Therapy Harm
Please note: To stay up to date on my therapy harm content and resources, you can find me on Instagram and Patreon. I post frequent short-form content on Instagram, and longer resources and full documents on Patreon, with both free and paid membership options and no gatekeeping based on contribution.
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I seek to cultivate competency* in supporting patients** who have been traumatically harmed by psychotherapy.
Having been harmed in therapy myself, I know what it’s like to seek care after a traumatic treatment experience, only to encounter therapist after therapist who is uninformed about, shies away from, responds anxiously to or disavows the ways in which psychotherapy can traumatically harm patients. Unfortunately, therapist training does not equip us for this vital aspect of the work: addressing the harms of our own field, within our communities of practice, in our relationships with patients, and within ourselves.
I hope to support survivors in navigating the post-harm landscape, and to assist fellow therapists in equipping themselves to face this difficult reality in our field, such that they can do increasingly honest, competent, and supportive therapeutic work with survivors of therapy harm who are in dire need of, and fully deserve, the best care we can give them.
Resources
My hope is that survivors who are seeking to feel less alone, to understand what they've been through, and to access information about their options going forward might find something supportive amongst the non-exhaustive list of resources below. I also hope clinicians will use the below to inform themselves and assist their patients. Please be in touch with me if you wish to suggest an addition to or subtraction from this list.
Therapy Exploitation Link Line (TELL): "a peer support network that seeks to help victims and survivors of exploitation by psychotherapists and other healthcare providers find the resources they will need to understand what has happened to them, to take action, and to heal." TELL offers extensive writings on the subject of therapy abuse, as well as peer support by email.
Surviving Therapist Abuse: "The intention for this site is twofold: First, to bring awareness and attention to the issue of therapist abuse, exploitation, and professional sexual misconduct by providing a survivor’s perspective; second, to offer resources for those who may need help or support." Here you can find the Treatment Abuse Checklist, a non-exhaustive but helpful list of boundary issues that may present in harmful treatment.
AdvocateWeb: "AdvocateWeb is a nonprofit organization providing information and resources to promote awareness and understanding of the issues involved in the exploitation of persons by trusted helping professionals." This site offers resources primarily for those having been harmed via sexual/romantic exploitation by a provider or authority figure.
How to Recognize Abuse in Therapy and What to Do About It: a non-exhaustive description of problematic elements that may present in harmful treatment.
When Therapy Harms: Five Warning Signs of Abusive Therapy: a description of five categories of conduct by therapists that indicate harmful treatment, and some possible impacts upon patients.
The Psycho Therapy Podcast (Apple or Spotify): "a show dedicated to giving survivors of bad therapy, therapy harm/abuse, and pastoral counseling harm a platform to share their experiences with…the psycho in the therapists chair."
Writing
Below are my working drafts of writings that I hope might assist survivors and their providers. I invite you to take a look, and to be in touch with me if you have feedback, edits, or suggestions as I formulate these resources.
Annotated Bibliography on Therapy Harm: gradually compiled list of sources with summaries (coming soon!)
Seeking the Next Therapist: my thoughts for survivors who are looking to find a therapist after therapy harm (coming soon!)
When You Can’t Go Back to Therapy: my thoughts for survivors who suffer inaccess to future care.
Haunted Therapy: Consideration in Working with Therapy Abuse Survivors: guide for therapists (coming soon!)
My Top 5 Clinical Suggestions: for therapists working with therapeutic harm survivors
For Therapists: these are tools I drafted for therapists, but may also be useful for survivors to read and/or share with their therapists: Ego-Confronting Session Reflection Worksheet, and We Have Harmed.
Survivor Community
Community is invaluable to surviving and thriving after therapy harm. There are a couple general survivor Facebook groups of which I am aware: Clients Harmed by Therapy and Therapist Abuse.
There are also groups specific to survivors of compliance-based therapies, such as DBT and ABA. I will post links to those groups here soon.
If you are a therapist who is also a survivor of therapy harm (aka a therapist-survivor), I invite you to reach out to me directly to find out about community support options.
Consultation
If you feel it would be useful to speak with me directly, I offer consultation to both patients/survivors and providers.*** (Providers, please see my For Therapists page to learn more about my offerings for clinicians.)
About Consultation for Patients/Survivors
With empathy and care, I offer you support, resources, and understanding. My goal is to help you make sense of your experiences in psychotherapy and chart a path forward. You may wish to connect with me once, a few times, as needed, or ongoing.
How We Begin
Once you contact me, we will determine the best way for you to get a sense of me and how I might support you. Depending upon your needs, this exploration may be conducted by video, phone, in person, or in writing by email or confidential text platform. Whatever venue you choose, I offer one (1) hour of complimentary engagement as you feel out whether I might be a trustworthy and useful person for you to talk with. This hour can be all at once, or in multiple parts. During that time we will go through an informed consent process, during which we discuss how this kind of consultation works and what would create a supportive experience for you. You are welcome to review my informed consent document here, which is the document you will be asked to sign in order to formally initiate consultation with me.
Fees
Consultation is not covered by health insurance. In cases of access need, I do my utmost to offer fee reduction.
Initial One (1) Hour: Complimentary
Consultation Session Fee (55min): $180
(session length can be modified as needed, and the fee will be prorated accordingly)
Disclaimers
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While I seek to cultivate specialization such that I may be useful, I am not an expert on therapy harm. I sincerely hope my experience and efforts can assist. However, I am humbled by the breadth and depth of the problem at hand, and know my knowledge will always be limited. Additionally, I believe that as a psychotherapist myself, I can never responsibly claim expertise on the topic of the harms perpetuated by my own field. I am part of the mental health system, and complicit in its abuses.
I hope to teach patients that a therapist having knowledge about this or any topic does not make that therapist safer to patients. The safety of a therapist to a patient is about much more than expertise. You need not trust me more because I cultivate specialization on this topic. You should only trust me, or any provider, if or when your trust has been earned and continues to be earned.
Additionally, I hold multiple identities of privilege, including white privilege and class privilege, and that of participating in therapy in my native language and culture. As such, my lived experience of therapy harm does not inform me on those resulting from systemic abuses from which I am shielded by my privilege. I aim to assist with humility for my lacking insider understanding of these and other dynamics of harm.
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Regarding the use of "client" or "patient" language: while I believe there are good reasons that many prefer the term “client” and I often feel torn on which word to use, I typically choose the term “patient” as for me, this word connotes a greater responsibility on the part of the provider which I strive to embody and internalize. I acknowledge that "patient" problematically invokes the paternalistic medical model within which psychotherapy is situated. Likewise, I worry that "client" does not correctly represent the sometimes extreme power dynamic endemic to the systemic and relational format of therapy.
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Regarding consultation for patients/survivors: ultimately, my hope is to find sources of funding that would allow me to support survivors at low or no cost. Until that time, while I do not yet have that financial capacity, and therefore must charge a fee for time held in my calendar, my income comes from my psychotherapy practice. I am not proactively seeking to provide therapy harm consultation in order to support myself financially. Rather, knowing how essential consultation was for me in my therapy harm recovery process, I wish to provide the option of more direct support to those who request it.
I recognize my services might be out of reach financially for some, and that others might find paying a therapist too triggering, even in a consultation role. My primary focus continues to be creating free resources and content, and sharing all helpful resources and content I find from the therapy harm discourse.