i dunno, now that i feel safe with T3, and she has spoken to T1, and exchanged whatever relevant info there could be, i am just steaming with anger at him for what he did and didn't do in therapy. T3 said, among other things, that "he was an interesting blend of arrogance and ignorance" ... yeah, took me WAY TO LONG TO SEE IT BUT I DID. she suggested writing a letter, whether i send it or not. i'm GOOD at that...passive aggressive is my game!

btw, he is a bachelors in psychology, masters in divinity...T3 is phd in psychology. she said it was interesting in that he didn't use the professional 'jargon' used in transfering patients (ego boundaries, i remember she mentioned), she said he talked in more lay man's terms. she did end her conversation with him by saying she is having to do more 'damage repair in the therapy right now' than working forward.

i struggle with how to handle him, my anger, trying to make him aware of his LIABILITY, not in the legal sense, but just the trust that a patient gives to their T, and the responsibility to respect that.

thanks for reading....jill (post hog)

here goes..(sorry, long post!)

I am sure it is the child in me speaking, but she is stinking mad at you for the MONTHS of therapy i spent 'bleeding out' on your sofa BEGGING you to notice and help. All to the tune of blank faces and letting BIG topics fall on DEAF ears and then setting up the next appt.

You did me a lot of good, for awhile, but when things quickly got deep, you knew you didn’t have the tools, or the ability to heal the wounds that neither one of us expected to find, but were gapingly open and deep and desperate. I am angry at the months of therapy that went on and your INABILITY to handle the depth of my issues, EITHER through your own toolbox or your RESPECT for me in passing me on to someone who could. You were the adult/caretaker in there, not me. I WAS CRYING OUT FOR HELP FOR MONTHS!! And whether you THOUGHT CBT could do it or not, you were bound to see that I needed something more, that it WASN'T working, and really, that you weren’t even actively using it…the terms and techniques WERE NOT BEING TAUGHT TO ME. I feel you didn’t care about me more than you cared about yourself. And THAT is not what I was paying for. That is not the balance appropriate in therapy. That is unethical.

i did , eventually, realize you didn't have the tools (just CBT ‘here and now stuff’, and were not very tuned in to your client, letting that phone ring with it’s scary ring tone…you knew it bothered me, but you let it continue), but isn't there some kind of 'oath' you take to do no harm?? Continuing to bleed out IS harm…AND, as I see the possible truth in this diagnosis I may be getting, you didn't have the knowledge, the strength of character or morality or SOMETHING to pass me on to someone who had the tools to help me. I think you ‘passed the buck to Psychiatrist "X" ' (in next office down) for a diagnosis, and took yourself off the ‘hook of responsibility’ for this (kind of like the lame ‘predestination’ types that think an invite to go to church is planting a seed…sorry…but where is the passion and compassion, but that is another story). But, T1, NO ONE KNEW ME BETTER THAN YOU DID!! THAT WAS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to manage. You saw how fragile I was/am with that 'schema therapy' profile/checklist that listed me AXIS II and off the chart in many things (and this is a branch off of CBT so surely you saw the 'danger') and you just let me keep bleeding out for what felt like your own AMUSEMENT or pocketbook...and might i add...you have a masters in divinity?? You knew that AXIS II stuff meant something but you wouldn’t help me, you wouldn’t address it or explain it…again, deaf, insensitive, self-centered, uncaring ears. i don't think you were being ethical in not addressing that, or else you are just not too up on your game. Either way is a problem. I do recall when I showed it to you, that it really threw you...i rambled for ten minutes unheard while you recovered your dropped jaw and scrambled through the papers for those minutes knowing there was an issue bigger than maybe you first realized, but STILL you wouldn't refer me on. Or EVEN ADDRESS WHAT THAT ALL MEANT. I trusted you. And you didn’t even believe my answers as I answered them, I confronted you on this, and you just chose to remain blind.

I have a hard time thinking you are mean. But, with your line of work, you need to not be BLIND to someone trying to hit you over the head to get your attention that I AM SICK. Wow, I find it really hard to work on trust issues with so many of you people. Apparently my ‘keen sense of right and wrong’ is just too keen for reality, and that is my frustration in life. While I know I have the self esteem of a tadpole, I have integrity through to my core. And that integrity feels violated. You, too, saw the hysteria I felt about Psychiatrist "X", and again, met with deaf, uncaring ears. You believed him, that was apparent. That hurt. I NEVER lied to you.

I have no desire than for you to reevaluate your stance, and your lack of accepting responsibility for the trust you are given professionally, and spiritually by your patients. And I am sorry to have to be so straight, I do not intent to hurt you, only to help you reaccess your position in people’s lives. I pray for your healing. And mine.


I had to quit, to ‘fire you’ as you liked to say, to take this patient onto better horizons. And what was that talk you kept saying about ‘you have fired patients’…I always found that threatening, like you were telling
me to sit up straight and clean up my language. I guess it was your ego problems, again. Speaking of…there were 3 to 5, maybe more times, sessions in a row this spring, when you replied comments to me, when I was in that semi-conscious state ranting about my shitty childhood or something, and you would say, totally out of context, comments about your marriage. ‘I would never have an affair on my wife’ type stuff. T1, that was uncalled for. That was a PERSONAL VIOLATION OF MY MIND! That was YOU putting boundaries out there for what I feel was YOUR own good that had NO PLACE in MY session. Those comments made me feel I was doing something wrong by being so open and vulnerable….but that is what therapy is for. MY good, MY healing, MY life … and those comments were always out of context, and at this point make me feel mentally violated. Out of context and self-serving comments, that hurt me, made me feel ashamed for something I had no need to feel ashamed of…”being open?”…false shame…YOUR issues, not mine. You need to work on THAT with your own treatment and NEVER say that to a patient, conscious or semi-conscious. Those are your issues and it was NOT FAIR to make me hear that. It just left me feeling way too vulnerable, sitting in a small room with a married man, afraid, and confused. I was never seductive towards you, I never asked you about your marriage. That should not have happened, again, at MY expense.

You need to be personally accountable to me and to my husband for that violation. You are a man that should be above that. That should have been kept to YOURSELF, and discussed on your watch, not mine. I am really disappointed you would do that to me. In the state I was in, and repeatedly….i should think that is a major violation of my rights.


As I now know, emotional wounds are the deepest, and to be wounded in therapy, like a child, when you are so open and vulnerable, and again, like a child, when your healing is interfered with by another’s boundaries and weak personal issues, is criminal… just criminal.

I know that none of this was your intent. I fully expect your initial intent was pure. These things began, though, and I was FULLY relying on your leadership and training and your own mental health to help me. It all seems REALLY IRRESPONSIBLE, and cruel. And when you told me you need 12 to 18 more months of seeing me to get where we need to go, I knew it was really time to leave, although I suspected that when I wrote you the first letter in May. I knew I could not bleed out any more, with no one to mop up the blood.

But for so long, months, my fragile state, my blind loyalty and naïve confidence in a man of the Lord, made me feel SURE you would take care of me either through your own skills or through a compassionate caring way of putting with me someone who could help. I think you need to work on your lack of compassion for another person. Now, I see clearer, but i bet a MILLION bucks you had no written plan for me, or EVER did. And you KNEW the deep loop I was on.

Sorry, but i just relate this to a general practice doctor that suspects a heart problem out of his 'realm' of expertise and doesn't refer the patient on to an expert. At least for a second opinion. YOU DIDN’T CARE ABOUT ME FIRST!! So much seems about your ego. Another opinion, or at least discussing this option is the CARING, ETHICAL thing to do. You are capable of that, aren’t you?? You need to really explore WHY you did not take personal responsibility for your patient. You saw the frightened child, YOU saw the 'hysteria' I felt about psychiatrist "X" and his recommendation to psychoanalysis, YOU saw the abuse/neglect in FOO, but YOU didn't 'take care' of me....you just listened and cashed my check.

i really think you need to take a long look in the mirror and address YOUR issues, whatever they are, and find a way to be more upright. You hold a big title, in your ministry degree, and you need to be accountable to your people and the trust that they put into you because of that title. I see I was naïve. Blind trust that the people in charge of me (you, parents as a child) will take care of me, that I can and should trust them, and that any LACK of trust is MY issue…one of the steps I missed growing up…and any awareness that something is ‘off’, is MY problem, something I did wrong, MY being too needy, and MY inability to trust when trust SHOULD be given by the title I am trying to trust. All the things I am trying to work on in therapy. IT SURE DOESN’T HELP WORK ON THESE ISSUES WHEN THEY CONTINUE TO BE VIOLATED IN THE THERAPY ROOM!!!

Kind of like me wearing a cross? I know I have an accountability when I wear that to be Christian, and a good witness. When you hang the shingle of therapist and masters in divinity on your door…you hold a MAJOR responsibility to be beyond pure in your motivations. And I am really disappointed in you.

You can dismiss this as ‘I am the nut in therapy’, but you know these are true issues, whether you would ever admit them outside yourself or not. You know the truth. We were both there. Don’t hide from yourself. I don’t recommend it.

I compassionately hate to tell you these things, but I think you are UNAWARE of the AMOUNT of confidence and trust people put in their therapist, especially one with a divinity degree….to have THEIR best interests at heart.
It has not helped that my second therapist fell asleep in session two, and that surely has increased my RAGE at this whole process, and you are getting some of that anger. These ARE real issues, though. But had a nice transition been able to occur in moving to a new therapist, the adult in me would have let this slide. But really, the responsible adult in me feels a sense of protection to further clients put in your office for you to be more vigilant.

I hope to help you and them. That really is the adult purpose of this letter. I don’t care about my name, never have. That is some of my disconnect from society, I am more concerned with ‘righting the world’ than me having a good place in it. Hopefully one day I will reap some reward, but I haven’t yet, and truthfully, I don’t expect to. I live for the hope of a better life in heaven, and the desire to have healthy children with a better life for them than I ever had or hope to have on this earth. Yes, I am hopeless in regards to myself, so it doesn’t matter what happens to me. I have no pride in myself. I am just a tool to try to help the world. And feel quite ineffective in doing it. I just continue to pile heaping loads of dog shit on my back, but feel too guilty to ‘know’ something (about you)and not ‘use’ it to help others that come into your office for help. And yes, a wake up call to you gives me a sense of justice at awakening your conscience.

T1, I have been hurt in this process by several issues I consider quite unprofessional. Maybe my standards are too high. I don’t right now intend to carry this further than this letter. I trust you will resolve the matter as your ethics tell you to resolve it. I believe you are capable of that.

I don’t want to sit down and discuss this. I would appreciate a sincere response or acknowledgement. I would like you to address with yourself your inner integrity. I would like you to handle these issues in the way a proper Christian man would handle these things. And I have hope you are capable of that. But, a big part of me suspects this will just be another unresolved issue swept under the proverbial rug of my life. I don’t know. Do what you need to do. I suggest you get some help. I am, with this, trying to move on and repair whatever damage I have accumulated.

I do now, in therapy, feel I am being heard, and in hands that can address many of the issues I need addressed. I am sorry to hurt you with this letter, but I feel obliged to speak up. I wish you no harm, only help so that you can better serve the people that entrust their minds to you. I urge you not to take that responsibility lightly, and to not take on something in the future that you are not capable of handling. I know you were aware I was over your head, and am still baffled at why you would let our time continue. Baffled. I think your conscience passed the buck of responsibility to Pschiatrist "X". But your heart knew more. I am ashamed of you for that one issue, most of all. That delayed MY healing. I personally feel traumatized by these issues I have described.

I must end, though, in acknowledging whatever catalyst you were, to me establishing, or God establishing in me, a spiritual rebirth, that I will always attribute, in some form, to this time in therapy. For that, I am eternally grateful.

I respect your humanity, and sincerely wish you well.