Concerns about DW and therapist - am I paranoid?

[StonedRoses]

I’ve posted before about my concerns about the Male therapist has been seeing for the last three years. Let’s call him John. He’s a little unorthodox and the process has lead to my DW going nc with her entire family. I’ve really no idea about whether the memories they have unearthed are correct or not. But that’s a side issue to today

One of my concerns has been the frequency of contact. Often 2-3 times a week. Text and email between and often arranged at short notice. There have been emergency they sit sessions, sometimes meeting at a local park or in the car

This week she told me on Friday at 5pm she had a phone call with John at 6. Then she left the house to make the call from the car, for privacy of course. However she then drove off and come back a couple of hours later.
Again yesterday her scheduled session is Thursday. Mid afternoon she text me to say she has another session straight after work

A friend of mine who can be a bit cynical has said to me ‘are you sure there’s nothing else going on’. And it’s got me thinking. I’m sure there isn’t and I hate feeling paranoid. But even so it does feel like current contact is OTT and rather eating into family time.

I would be extremely worried. This guy sounds like an absolute charlatan abs potentially dangerous (I don't mean physically), I mean emotionally and psychologically. The whole recovered memories thing is extremely controversial and lacking in evidence. Your poor wife and her family if this is all completely fabricated by him"creating" false memories which it is surprisingly easy to do.

Have a listen to this:

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/bad-people/id1524768655?i=1000487982720

And whether or not the memories are true, he is breaching boundaries all over the place and acting pretty unethically. I am shocked that that they won't take a complaint from someone other than a patient/client given how vulnerable many patients of therapy are.

It's going to be extremely difficult I think to get her away from him. Would your wife consider seeing someone else to get a second perspective on things?

I feel terrible confused and guilty because the person who introduced her to John was - Me. I wanted counselling for anxiety and self esteem issues. Picked him from a search. He wanted to see is both together to help, then started seeing her alone. I didn’t feel comfortable us both seeing him separately and I wasn’t too keen on seeing him, so my sessions slipped away. A few sessions of hers and she text me saying ‘I need some time. John thinks in the victim of childhood trauma’. And then it’s just snowballed. And the sessions have crept on. It’s always just a few more months. Same with the extras, always just a few to get through a crisis. Whatever the deal I find his approach far too intrusive to our family and life.

Outwardly my wife is a normal successful woman with a busy complex job, a great mum and busy with hobbies. Before all this it had never occurred to either of us. She has capacity and certainly isn’t a vulnerable adult in the legal sense. And as my GP kindly but bluntly told me ‘grown adults are free to be as daft as they wish, and spend their money as they wish’
I will however reconnect the professional body with a detailed concerns. She left a journal in our shared desk and rightly or wrongly I’ve made copies of what she’s written and drawn. It’s the most depraved stuff I can imagine. I will send them my specific concerns and worries. I’m going to speak to our GP again.

I am worried about her mental health because to her there is no doubt this is true. I’ve come to realise that it’s impossible for me to know. So getting between her and the only man who’s ever believed her and supported her could be a massive deal.

It’s not easy for me either. I’ve had to read stuff and look up stuff I never wanted to. And I miss her family. They were nice people(so I thought) who were good to me and I’ve not seen them for three years. I’m very much in the middle of it. Her 95 grandmother is distraught that she hasn’t seen or spoken to her our her great grandchildren for years

Probably jumping to huge conclusions but I'd put my money on John being a pervert and living out his fantasies via vulnerable women who he then is their only comfort and support Something so deeply wrong here.

I think coming between them isn't the bigger deal here. It has to be done. Atleast then you know you did everything you could. sorry OP. This is all terrible

My DM had a similar situation. Therapist (also 20 years older and the ugliest chap going) basically brought out loads of false memories and encouraged her to believe she was schizophrenic, then "treated" her v unconventionally. Incidentally, they also had an affair which was covered up as therapy for many years until she ultimately left my DF for him.

Sorry OP, I think both you and she are being fleeced.

@NearToCompletion

My DM had a similar situation. Therapist (also 20 years older and the ugliest chap going) basically brought out loads of false memories and encouraged her to believe she was schizophrenic, then "treated" her v unconventionally. Incidentally, they also had an affair which was covered up as therapy for many years until she ultimately left my DF for him.

Sorry OP, I think both you and she are being fleeced.

Jesus.

So John wasn't actually recommended by someone else, as I think you said earlier?

Ignore the legal definition of “vulnerable”. At best, she’s a severely abused individual who isn’t receiving the right kind of treatment and at worse she’s being manipulated and abused by someone in a position of trust.

You will know the type of therapy he uses and the body he’s aligned with. Is it a mainstream, recognised type of therapy to address issues relating from csa? If not, then he’s doing more damage than good. There are some things here that you may never know (if the abuse ever took place) but there are things that can be verified (birthday parties and if the treatment she’s receiving is an accepted form).

If you want to think about the legalities, total up how much money this man has been given. If he’s created this situation in order to get money then that’s fraud.

Good that you saw him as a client OP, that way you may actually have his supervisor's details. Contact them and talk to them about your concerns.

@ThrawnCow

So John wasn't actually recommended by someone else, as I think you said earlier?

Yes. My error. Because I feel so bad about it and wish I’d never gone to see him. I just picked him because he was local and had some good reviews on his website. If I could rewind....

I don’t really know the type of therapy he’s using. His website says he’s a specialist in childhood trauma and dissociation. I just saw him for a chat about why I was so anxious and worried about screwing up. Even then I didn’t like how he tried to blame my parents. They tried their best but were a bit stiff upper lip, show no emotion type. But to here them described as neglectful and abusive I didn’t like

Serious alarm bells here - I would suggest John is financially and seriously emotionally abusing your wife to the point where long term irreparable damage has already happened. She has become totally dependent on him to function and is unable to recognise the abuse he is perpetrating - it has become normalised

Have you raised a safeguarding with your local authority ? Your wife is a vulnerable person and this is just going to get worse for her the longer it goes on.
By doing nothing you are colluding with the abuser

The update about him moving on to her after starting with you makes it sound even dodgier to me. Can’t really articulate why. And it was sounding incredibly dodgy already.

I’m curious as to what this professional body is - is it one of the really big ones like BACP or something smaller related to the specific method, as you say it’s unconventional? I’m assuming you did research this body before contacting them rather than just a link on his website which could be fake? (Sorry if I’m totally barking up the wrong tree there and I don’t mean to sound patronising.)

I’ve always felt a bit jarred by false memory stuff as I did uncover repressed memories of early childhood abuse that were real (he admitted it, and the symptoms of being an abused child were definitely there both in school and at home) - but then they came back on their own when triggered by a particular event. I don’t know much about repression in older children even of 17.

And faked party photos? Doctored photos how? It’s not like everyone had editing software on their smartphones then.

My therapist refused to see my husband due and said it was appropriate for him to find his own...

I am worried about her mental health because to her there is no doubt this is true. I’ve come to realise that it’s impossible for me to know. So getting between her and the only man who’s ever believed her and supported her could be a massive deal.

I really wouldn't frame it as John being the only man who's ever believed her. He didn't support her in coping with childhood abuse. He suggested it to her. For now, that has become her reality. But that doesn't mean it is objectively true. I would be very wary of any "recovered memories" she claims to have based on therapy with John. This sort of treatment has been quite thoroughly debunked. Of course, it is possible that she experienced abuse. But she wouldn't need a therapist to recover those memories.

I'd love to know the name of this therapist so I could seriously avoid him!

There comes a point when your silence and inaction is enabling and facilitating this abuse.

When do you think that point is?

It is not your responsibility to investigate, prove and fix this - in fact it would be counterproductive as you ddI not have the insight, skills, capacity or neutral stance.

However this is a safeguarding situation - which means you are responsible for alerting the relevant professionals.

They can take a look at it and if it’s all above board then no harm done.

I would suggest you contact her GP confidentially who may then call her in for a routine chat. The GP won’t be able to feed back to you but will be likely be required to take action.

@StonedRoses do I understand your post correctly that you found John as a therapist for yourself, to deal with anxiety?
And off the back of some joint sessions she then started seeing him on her own, after which this all happened? And then you ditched him as your own therapist?
What happened to your own therapy, did you find another therapist?
I miss your wife's voice in all this somehow.... Where does she see as the end game for her therapy with John? Do you talk to her about the sessions? What does she think?

"There comes a point when your silence and inaction is enabling and facilitating this abuse.

When do you think that point is?"

This. Also your reference to a 95 yo great-grandmother is heartbreaking. There may be other currently accused and alienated adults who are relatively elderly. How will your wife feel if they die under this shadow and she subsequently accepts this abuse story is not real? I think that in itself would be another form of torture for your wife from which it would be extremely hard to recover.

And how is your son coping with being kept away from his grandparents and great-grandmother? Imagine how he will feel if they die without him ever having been able to renew contact? How will you feel? The emotional fallout from this is going to reverberate for so many years unless you get hold of it and at least try to fix what you can. Could you at least take your son to see this family occasionally so that there is at least some comfort if they are unable to reconcile with your wife during their lifetimes?

My therapist refused to see my husband due and said it was appropriate for him to find his own...
Damn straight. I would never knowingly see family members of existing clients. Speak to John's supervisor OP.

Some of you are being more than a bit hard on the OP.

He’s spoken to their GP and he’s approached the professional body to raise his concerns. The only thing he’s not done, to date, in terms of safeguarding, is approach the Police. And are THEY really likely to take any action? On past form, I doubt it.

Read this again...I just saw him for a chat which lead to your parents being described as neglectful and abusive.

There is NO way that he could come to that conclusion during or maybe just after an initial consultation. Unless you walked in there and gave him a litany of abusive behaviour perpetrated by your parents.

No genuine therapist would do that.

Does he have qualifications? Have you checked them out eg does he actually have the and, if he does, are they from a respected organisation? As many pp have said, therapy is unregulated in that you don’t need qualifications to operate.

I’m saying all of this because if the abuse did happen your wife needs help that this man cannot give. If the abuse did not take place, this man has effectively ruined your wife’s life. He needs to be removed from her life altogether.

Actually If I were you I think I’d be taking legal advice.

He sounds like a charlatan. I would look more intensely for feedback about him, perhaps there are others that had inappropriate sessions with him.

This doesn't sound right at all, either he is extremely unethical or she's not seeing him. You perhaps need to try and speak to him.

OP, would you consider getting your own therapy (with a proper therapist - look at BACP)? This sounds incredibly painful and it sounds like you could benefit from having someone to talk to about all of this and help you get some insight on what you need to do next. A decent therapist would also help you have some insight on how worrying these practices are, which I think would take the pressure off you trying to make all the decisions yourself.