To ask if you have ever complained about an unregulated therapist?

[Harmedbytherapy]

Hi everyone,
Apologies in advance for the fact I'm going to have to be really vague here as any specifics would be extremely outing. I have also name changed for this.

I have been seeing a therapist for several years. This year they have behaved in a highly unethical - but not illegal - manner. After I called them out on it and told them how damaging I had found their conduct, they basically dropped me like a stone, with many extremely painful unresolved issues remaining. They have also told me to not contact them again.

As a result of this I have been thrown into a mental health crisis, had to attend A&E earlier this summer, and have not worked for weeks. I am still in shock and the effect on me has been profound, I am spending most days in bed paralyzed by panic and despair. The "therapist's" behaviour has actually intensified the trauma that sent me into therapy in the first place.

I have since found out just how unqualified and unregulated this therapist is. I have no professional body to which I can complain. The therapist deletes any unfavourable reviews, and is still merrliy promoting themselves and carrying on while my life, quite literally, is in tatters.

I made a huge financial outlay in funding my therapy. My intention is not so much to recover this, as to make the therapist somehow accoutable for what they have done, and to make them think twice about doing the same to other clients who come to them vulnerable and in good faith.

Have you ever complained about an unregulated therapist? Where did you start, what did you do and was it successful or not? And would you say that the process helped you to recover from the harm caused, or did it just deepen the wound?

I would be so grateful for any views. I never, ever dreamed I would be in this position, with the pieces of my life shattered around me. And please, if you are considering private therapy, please please please make sure your therapist is a registered member of a proper professional society. Don't be me.

Thank you

Being honest if they haven't done anything illegal ie that you could complain to the police about and they aren't employed by someone, you don't have a complaint procedure especially if they don't have a professional registration.

Aren't they all unregulated?

Absolutely not, I'm registered withe the HCPC.

Sadly I think you have learned the hard way not to work wirh anyone without checking if they are registered first.

There’s no registering body for counsellors and psychotherapists. There are professional associations (like the BACP or UKCP) but therapists don’t need to join and there are no legal minimum qualifications - it’s not a regulated profession. If they do belong to one of the associations you can complain to them, but the most they can do is kick them out, they can’t stop them practicing.

You can complain formally to the therapist and ask for your money back, they should then claim on their Professional Indemnity Insurance but you have no control over whether they do or not. There are some therapists who specialise in working with people who have been harmed in therapy (sadly not as unusual as you think), if that’s something that interests you send me a DM and I can point you to someone I know is both skilled and experienced in this, and very ethical.

Its appalling and I’m sorry you’ve been hurt, it’s definitely a risk of having no regulation or registration requirements.

Unless they’re an out and out charlatan which is rare they should be registered with somebody. BACP/HCPC/UKRC - someone.

if they’re an out and out criminal ie. Conning people for money, you can complain to the police.

Unfortunately any arsehole can call themselves a ‘therapist’ but it’s infrequent because so few enquiries come from a standard web page, most come through organisations like BACP or counselling directory. They check therapist’s qualifications before putting them on the directories.

Very sorry for what you’ve been through

Even in cases where therapy comes to an end without any wrongdoing or rupture, it is a very hard process to move away from psychological preoccupation with the therapist. The process of therapy encourages an unnervingly strong set of reactions to the therapist that don't go away fast.

So in your case, where the therapy ended in such a bad way, I can imagine the powerful and disabling compulsion to ruminate on the therapist, and hold the rupture present instead of letting it slide into the past.

I think my temptation would be to make a clear statement to him/her of what went wrong (if you haven't already done this) and then do everything you can to discourage continuing rumination.

When I ruminate, I am essentially trying to think my way out of difficult feelings by imagining real-world scenarios that somehow dissolve the need for those feelings, e.g. a scenario in which everyone acknowledges that I am right and good. But in reality, there isn't any resolution of inner feelings available through external means: Even if your therapist was registered somewhere and you could make a complaint,, this wouldn't make the preoccupation and hurt go away - and rumination on the subject worsens and entrenches the distress.

If the therapist's wrongdoing was severe, could you consider specialist counselling - i.e. focus on healing yourself rather than on mending the external situation by holding the therapist to account

I’m really sorry for what you’ve been through. I think it’s difficult to work out who to complain to if they’re not regulated or registered anywhere unless their behaviour is fraudulent in some way. In reality, there’s not much leverage that you have. I did one engage a law firm to sue a psychiatrist and while, for me, it was about the damage that I felt that they had done to me, the main points that the lawyers focused on was around a breach of patient confidentiality which was obviously something ‘legal’ that they could hang my complaint on.

I too have had bad experiences but I have an excellent therapist these days who has undone a lot of the damage.

You say the therapist isn't in any professional or regulatory bodies so who exactly are you thinking of complaining to?

You'd been seeing them for several years and were still in need of them?

Surely in those several years you came to a natural end?

We also have to consider that there are two sides to every story. Without knowing the nature of the wrong doing its difficult to tell. If it was something obvious like sending your confidential case notes to someone then fair enough but if it was that they needed to end the therapy for some reason and you were opposed to that then that is a different thing. I too have to close therapy when it comes to an natural end but people don't always like it.