INTRODUCTION
The Defenseless Are Targeted
There could be few more bitter experiences than the desperate victim who accepts
help and is then betrayed by the �benefactor.�
Imagine a 7-year-old girl who has been referred to a psychiatrist or psychologist
for help with emotional problems related to incest. Suppose that the specialist
then also sexually abuses the girl during �therapy.� What must be the emotional
upheaval suffered by this tragic victim?
Such despicable treachery in the wake of an already serious personal crisis
could only burden the victim with further emotional scars and instability.
It is also a damning criticism of those �professionals� entrusted with the
task of helping people who are extremely fragile emotionally.
On October 31, 2002, French psychotherapist Jean-Pierre Tremel was sentenced
to 10 years in prison for raping and sexually abusing two young patients that
the court recognized as being extremely vulnerable. Tremel, age 52, claimed
his �treatment� was based on an �Oriental tradition� wherein �old men introduce
girls to sexual practices.�
Such �treatment� is never help. It is a disgusting betrayal in the guise of
help, an all-too-frequent occurrence in the mental health industry:
A woman is statistically at greater risk of being raped while on a psychiatrist�s
couch than while jogging alone at night through a city park.
In a British study of therapist�patient sexual contact among psychologists,
25% reported having treated a patient who had been sexually involved
with another therapist.
A 2001 study reported that one out of 20 clients who had been sexually abused
by their therapist was a minor, the average age being seven for girls and 12
for boys. The youngest child was three.
While compassion, common sense and decency declare that sexual abuse of patients
is a serious and criminal act, psychiatrists and psychologists work hard to
sanitize it� even when the victims of the exploitation are children. Combining
the invented diagnoses in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM-IV) with subtle but perverse arguments, or even outright
lies, they labor to decriminalize the sexual abuse of women and child patients.
Meanwhile, mental health licensing bodies rarely mete out more than the wrist-slap�temporary
license revocation�a charge of �professional misconduct� and temporarily suspend
a practitioner�s license to practice.
In 2003, the Colorado State Board of Psychologist Examiners revoked the license
of Dr. John Dicke, whose treatment of a 5-year-old boy included using sex toys.
According to the boy�s father, his son had been �stripped naked, tortured, restrained,
verbally abused, sexually abused, brainwashed and horrified by a dildo� during
the alleged therapy.
In 1989, Dr. Paul A. Walters, psychiatrist in charge of student health at Stanford
University, California and former head of Harvard University�s Health Services�
Mental Health Division, was forced to resign after allegations of his having
�frequent sex� with a female patient. The woman, who had been the victim of
sexual abuse as a child, was awarded more than $200,000 in an out-of-court settlement.
She said Walters had used her to perform oral sex on him, �sometimes as often
as two out of three psychiatric analysis sessions per week.�
Some psychiatrists, however, are criminally charged and convicted.
An Orange County, California psychiatrist, James Harrington White, was convicted
of the forced sodomy of a male patient. After an investigation by Citizens Commission
on Human Rights (CCHR), White was found to have drugged young men, then videotaped
himself having sex with them. White was sentenced to prison for almost seven
years.
No medical doctor, social organization or family member should hand over any
person to face the mental health �treatments� that pass as therapy today.
This publication is one of a series of reports produced by CCHR that deal with
mental health betrayal. It is issued as a public service and warning.
Therapist sexual abuse is sexual abuse. Therapist rape is rape. They will never
constitute therapy. Until this is widely recognized however, and prosecutors
and judges treat every incidence of this as such, psychiatrists, psychologists
and psychotherapists will remain a threat to any woman or child undergoing mental
health therapy.
Sincerely,
Jan Eastgate, President,
Citizens Commission on Human Rights International
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