Being brave about therapist exploitation

I have never found another person who was lured into a “relationship” with her therapist, and who ended up living with her.

Am I really alone?

I haven't heard of anyone like that either. There are people on this forum who make claims that some relationships like that end up in happy marriages. I am yet to hear such a story from a person who actually married their therapist and lived happily with them for at least a few years, not from someone's who "knows" such person. I've read stories published by survivors who married their therapists and described how horrid the whole experience was: when they were in therapy, when they started seeing each other outside of therapy office and after they got married. Those marriages didn't last more than a year and there were few stories like that all together. Almost all exploitative relationships with therapists never even get to that point.

I think it’s the same with sexual exploitation of students by teachers/professors. It happens to a lot of people but there isn’t any organized community

You are NOT alone. There are many people who have experienced therapist exploitation. Perhaps they have experienced it in different ways but they ARE out there.

I am so happy you have posted this thread. It helps others feel less alone. IT is a step in the right direction.

Thanks,
HD7970ghz

There was/is that woman who married her therapist, who claimed to have recovered memories of child abuse. Wrote a book called Michelle Remembers or something. He was involved in perpetuating the whole satanic panic era. I would definitely say he exploited the woman in question, along with all the other victims of the falsely recovered memories (the children and their families) and caused immeasurable harm to so many people with his unethical nonsense suggesting therapists can/should recover memories. I'm not saying repressed memories aren't a thing, but false memory syndrome is also unfortunately a very real phenomenon. And therapists like him are the primary culprits.

You are not alone. My experience was similar. Sadly, I don't consider this forum a safe environment to discuss my experience. I hope you find support.

I know of two people. One was a lesbian relationship that ended after a few years, the other was a heterosexual marriage (he was the t) that continues, AFAIK.

Just speaking for myself, I feel sad that you don't feel comfortable here discussing your experience. I've heard a little bit about it and -- just for what it is worth, hopefully something and hopefully not offensive or invalidating or unsafe -- you sound so strong and humorous that I thought you were saying the experience didn't bother you a bit. So much for my ways of understanding things, if that is wrong, which it sounds like it may be.

My experience with just plain old therapist trauma -- realizing I'd been duped by the whole establishment -- leaves me feeling alone. I think that's one of the things about interpersonal trauma in general -- that you were hurt and no one helped. It's still a very scary, lonely feeling for me that that happened. For so long, and that I let it happen, and the people who I was looking to for "help" didn't.

Whatever the unique circumstances of your exploitation, you are definitely not alone in FEELING very alone.

Being brave in talking about it -- yeah, I definitely get that. Being so alone, and vulnerable, is a very scary feeling.

I don't feel safe discussing my experience on this forum either. I did discuss it on some threads, but more so in terms of what happened. I didn't go into my inner emotional experience much and the only reason I've shared anything at all was because I safeguarded myself in advance by putting the most judgmental people on my ignore list after watching them brutalize other survivors. There is no need for anyone here to feel sad for me because of that. I am comfortable with my decision about how to use this forum and for what purpose. There is no right or wrong way of doing it. I know that some people mostly look for connections, support and a sense of community here and that's cool. I don't look for the same things they look for, but I don't have any judgment about it. Equally, I don't want anyone to judge me for using this forum differently from how they are using it. I am saying this because when you feel sad for someone, who doesn't feel comfortable talking about their experiences on this forum, that implies that their discomfort is somehow not normal. And I am saying that there is nothing wrong with it, that's all.

I didn't mean to hijack the thread. I just felt it was important to point this out.

My feelings of sadness are my feelings. It's not about whether you, or anyone else, needs them or not.

I feel sad that this community may not be a place for lots of folks, including me sometimes, to talk about our inner experience. I have looked for connection here, and found it sometimes, and idealistically (my bad!) I wish that others felt more supported here, if that's what they want.

I don't think I have any judgment about the way anybody else uses the forum, though. I'm OK that it's my idealism and others may not share that. If that comes off as judgmental, then thank you for telling me that, because that definitely is not something that I want.

I think this is a very good parallel. I work in a University setting (staff, not professor) and there is a huge amount of sexual exploitation of students. Male professors, and I suspect a few female professors as well. It happens a LOT and the wreckage that selfish professors leave behind is enormous. I was saddened to learn that a good friend of mine (female professor) recently asked some of her students to help her with something, and they kind of dropped the ball on the task and her response was to curse them out -- I could NOT BELIEVE what she said to them -- she freely admitted saying these vile things, knowing full well that she can never be fired because she has tenure and they're simply not going to get rid of her.

The power imbalance is huge and these students are in a learning setting and there are just so many parallels with toxic therapy.

Ok, thanks for clarification. When you say you feel sad that this community may not be a place for lot of folks to talk about their inner experiences that sounds different from when you say that you feel sad when people don't feel comfortable talking about their experiences with no clarification. That doesn't sound like a judgment.

And, yeah, I am, probably, a bit more cynical (or realistic?) in my perceptions of public forums in general and this one in particular. But again, I am fine with those perceptions and also with the fact that others may not share them

i don't either...

i have shared some aspects here, but only two people know the full story and extent of what happened in my therapy and with my therapist and the after effects of it...my husband and a very dear online friend who i met on another support forum who also had a similar experince with her ex-T.

yeah, this...exactly

i don't think i ever felt more alone as the time while i was trying to get my head around what was happening to me while in therapy with my ex-T. fortunately, i was brave enough to reach out to my husband for his support and he was very understanding and sympathetic of my situation, he wanted nothing more than to help. otherwise, without his help and support, i don't think i would have made it through. i definilty knew i was not going to put my trust into another T to help me through it.

As for me, I only felt safe discussing my experiences more or less fully via private email communications, not even forum private messaging.

Quite a few people have found me online when they searched for info on professional exploitation and talked to me privately about their experiences. They told me they wouldn't even consider hanging out on forums.

I wouldn't consider it either if I were a lay person, who had gone through this therapy ordeal. If I were someone, who has never invested in the professional training and education, frankly, I'd be doing my healing differently. I would try to connect with other survivors initially to get some support and validation, but, I doubt, I'd be hanging out with them in groups and on forums for a long time.
I'd try to learn from the experience, let it be a part of who I've become as a result, embrace the new me and then close this chapter and move on with my life along with the lessons I've learned. I'd continue doing my personal work and continue to grow, but not through therapy. There are many ways of doing it.

In fact, I know some people who have done just that and, frankly, I am jealous of them. But, may be I don't have to be stuck where I am either..May be I can also choose to do what they did, because it's a choice after all..Or may be I am already doing it in some way..I am trying to figure this out for myself..

Just echoing this.

My husband was just as supportive. Without his help and support primarily I wouldn't have made it. Then, there was a valuable initial support and help from AdvocateWeb and TELL. Theirs was just the right type of help at the right time. Then there was a long, painful road to healing, which still continues..I've gone a long way though..

People have found the Therapy Exploitation Link Line helpful. In addition to reading and resources, they will correspond with you.

TELL: Therapy Exploitation Link Line

Another resource site.
Surviving Therapist Abuse – Resources and Support for Healing

Though I haven’t read an account of your situation specifically, I’ve read many variations of therapists exploitation, unfortunately. The book Therapist by Ellen Plasil recounts financial exploitation and a semi cult in addition to sexual exploitation.

I ‘knew’ an online acquaintance years ago who married her therapist and had a child together. At that point in their lives, the acquaintance was in the process of divorcing her husband and their daughter was having mh issues in college.

I was also inpatient with a woman who had two daughters by her priest. Don’t know if I ever knew if he left the priesthood to marry her.

I would love to hear their stories from them, as a first hand account. I'd have lots of questions. I think, if people like them were willing to write a book about how they married their therapists with the whole back story and the today's experience, it'd be enormously valuable for many of us to learn more about the dynamics of what can happen in therapy relationships.