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.

[artisanmarsbar]

My thoughts:
yes, some therapists see clients 2/3 times a week, this is usually called analysis, rather than counselling. But it does tend to be set times.
No, never in car parks. This is very dodgy.
Most therapists have boundaries and set times when they see clients, maybe occasionally for some they'd answer an email question or a brief call in between sessions if agreed and in contract but in general not.
Most 'good' therapists do not encourage nc, quite the opposite in my experience.

Find out their full name - check out their website/listing on BACP or UKCP, are they even with a governing body? For further support, you could try calling Ask Kathleen on BACP website. This is a service aimed entirely at clients(or family?) with therapist questions, phonelines open Mon-thurs.
You can:

call us on 07811 762114 or 07811 762256
email [email protected]

[AlbaAlba]

This sounds really dodgy. I've had a few different therapists and this set up sounds bizarre.

• It could be a cover for an affair (sorry).
  
• She might have got emotionally, or even sexually, involved with her therapist, even if he does look like Jeremy Corbyn. There's something called transference which results in the patient getting entangled with the therapist, as well as counter-transference where the therapist becomes emotionally entangled with the patient. A good therapist would be checking to make sure this isn't happening, and usually has therapy or mentoring themselves to keep themselves safe.
  

• It's quite a long treatment time with a lot of sessions. I've had 2 years plus of therapy, but there was clear progress, and it was only 1 x a week. I was allowed to email outside if in crisis.
  

• The payment scheme sounds highly unusual. My sessions were £65/hour. None of the therapist I know or have worked with have had some kind of all-inclusive plan.
  

• Your wife is vulnerable (the therapy relationship makes you vulnerable and presumably she has some history or MH issues that also make her vulnerable) and might be being taken advantage of emotionally, financially, or sexually.
  

Talk to her first, but if you don't manage to get anywhere talking to her, this is one of the only circumstances I'd consider actually investigating to some extent, finding out where she is going and what she's doing there. If you knew it was affair then that's one thing, but if she's vulnerable and entangled in an abusive relationship with her therapist, then you'd want to find out so you could help her, for her own sake.

[bengalcat]

Second most of what others have said . Therapy three times a week would be most unusual except perhaps at the very beginning of therapy .

[username501]

Therapy three times plus a week isn't unusual, depending on the therapy. Jungian for example, can be five times a week for a minimum of two years.

After three years of this though, there's something not quite right.

It seems as though your wife is solely reliant on the therapist and isn't communicating with you at all; she's now isolated from all family members. Therapists don't 'unearth' memories, unless John doubles as an archaeologist, which wouldn't surprise me as he sounds as though he has a lot of strings to his bow.

It sounds dodgy to me OP. I would organise a chat with your wife and open up about your concerns. I would also speak to the relevant professional body about this. You can read about professional boundaries here. You don't have to mention the name of the therapist to them, just find out via his office if he's registered with a professional body and call them. Explain your concerns and ask if this sounds like good practice. But I think the first step is talking to your wife about it.

[YouokHun]

No, never in car parks. This is very dodgy. Sometimes therapy can be off site, for example, if I have a client who has a phobia of multi-story car parks or has social anxiety then we would conduct therapy at the relevant location at some point (but with a clear reason and goal for doing so). So it’s not inconceivable but without clear justification it is questionable.

There should really be some sort of contract at the start of contact with a private practice therapist which sets out the therapist’s responsibilities and what you can expect of them and how they deal with risk, safeguarding, confidentiality, GDPR (Are they registered with the ICO if they have any of your data kept by electronic means), how they contact or refer to the medical profession if necessary, what their fees are, what their cancellation policy is, what their complaints procedure is.

I’d be wary if none of this is clear as there isn’t any discipline that is exempt from the above.

[isthismylifenow]

When is he seeing other patients if he is seeing your dw this often and at a drop of a hat? My dd has just been discharged for a serious mental health issue and she has now gone from 2 x a week to 1 x a week and trying to change or get a different appt once they are made is near on impossible.

This is not a normal therapist/patient relationship imo.

[BewilderedDoughnut]

Yeah... she's not seeing a therapist 3 x per week.

Time for an honest conversation.

[AnnaMagnani]

How exactly does 'John' have so many free appointments at short notice? He would be a rubbish therapist if he had so few clients that he had all that free time.

So that leaves a number of possibilities:

1. She isn't seeing 'John' and he is cover for an affair
   
2. She is seeing 'John' but all professional boundaries have been lost and the therapy is now harmful
   
3. 'John' is giving her therapy but he is a very very bad therapist - there are alarm bells from the fact she has recovered memories and she is now in a toxic and over reliant relationship with him
   

All of the above are bad. Probably 2 and 3 are worse than an affair as with an affair you can at least leave, but with 2 and 3 your wife will have little insight that John is a terrible problem in her life.

I'd start by finding out if there is an affair or not and take it from there. Perhaps finding out how long she imagines therapy will last and how it is helping her as you think she is getting sadder and more isolated.

[readingismycardio]

You’re right to be suspicious. I’ve had therapy and it was
a)only once a week
b)lasted around 18months
c)no contact with therapist between sessions.
d) took place in her therapy rooms
I’d report the therapist to his governing body for being incredibly unprofessional. No therapist would meet in the car/park etc etc. If he was that worried about your wife’s mental health that she needs therapy that many times a week plus phone calls in between times then I would suggest she would actually need to be an in-patient. This is obviously not the case... you’re right to be concerned. At the very least your wife is vulnerable, being treated by a very unprofessional therapist and getting all her support elsewhere which she should be getting some of with you, at worst, they are having an affair.

Totally agree, except the location. Since the pandemics we're only had online sessions

[Dontletitbeyou]

Never in all my life have I heard of a therapist who is able to meet at very short notice , who is willing to meet at the park or in the car , and wants to hug . LOL sorry I’m surprised she can even say that with a straight face .
I’d be fucking suspicious if this was my DH, in fact I wouldn’t be suspicious, that means I would think there may just be a molecule of truth in any of it . I would not believe it . He may be an accredited therapist , doesn’t mean he’s playing by the rules
That is if she is even meeting up with him, not someone else .

[YouokHun]

Yes good point @readingismycardio, since March all the professional bodies I know and all Government advice is to work online and the advice is that this should continue for the foreseeable unless you can guarantee social distancing within all areas of your place of work, but even that recent confession is likely to go I think.

[YouokHun]

*concession (Fraudian slip, how apt!)

[itsallaloadofshite]

But how could you have only just thought hmm this is odd?! It's been going on for 3 years. My first thought is she's using the seeing her therapist as a cover story for an affair with someone else entirely!

[LilyLongJohn]

Unless you know for definite she's seeing John I think he's a cover story for her seeing someone else.

Think about it, you'd never question her if she told you she was seeing him, it's a great excuse to leave the house to make a telephone call too

[category12]

I don't see why him being 20 years older and Corbyn-like would make him an unlikely candidate for an affair partner. A lot of women go for older blokes, authority figures, and it's common for patients to get hung up on their therapists.

The most obvious answer is that she has developed feelings for him. And extremely unprofessionally, he's responded in kind, which is not unknown.

I think the idea of him being a cover is unnecessarily complicating things and a bit soap opera.

[Saranvenya]

I have been a therapist for years in the UK and this:

'I think now she pays with a set weekly fee that covers any extras or emergency sessions'

I have never heard of.
IF she is seeing him which I very much doubt then something is amiss!

[DioneTheDiabolist]

I’d report the therapist to his governing body for being incredibly unprofessional.
Professional bodies do not act on complaints from competent adult clients' families.

[SoulofanAggron]

How exactly does 'John' have so many free appointments at short notice?

@AnnaMagnani He could be the type of man who always has time to be involved with women- even if 'just' for ego strokes rather than sex. Plus he sees it as a moral mission, even though what he's doing is flakey B.S. Say he only works formally 2 or 3 days a week (therapists get good money so he could work that way if he chooses, plus some are paying him a retainer to chat a little outside of session) or a few sesions over a day, which therapists tend to do, it's not 9-5 all the way through) he'd be free to do his other machinations with clients for the rest of the week. It does sound a bit dodgy though. Maybe he does have the sort of relationship he's having with OP's wife with several members of his 'cult.' Or maybe he is particularly invested in @StonedRoses ' wife. Therapists who are into 'recovered memory therapy'/SRA do tend to be more like that than other therapists.

I’d report the therapist to his governing body for being incredibly unprofessional.

@readingismycardio Unfortunately, OP already has. The therapist isn't officially breaking the code of conduct unless it's proven he's having an affair with OP's wife or something. There are very few criteria that count as a breach, and as OP said, usually the complaint has to come from the client themselves.

[SoulofanAggron]

Professional bodies do not act on complaints from competent adult clients' families.

@DioneTheDiabolist If it could be proven that a therapist is sexually involved with someone who's a current client, with messages etc, I think it could come from a family member, as that is clearly against the code of conduct.

Unfortunately it can't be proven/he probably isn't, he just gets off psychologically on this sort of relationship with clients.

'I think now she pays with a set weekly fee that covers any extras or emergency sessions'

@Saranvenya There are all sorts of therapists, not all will be into the same methods as yours/ours. My ex is a therapist (not mine.) Admittedly he's a narcissistic twat. He used to offer to some clients to pay a retainer to speak with him outside of session, at least to some extent. Or so he claimed. If they're getting paid for it then some of them will, depending on they're style of working. I'm not saying it's good or bad, just that it can be a thing. Very few styles of therapy are banned by the BACP etc.

[SoulofanAggron]

*their

[Spied]

I agree with the others who say it's a cover story.
She is seeing someone else.

[FaceForRadio1973]

1. Check their phone.
2. Screenshot any messages.
3. Follow them.
4. Find a solicitor.
5. Get your ducks in a row.

Oh, sorry, I've just noticed that the OP is a man... Ignore me....

[Saranvenya]

@SoulofanAggron I hear you but still find any medium of therapist offering this sort of service in the UK.
Our first rule is our ow wellbeing in any therapy and being able to be approach for a 1-2-1 f-2-f at any time goes completely against that.
I don't believe she is with her therapist or if she is then something other than therapy is going on.
I also find 3 sessions a week for multiple years excessive and really not what therapy is about, fundamentally it is for healing not longevity.

[DioneTheDiabolist]

@SoulofanAggron, complaints have to come from the client because unfortunately it is not unusual for a client's partner to complain or threaten to in order to disrupt therapy/regain control. Also the contract is with the client and breaches must be reported by them.

[Windmillwhirl]

I'm also a counsellor/psychotherapist and this is setting off serious alarm bells. I, too, have never heard of a payment scheme. Similarly, how does he just slot her in short notice? What about his other clients? It just doesn't work like that.

Three times a week? And some of them in a carpark? Just no.

I am also curious as to why now, after three years, that you are suddenly finding this odd?