Continuing...

It has been three years since I recorded the mp3 to tell him about how I feel about him. And three years awareness of how my requests for open and honest dialogue were ignored. 

I'm still thinking about some of his inappropriate responses to the emotions I felt when I spoke with him; such as how he laughed as I spoke about being paralysed by horror and fear. [+] 

If you are reading this blog, you know that he refused any kind of resolution or mediation process. So I chose to publish my therapy sessions, using transcripts. 

This hasn't been an easy decision to make. 

A part of me remains uneasy about it. 

The alternative?

I seriously considered making an official and formal complaint.

Now, in October 2024 we are about eight months away from it being too late for that as there is a three year window. Actually I'm not sure, I may have more time? And yet the reasons why I don't see complaint as the right thing, remain exactly the same no matter how I think about it.

I believe that the process of a formal complaint taken to his professional body could upset him to the point of total dysfunction and rage. 

And that would impact his clients. 

I think the reason he responded so badly to me was due to the effect a previous complaint...

So?

So I need to find a better way! 

So...what is next?

By writing this post I know I'm covering old ground, but I think this is a mapping of the terrain before I seek the next direction.

Curiously the situation I find myself in closely resembles 'spiritual abuse'. I see similar themes of power, and the dread of speaking out; there is a feeling of threat and fear which reminds me of accounts from people who have left  spiritual systems  told that they are cursed. 

So, being as I'm not going to keep quiet, and being as I am not going to hide anything - and being as I don't believe in curses, what are the grounds of my complaint?

I believe that to define our conversations as doing therapy was his fantasy. 

I paid him £40.0 a week for a conversation. 

It is fantasy to say that whilst in the room he was only ever a therapist, and it was certainly a fantasy to define me as a client. I didn't talk to him as if he was a therapist. I tried to talk to the man. I loved his mind actually, in particular that I couldn't predict what he'd say next at all!

And the reasons I didn't end therapy was simple, I was too venerable - I needed all the adrenaline, serotonin and dopamine the hope of my feelings being reciprocated, gave me.

To let go I needed to hear emotional truth from him or else I'd stay stuck in the half-light, gaslight sensations and playback. 

In fact it would be a simple matter to explain how authentic, emotion rich dialogue would have turned whatever our sessions were, into real therapy. 

When I finally stated the truth the way he responded was so like my husband, I felt myself shifting back towards the cliff edge of suicide. 

And do I think now that he could and should have predicted this from what I had said in our sessions over the preceding two years?

From how he spoke to me in our last session, I see no evidence that he had paid any attention whatsoever to any of the facts of what had happened to me.

But, he is has exam certificates to prove that he is a psychotherapist...or rather he can talk the talk. 

This is a problem with how therapists are trained!

OK, so I have fear - When my clients have fear I ask them to trust that exploration is important and it is possible that the best way out will be by going through. So I ask - what is the worst that could happen if we look at it and ask some questions? 

OK, I will answer....I don't want to stay in avoidance, but I need to be sure of my motivation, am I writing to get revenge? I don't want to be doing this out of a sense of victimhood. And I need to assess possibilities.

What do I fear? In other words, would other therapists support me? Because I think he will metaphorically try to throw me under the bus...

So to begin:

1. Is what I've written here in the public interest? 
2. In other words, will my writing help other therapists to do better.
3. Will it help other clients to think through their own experiences? 
4. Do my words have the potential to prevent harm to others? 
5. Or is this blog about my own personal grievance?

And then the process itself:

1. Identify the Issue. 
2. What is occurring and how do you know it?
3. Document the Facts.
4. Who Needs to Know.
5. Make a Decision about Confidentiality. 
6. Make the Call or Submit Your Disclosure.

(2. What is occurring?) My complaint is:

1. His response to my request for open and honest dialogue constituted a danger to my mental health, and safety. 
1. Unwittingly he repeated my husband's process of belittling my choice of training to be a therapist.
2. He triggered the sensations I experienced when my husband was lying to me. 
3. Like my husband he sidestepped describing his feelings.
2. I think I experienced his transference, and my countertransference. But I couldn't explore this because of the power dynamic. 
1. He told me - 'you have dismissed any such dialogue'.
3. I am also responsible for the power dynamic.
1. I challenged it - I did my best to talk about it. 
2. What stopped me standing my ground?
1. I thought he would tell me to leave and never return.

I did not describe my concerns.

1. I did not tell him that I would record our sessions.
1. I exploited a loop hole in his contract.
1. My rationale for recording the sessions was to check my own sanity! 
2. To actually know what had been said:
3.  to avoid my imagination creating things  
4. or my memory losing information.

(1. The issue) My rationale for sharing my sessions online is:

1. Other people may experience similar in therapy, 
2. An exploration of the subject could lead to clients being able to name and think about what is happening to them
3. I would like my writing here to cause therapists - myself included - to be compassionate and self aware when journeying through therapy with a client who has fallen in love with them.

The problem of knowledge:

1. For knowledge to be sought a person needs to be aware of a problem and want to find answers.
1. I believe that his surprise when I communicated my feelings about him indicated a lack of awareness. 
2. I had reason to raise the possibility of a similar underlying dynamic in other sessions with other clients. 
3. Conclusion - I need to find a way to support my claim that his blindness and unresolved issue, need to be looked at for the sake of other clients. I believe that unless his awareness is challenged and a similar situation will happen in the future.
2. I asked for a process of resolution and told him if none was forthcoming I'd put all the information out as 'freeware' because:
1. I have a responsibility to share my experience if it can help others.
2. My experience isn't unique. 
3. Eros, has the potential to kill. 
4. This makes it a legitimate subject to share - to increase knowledge.
5. Legitimate only if stripped of personal identifiers.

Where are we?

His reply to my request for resolution: [+]

1. "Your letter read like a threat: do as I say or else ... Or else what? You have still not stated what, only more cryptic messaging. This is deliberate vagueness, of course. You state only that you are akin to a hacker and: 
1. you will share information 
1. what information? 
2. where will it be shared? 
3. how will it be shared? 
4. with who? 
2. as freeware
1. I have no idea what that means: 
1. you will create a programme that spreads information from our sessions, 
2. breaking therapist-client confidentiality? 
3. Do not apologise for 
1. "using words in a way that causes [me] to feel 
1. threatened, 
2. and ordered - 
3. and indeed coerced" 
2. when that is exactly what you are attempting to do."

The emotional tone of his response is exactly why I chose not to make a formal complaint.

Finally:

1. Who Needs to Know? // As I said this is 'freeware'- Creative Commons, share but please attribute to me.
2. Make a Decision about Confidentiality. // His identity will not be disclosed.
3. Make the Call or Submit Your Disclosure.// Published.

What else?

Do I need to do more with this information?

It is a great error of mine to think that facts speak for themselves. In my voice recording I said that I needed to be able to be honest with him, and I needed to know how he felt. 

He described this as my invitation to him to break the ethical code, 'if he responded in a certain way'. [+]

End of!

No discussion.

Ultimately I am a better therapist because I know what bad therapy is...I really disapprove of people hiding information because they don't think that the other person can take it. 

But, I don't think that he can take it!

So 

• I think he has a right to know what my complaint is. 
• And what supports it. 
• I don't believe I should let this go - but I believe timing is everything. 
• It has to be when he knows that I can't make an official complaint.
• Ideally it would be face to face with a mediator present (interpersonal mediation isn't a legal process)
• I have to be sure that I'm standing on solid ground...that my complaint is legitimate.