I'm going to play devil's advocate here in an attempt to justify Bob's sexual practices:
Suppose there is mutual attraction between therapist and patient. Suppose against better judgment they fall in love. Suppose they discontinue therapy and allow a year to pass before entering into a sexual relationship. This may violate professional guidelines, but just maybe it's not something that should be considered abusive or unethical.
Now suppose the therapist enters into sexual relationships with many patients. And has sex with them during* therapy sessions.
There's no ambiguity here. A therapist who does this is a sexual predator. Depending on jurisdiction, they might even be considered a rapist.
This is how Bob routinely operated.
* Based on multiple witnesses who I deem as highly credible.
4 comments:
While discussing sexuality in a talk, Bob would explain that a contributing reason he was sexual with so many of the women was because he didn’t want to damage their psyche when they were reaching out, that their attraction to him was a natural expression of their development. He also implied that the women in the community who weren’t attracted to him were either lacking in self-esteem or suffered some early life trauma.
How did this man commit crimes and also hold onto a PHD with his actions? Why didn’t you stop this if you knew all of this was going on? This is horrifying to read!
(1) What he did certainly violated ethical guidelines. I don't know if it was illegal though. (2) Even if illegal, that would have no impact on his degree. (3) As to why we didn't try to stop it ... I don't have an easy answer. We adhered to Bob mythology. Some of us were young and foolish. The sailing adventures were alluring. Etc.
Thank you for replying to my questions, I guess more so as a certified therapist the having sexual relations with your patients is gross beyond belief because he had to have known all of these woman’s personal emotions and pounced on them with his “insight”! I know it’s illegal to be a licensed therapist and work with those actions so that was more my question?
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