The complaint that wont be sent because I am scared of the therapist accusing me of harassment again.

Over on substack...

Over on Substack I realised that it isn't going to happen. 

I dare not send the complaint.

So I'm posting here the most part of what I was going to send...a lot missed out. No mention of him talking about the other client who wouldn't #1'accept love'. Nothing about the references to #2'coffee fuelled discussions..'

So this begs the question, how can a victim complain safely? The usual answer is money...which I don't have. So, in time honoured fashion, if a victim doesn't feel safe in making an official complaint - though I want to hide away, the story has to be told.

Back to good old, freeware...(CC)

3. What do you feel was wrong with the therapy/therapist?

1. That the therapist needed to have been aware that by responding to me in a defensive and avoidant way he was repeating the erosive dynamic that had originally proved so harmful to me, and was the reason why I was in therapy.
2. That the therapist had a defensive attitude when I highlighted minor ruptures in our dialogue. 
1. He would apologise, 
2. then explain to me what I was supposed to have heard. 
3. That he automatically took an avoidant and defensive position, instead of open curiosity.
1. I stopped expecting minor ruptures to lead to a secure therapeutic relationship.
4. At the beginning of therapy I felt as if he was flirting with me.
1. During a session he called me a minx.
5. At times I felt that he was undermining my interpretation of events. 
1. Minimising the emotional impact of what happened to my family.
2. Not taking into account the emotional tone of the words I use. 
3. Missing a potential safeguarding issue.
4. Missing the impact of what had happened to me with inappropriate joking, laughter.
5. Asking me the same question about the end of my relationship with my husband several times, as if he’d never heard or understood the impact gaslighting had had on me, and how important a truthful dialogue is.
6. Undermining my ability as a therapist and student.

What happened?

I walked out of therapy in 2022 in a worse state of mind than when I began, and after the final session I was struggling against suicidal thoughts. In retrospect I should have made an official complaint within the year, but it took me literally years of going through my journal entries, and recordings to understand what had happened to make therapy so harmful. This should have occurred with dialogue during therapy!

Three years after therapy ended - January 2025 - I was ready to make the official complaint, and so posted audio recordings plus transcripts of two of my therapy sessions with him through his door (because I didn’t wish to risk them being lost in the post) so that he could assess and understand exactly what had happened during our sessions, and why his approach to therapy had re-traumatized me.

I expected an acknowledgment of my obvious distress.

Previous to that I had:

• 2022 requested contact by email to maintain contact.
• 2023 Explained by letter that there had been serious problems with the therapy.
• 2024 Explained by email that I was thinking of making a SAR to get my notes 
• He told me to never contact him again.
• 2025 I gave --- the recordings and transcripts that demonstrated the problem. 
• No reply from ---.
• 2025 I finally understood what had happened, enough to write and email a victim statement to ---
• At that point I was done, but still feeling guilty about not making an official complaint.

2022 After therapy had ended My feelings about --- were not resolved; I tried to maintain contact. Slowly I began to recognise the underlying reasons for my distress; during therapy I felt shut down, I had been told, as if I was stupid, that he would have expected me to have known that he’d never consider any other kind of relationship with me other than therapist and client. Whenever I dared say that I’d experienced ambiguity and uncertainty about his feelings about me, and that I needed clarity, I was told in effect that I should have known better than to think that he could ever respond in a way that 'broke the ethical code'. I was asking for clarity and transparency, for an end to the cognitive dissonance.

What caused the dissonance?

He’d said things under his breath, which I admit, perhaps I misheard. But I did not imagine being described as a minx. 

He told me that I’d dismissed exploration of concepts such as transference, because I’d said that it didn’t feel like transference to me (in truth it felt like countertransference, and of course I didn't dare say that). I felt that I was picking up something from him.

During therapy I felt blind-sided, as if I was being, in effect, lied to. There was little or no immediacy. He didn’t talk about his feelings when I requested transparency, and he certainly he dismissed my feelings. I tried to open the subject up - just twice, and these were the Transcripted sessions I posted through his door. 

Exploration was shut down. This was demonstrated in the transcript/audio.

He clearly found the subject difficult to talk about. He blushed and turned the subject back towards me. Therefore my experience of what had felt to me like his flirting was never raised in session, beyond me saying that ‘I’d felt the situation had been ambiguous’. His response to that statement was not calm or considerate.

In 2024 I’d made a half hearted attempt to get my notes by emailing to say that I would like them. As a therapist myself I know that such a request isn't something to be ignored. I had also written to him in that year specifically describing my concerns about his practice. He didn’t ever address those concerns. 

January 2025 I was preparing to make a complaint to the ---- (he had been registered with them when I attended therapy) and I discovered that he was now with --- Nevertheless I continued to prepare.

By September 2025, I realised that he wasn’t willing to discuss what had gone wrong in therapy, and I stopped accepting all the responsibility for this. The window of three years was shut. I ended my self blame and I wrote and emailed my victim statement to him. 

As far as I was concerned the matter was now closed.

Then I received the letter from the police. 

I am the victim of a therapist’s inability to understand the parallels he created and maintained within therapy, and how his process of defence and avoidance replicated my husband's behaviour at the end of our marriage. I was blindsided by this at first and asked myself if it was transference? The audio recordings demonstrated a similarity in language, and defensive attitudes of both men. I wasn't imagining or projecting this. 

The therapist's responses were erosive, re-traumatising because of my previous experience. A psychotherapist should have been aware of this. 

It took a lot of work for me to recognise what had happened, the recordings were essential, without them I'd have continued to blame myself. Finally I was able to write and send a victim statement to --- As I sent it I was satisfied that being completely honest, describing the effect his non answers had had on me, requesting, but not expecting an apology; I felt that finally I'd been able to draw a line. 

The therapist, instead of reading the victim statement and understanding the lessons underpinning the process that had caused such distress to his client, he saw himself as the victim. Nothing he'd said or done was, in his view intended to cause harm. Therefore he saw himself as beyond reproach.

--

I don't think that his view of himself as victim with entirely supported by the solicitor or the police. After my interview in the police station I was asked if I would like to take things further - to make a complaint against ---. I was flooded with panic, hardly able to speak. My ability to get insurance, to continue to work as a therapist myself had been placed under threat. I was asked if --- had told me that he had felt harassed - he had not. I hadn’t had any reason to believe that he felt distressed by my communications, the only sense of emotion I got from his reply to my request for my notes was anger. 

More dismissal, more avoidance.