Sarah* moved across the country to a new town in her late 30s after escaping a 10-year abusive marriage. Struggling to make friends and fill her lonely nights, she joined the church choir. It soon became her only joy.
Her new primary care doctor diagnosed her with depression and she began seeing a female therapist. However, when there was no noticeable improvement, she decided to accept an offer of help from a charismatic choir director. He was told he was qualified to be a counselor.
“I had no understanding of the process of treatment, the procedures, the vulnerabilities, the boundaries of all that. He seemed like a polite person and was very well-respected in the church,” she said. Said.
After a three-month counseling session, which she now claims was a grooming period, they started having sex and he used the information she shared about her weaknesses to gradually seduce her. She claims he made her dependent on him. “It was all about power and control and secrecy. It became very abusive. It went on for a while, during which time my health rapidly deteriorated due to his gaslighting. I did,” she said.
“I became more and more depressed and unable to function. I felt like I had no control and didn’t really understand the situation I was in. I started to question things. And he became very aggressive and controlling, telling me I couldn’t go to choir and excluding me from things. That’s something. He followed me into an abusive marriage. I knew I was becoming sensitive.”
After the abuse began, Sarah was referred to a psychiatrist and allowed to take three months off work. “[He] I was really worried that I wouldn’t react to the medication he prescribed. [He asked me:] “What’s going on in your life?” And that opened the floodgates. He made me realize that it was professional abuse. ”
Sarah’s story is an extreme example of nefarious and abusive therapy, but it also highlights how the current regulatory system makes it easier for dishonest therapists to continue practicing and for victims to seek redress in cases of misconduct. Shows what’s making it more difficult.
Sarah claims she is not the first vulnerable woman to have been abused by a counselor. She began to suspect that he was having affairs with other members of the choir, as “the truth began to emerge from this dark depression.”
She also learned that he had previously been employed as a priest in another town. One day she visited the church where he worked. “I happened to meet the current pastor, and as soon as I said his name he dropped his bike, turned pale, and told me to go to the police immediately. He said what his predecessor had done there involved four female parishioners and amounted to rape.
There seemed to be no help for Sarah. The church’s investigation was unsuccessful, the counselors were not certified, and there was no professional organization to turn to for help. She believes that if therapy were legally regulated, she might have known better how to check a therapist’s qualifications, and it would have been easier to file a complaint.
“In retrospect I think it was a very stupid thing to do, but I didn’t understand the process or how to choose a therapist. I was at such a low ebb that I was completely vulnerable. I’ve never been in a situation like that before.
* name changed
