48 hours after...

The physiological aftermath of Thursday night has hit me like an avalanche today. It is interesting to observe yet again the physical disempowerment of severe stress. I felt like this when my son was at his most ill and in rabid psychosis. It feels like living inside a thunderstorm. Like everywhere has a layer of voltage that will cause an arc to spark across the gap, and I will be shocked with lightning leaving me shaking, speechless and broken yet again.

So, what had led to all this?

Why did the psychotherapist try to end my career?

What did he accuse me of?

And did I deserve to be accused?

By September this year I was seeking his apology. But my first communication in 2024 was about building bridges after a truly horrible end to therapy. An end so bad that I was suicidal. The second stage of communication was to say that I was actively seeking to understand what had happened, because feeling so awful, plain didn't make sense. 

It is important to note at this point, that it took me three years to work out what happened! 

At first I was blinded by the most obvious aspects of what was so wrong; that I'd paid £4000.0 to him to be talked down to, to be flirted with, to be subtly insulted and flattered. People imagine that the worse the harm the more obvious it is. But my experience is different, the psychotherapist's denial of truth and honesty were erosive, and I was blaming myself...the therapist denied me information that would have clarified things. Without that I was stuck in a fog of more gaslighting! When I finally understood this I wanted, I needed him to understand! Because it is a serious matter if a psychotherapist doesn't understand the mechanism and impact of epistemic injustice. 

My final email began with this paragraph:

Dear X.

If I was a client, I would tell her, I would tell me..that when a person who is supposed to help, ends up hurting you, the damage can cut even deeper, causing deep emotional and psychological harm. I would also say that it is institutional betrayal because this isn't just someone you trusted, this therapist is someone you were told that you should trust, by a system; by their ethical body, by your college, by their qualifications. Therapists are supposed to be the safe ones; trained, receiving supervision - so if something doesn't feel right it is easy to second guess yourself; and you were grieving, you had been in crisis and when you came to therapy you were trying to heal. Yet when you had doubts and tried to raise them, they were dismissed. You requested clarity, about underlying emotions and he told you 'that isn't how it works '..

And he accused me of harassing him.

On Thursday I was interviewed by the police 'under caution'....

What happened is beyond sad, I think it is pretty much abusive. There was no warning. He hadn't told me that he found my communication extremely distressing. He made a case to the police based on the fact that he had told me by email not to contact him ever again. I didn't heed that because my reasons for writing were to rectify a serious problem! I certainly have reasons, and my complaints are legitimate. Add to that I have an ethical duty to speak up when I think another therapist is engaging in bad practice. 

The psychotherapist had missed a serious safeguarding issue, laughed inappropriately when I was in distress and ended the final session with the words "Right, times up!" Months before he had told me about another client who "wouldn't accept love" from him. 

I had serious concerns and he had already ignored my request for resolution. I felt that I was left with no alternative except to make a formal complaint to his ethical body. I sent him the recordings and transcripts of the two sessions where his 'process' was most evident so he could understand the basis of my concerns, because it would be possible otherwise for him to deny my account and he would say she misunderstood me...I wanted him to know that there was evidence. And in September I stated that I deserved an apology...I wanted this sorted out, I really didn't want to put him through the stress of a formal complaint!

My final letter was actually my victim statement...I needed to say it all.

When I left your room for the last time I walked in a daze back to my car. The sun seemed distant, a watery blue moon and so cold. I drove to the supermarket car park closest to the rail tracks, the place where my son’s friend had taken his life. I needed to be there to remind myself that I had promised at his inquest to become the kind of therapist who could help people in the same desperate agonised state of mind that led him to the tracks. As I left your room my promise felt violated and torn and I was in a worse state of mind than when I’d first started therapy. Walking towards the car I walked away from hope, as if the heat and life giving properties of the sun had turned to ice.. 

No reply.

Silence.

Then a letter from the police turned Wednesday into a nightmare of panic and overwhelming fear...so fortunate that I had this week off, because this experience has wrecked me...

See previous post.

What would I do differently?

I wish I hadn't tried to be kind. I should have dropped him directly into the official complaint procedure before he changed his ethical body....I was concerned about the effect an official complaint would have on his state of mind (!) and therefore the impact on his clients.

He had no such concerns for my clients....go figure!