Therapist/client exploitation- the early days

I’m putting this in the ‘romantic’ folder, but none of my posts about this are about ‘romance.’

When you first suspected you might have been exploited by a doctor or mental health professional, was it hard for you to decide who you would ask about it? Was it hard to trust and ask the other doctors or mental health professionals around you?
Or, maybe this was just my issue?

Pdoc told me what we were doing (sexual intimacies) was therapeutic for me. (For reals, that’s what he said.) He also told me not to talk to others about it because it might be ‘frowned upon.’

When I first started having questions about whether what Pdoc was doing was ethical or accepted, Pdoc and I were still in that relationship...and I didn’t know who to ask. I didn’t want to ask my family, I doubted they would know any more than I did. I didn’t want to ask my family doctor or one of Pdoc’s colleagues because I didn’t know if they would back each other up, whether they could be objective or whether the entire situation would be taken out of my hands in case it was ‘bad.’

It didn’t occur to me that it was a felony in that state...
(and *not* against the law in some other states).


I wanted to ask someone out of Pdoc’s sphere of influence.

First, I researched what I could in our library (this was before we all had computers) and I found the phone number of a PHD who had written about this subject. He practiced two thousand miles away. I thought that might be far enough away so, I called him. We talked a bit about therapist exploitation without me admitting that it might be happening to me. I wouldn’t even give him my name. It’s surprising he took my phone call.

He was helpful and gave me some names of therapists who knew about the subject in my state and in an almost neighboring city. They were far away enough for me.

Can anyone else relate to this? Did you have as much worry or concerns deciding who you would tell what was going on? I mean, when you feel a therapist may not be acting correctly with you....who do you trust to ask...another therapist?

I guess I’m looking for some validation that this isn’t an easy situation to be in.
Or, if it was easy for you, I would be interested in hearing about that.

It’s not like you can easily find a support group or even a crisis line with people who might understand your issues. Or is it?

Nowadays we have computers and message boards- all with their own sets of privacy issues but probably easier than my experiences.