assumption.

yes you can view the world exactly as you wish. I am asking that you refrain from making such comments on a sub forum where many of us are victims of therapist abuse and exploitation

no one is telling you that you cannot believe what you want. I'm just asking that you have the decency to keep certain things to yourself in certain situations

there is a time and a place for everything. stating your views such as you have here on this thread is not the place

I do not have ill will towards you dp, it's just upsetting to read others ask why someone would put the responsibility on a therapist for these types of scenarios