I’ve
been in therapy for about two years now. My therapist is a man. He is well
in his 50’s. I am 26, however and have been sexually and emotionally
attracted to him and think about him alot as well as fantise about him alot.
I have brought it up a few sessions ago. He always hugs me at the end of
our sessions and has done this since I have been seeing him. Now, it has
gone further. . . . He kissed me, touched me all over and
made me want him, but he said he couldn’t because he loves me and cares
about me and doesn’t want me to hate him and that if we were to end
up having sex that I couldn’t ever be his patient again and never see
him again for one year he said. I told him fine, I will go and kissed him
and cried and said goodbye to him and vice versa. We were on the verge on
having sex in his office that day. I wanted too, but then there was a part
of me that just wanted to be touched and held. As a child I was abused by
my father who is no longer alive. I am 26 now. My father died when I was
15. He never showed me any attention before he died and back then I could
never understand why, but now my therapist has made it clear why. My father
felt guilty for abusing me, so that is why he didn’t pay me any attention
as a child. I was also raped and abused by other people. I am always bouncing
from one relationship to the next. . . . I’m just confused
on why this whole therapist thing has gone this far. . . .
I have noticed the last few sessions he didn’t charge
me. . . . I just can’t break away from seeing him and
wanting him. . . . . What do you suggest? Why am I feeling
this way towards a man who is in his 50’s?
Right now, it doesn’t matter why you’re
feeling this way. “Why?” is a question for psychotherapy, and right
now this “therapist” is not conducting psychotherapy. He’s
essentially engaged in prostitution, even if he has temporarily waived his
fee.
You don’t
say where this is all happening, but in California any kind of sexual contact,
asking for sexual contact, or sexual misconduct is not just an ethical violation,
it’s a crime. “Sexual contact” means the touching of an intimate
part (sexual organ, anus, buttocks, groin, or breast) of another person.
Sexual contact, therefore, is not limited to just intercourse, sodomy, or
oral copulation. “Sexual misconduct” includes such things as verbal
suggestions, innuendos, advances, kissing, spanking, and nudity. Because
of the ethical violation here, this so-called “therapist”
could lose his license. Because of the crime he could be arrested,
fined, and sent to prison.
Moreover, in
regard to sexual misconduct in psychotherapy, it doesn’t even matter
if a client “starts” it. A competent psychotherapist must not be
personally influenced by a client’s sexual desires and must work always
to understand and resolve such desires clinically.
In your case,
your attraction to this man, as well as your problems with relationships
in general, most likely derive from your unresolved issues about the abuse
by your father. Not only do you feel tremendous
unconscious anger toward your father, but you
also desire, like a heroine in a melodrama,
to be rescued from your emotional pain by a
“good father.” By “fanning the flames” of your desires
for affection, your so-called therapist is not helping you at all; he’s
only continuing the abuse.
I advise you,
then, to contact his licensing board. Let someone there advise you about
getting away from him and filing a complaint against him. After all, this
is what you couldn’t do with your father, right? Then set about finding
a competent psychotherapist who can actually help you resolve your unconscious
need to be rescued.
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