five questions you must ask your therapist

What Your Therapist Should Never Ask You
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Gena Dry
 

Complaints Against A Therapist

"Complaint against a therapist and the consequences, the question is, what is the alternative?

When I was writing this book and I started to recognize the depth of how truly destructive the techniques I had been victimized with were, I considered making a formal complaint to the professional organization my therapist was a member of but I didn’t want to go through the procedure on my own. When I had finished writing, coincidentally, I was contacted by Graham Baldwin, the UK’s leading Cult Expert who told me that there were a number of ex clients who wanted to make a complaint. Even with the support of other ex clients, I was horrified by the procedure I would have to go through but more alarming was that we found out that the professional organization had already received serious complaints about this therapist and had taken no action what so ever. A third party complaint resulted in no action, the therapist meanwhile hired a lawyer to enable him to resign, something that the organization does not allow while there is a complaint standing and yet it was allowed. This means that instead of taking the opportunity to have his techniques verified and confirmed by the professional organization which would put an end to the complaints if they were false accusations, he is opting to be able to tell his current clients and associates that he chose to resign from his professional organization because of the appalling treatment he claims to have received from the organization, which lets him off the hook.

Apparently this professional organization has two other complaints of a similar serious nature and they are taking no action over those either.

The professional organizations have little power to prevent unethical therapists from continuing to abuse their clients. Even if they do strike a therapist off, there is nothing they can do to prevent them from practicing. The therapist can continue to see their current clients as they may not even be aware of the situation unless the therapist tells them and if the therapist has a website and continues to advertise, the therapist can continue to take on new clients. As far as I am aware, no one is checking on therapists to see if they have the qualifications they claim on their websites. The public most likely do not know what the qualifications mean and it is not easy find out, as I found when I started questioning my therapist's background. The therapist may also get clients regardless of whether they have a qualification through word of mouth or advertising and if they have been in business for a long time, this can be seen as acceptable. Some therapists have only got their membership to their professional organizations on account of having been in business for years and not through having undergone ANY kind of training.

It is a matter of great public concern. My therapist was on the board of directors of the professional organization that he was a member of and yet he runs a Psychotherapy Cult. What does that tell you about who is regulating Psychotherapy in the UK? He has been getting away with running this cult for 30 years due to other professionals being compliant whether that be the organization or individuals who knew what he was doing, for example, other professionals attended parties and saw the therapist socializing with his clients and heard him openly call himself their ‘good father’ and a ‘guru’and they know this is unethical, some have even run workshops with this therapist and would have seen his appalling and abusive treatment of his clients and yet they choose to remain silent in spite of their professional obligations.

A seriously alarming picture is beginning to emerge.

The question is, is my story is just the tip of the iceberg?"

If you want to keep track of what happens please go to my blog at either

http://thefivequestions.blogspot.com

or http://community.livejournal.com/fivequestions

 

© Gena Dry 2006 All rights reserved

 

 

 

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