93. The Sociopath in the Therapy Room

Welcome to very bad therapy, a closer look at what goes wrong in the counseling room and how it could go better as told by the clients who survived. From Los Angeles, I'm Carolyn Weeda. And I've been fine, man, legally encouraged to say that this podcast does not constitute therapeutic advice. But it will get interesting. Let's get started. All right. So Carrie, our last episode, we started by you disclosing that you were hot and sweaty. Yeah. And then I describe being sad and itchy. This is not the kind of episode where we're going to start with light hearted banter. This is the kind of episode. And we've had a handful of these in the time we've been doing the show where the story is so immensely powerful. And perhaps a bit triggering that I think it's best if we just explain what people are going to hear and then just get into it. What do you think? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I absolutely can identify with that. I found myself as you will hear in this conversation, feeling particularly triggered at times, experiencing a lot of anger. And in the back end, after the interview, Ben and I have a conversation where I've talked a little bit more about like what reflecting on that and what was coming up for me. So I'm sure some of you listeners will also have some strong feelings coming up around this episode. Lisa shares her story about essentially being groomed by a therapist by her therapist who shared a very long term relationship with and a lot of boundary pushing and all kinds of awful things. And ultimately leading up to a formal complaint process and disciplinary action on the therapist. So it is, it's a lot and we are very, very grateful for Lisa being willing to share a story with us today. Absolutely. And for anybody listening who hears Lisa mentioned a previous episode where the guest expert we had was talking about the steps of grooming and abuse. In case you are curious what episode that was it was our number 80 82 was our 82nd episode. It's called predatory therapists with Dr. Diane Gayhart. And if you hear this this interview with Lisa and the idea of the steps of grooming or something you're not familiar with or you're curious about more insight into what goes on in the mind of somebody who engages in this kind of behavior. I highly encourage you to check out certainly the backend where we speak with Dr. Diane Gayhart about grooming, but also the whole episode because that was another story that we heard from our guest where gosh, in this episode with Lisa, Lisa used the word sociopath to describe her therapist, which you and I agreed 100% and I think the same was true for the therapist and that other episode number 82 and I don't think there's a ton of therapists out there who fit the criteria. But this is certainly one of those stories and it a time does very hard to listen to but also incredibly compelling and even cinematic as we talked about just because of how dramatic and really just amazing it is to hear Lisa describe her experience. Yeah, absolutely. It's one of those stories that you kind of think like how could this actually possibly happen in therapy, but the reality is it's probably pretty easy for it to happen in therapy given the right circumstances or the most awful circumstances and I think that this pretty much fits that description. So I don't know what do you think Ben should we just get to the story. Yep, let's hear our interview with Lisa. Today we'd like to welcome to the show Lisa Lisa, thanks for joining us. So having me. So I know that your story is a very, very dramatic and long one. I'm wondering before we get into all of the really horrible stuff that happened. I'm wondering if you could maybe start by giving us some context maybe of like why you were seeking out therapy. Like wherever it makes sense to begin. Sure. So we'll start with I had like previous therapy experience of none of it great, but none of it like terrible either really just miss either I wasn't ready for therapy or the person I was working with just wasn't the right fit. So I really kind of had stepped away from therapy for a couple of years. I have a trauma history and that was like what I was going to therapy for, but I just wasn't ready. And then in 2013 I got married and when I got married, it was like all this stuff started creeping back up on me. It was like my trauma kind of started popping back out and I would like find myself in parking lots, crying and just I knew that I wasn't doing great. And then I felt like I was kind of leaning on my friends who were not really capable of supporting me in that way and it just wasn't the right outlet for it. And I had lost friends in the past when my trauma was like active still and had kind of like inappropriately leaned on them, I guess. And I didn't want that to happen again. So I decided to go looking for a therapist and for the first time I was like financially stable enough to look outside of insurance. So I went and I was just looking around at therapist outside of insurance and I was interviewing a bunch of them. So that's how I found this person. And I actually almost didn't meet with them at all because when I first reached out like the fees were just too hot for me. So like our first interaction, I know this now actually it was interesting based on one of your podcasts. I remember hearing one of the experts I cannot remember who it was. I'm sorry talking about like how victims are selected early and I took that and I went back to my therapist and I was like, what is it about me that made me like such a good target. Like how did he identify me so quickly because I couldn't think of anything. So by now now that actually like by our first interaction, he was looking because what happened was I when I reached out. I was just asking for fees. He gave me his initial fees. I responded like, oh, that's a little too high for me. So sorry, thanks for no thanks and was going to move on. Well, he reached back out and was like, well, how about this. I will do your initial consult for free and mind you the initial consult was like 300 plus dollars like this was an extra long session. And I'll give it to you for free. If you tell me what others in the area are charging because I'm new and I this would be like helpful for me to know I'm not sure what others are charging. For me, I was like, that was the kind of industry I was in. So it didn't make a ton of didn't raise any flags for me that he was asking for this information. But my therapist now has has pointed out that like he was basically trying to see if I would do something for him from step one to give him something for his benefit. Not for my benefit. I mean, it was it was weird, right? Because it again, like sliding scale been there, done it. Like I didn't there's no red flags to me on that. It did kind of put me in the position. I was because it wasn't just that he waived that initial fee. It was like I set my own fee was like, how much can you pay. So it put me in the immediate position of feeling indebted to him that he was giving me so much and doing this for me for something that he really could have found out on his own. It is not hard to find out what other therapists are charging. So, and there's just a, I mean, there's so much foreshadowing based on how you're describing it and also, you know, what what carry I know just from our communication and advance of recording this. But I'd love to have you just kind of keep going and let us know how things progressed from that initial session and this feeling of being indebted to him. Sure. So this is going to be tough because before I get into any of this, I want you to understand that there are like two different experiences here. There's the experience I had while I was in it, in which I had no idea that abuse was happening. I was very much in love, I'm going to use those words. I was, I felt in love with him and very attached and I had no idea that what was happening was abuse. I always thought that I would know if I was being abused, I know it is better now. Then there's the experience after finding out the truth about who he is and the things that he's done. And then like retroactively looking back and seeing what was really happening because the entire time I felt like I was crazy. Like I, there was something very wrong with me. I was just absolutely nuts. And that anything that was uncomfortable was my fault. It's very tough to like try to tell the story in like a linear process because I could tell you very different stories every time I sit down and talk about it. So you're getting what today looks like basically. I think that's remarkably insightful to be able to have such an awareness of how maybe your understanding of things has shifted or continues to shift over time. I mean, when you are just describing that initial phone call and like, I'll give it to you for free if you let me know what people are in the area or charging. I'm sitting here thinking like, I don't think that would have set off red flags for me. either. My first thought was like interesting strategy. Okay, different outside the box, like whatever. But I can only imagine like when you look back now, how different all of that lands. Yeah, and there are a lot of things like that. And honestly, I have to hold room, space for both experiences all the time, which is probably the hardest part of this is that I can't just look back and be like this was a horrible, awful, I mean, it is, but at the time, it was also like everything I thought I wanted. It's just very confusing. I've had a lot of good therapy since this ended, so like that's the only reason I'm in the place I'm in right now, but I'll get to that. So in hopes of trying to tell the linear story. Sorry. First red flag, I missed it. And I think if the rest of the story had gone and therapy went happily ever after, that would not be a red flag. So I started working with John in 2014. That's when I sought out therapy. And he very quickly in the beginning told me that things were going to be different with him. So I, in my past experiences with therapy, have encountered a number of therapists who were either, either felt that I was too difficult for them to work with because my issues that were going on were outside of their expertise or had one tell me that I was too self-aware. That was, I've never had that via, but okay. I've, point is I've had a lot of therapists with whom things didn't work, not just because we weren't a good fit, but also like they bailed on me or they felt that they couldn't help me. And John told me right off that he was not intimidated. Like this was not intimidating for him. And he wanted to try something different with me, which is kind of ominous to think of now, but anyway. So I was very much taken in by the fact that he did not seem intimidated. Like that was really helpful for me because I was feeling pretty helpless and hopeless at the time. And I also want to set the picture here too. I was in a larger body at the time and had a lot of body image issues and a lot of like food issues. And John was a only slightly older than me, relatively attractive man. And I entered that office feeling like he was the cool football player and I was the nerd. And why on earth is this person giving me the time of day? So that's kind of how it started. I guess knowing how this story ends, I'm having such like an anger reaction like how dare someone take advantage of someone who's experiencing these these feelings. But I'm so appreciative that you're able to like tell us like what it was like being in like in your side like through your lens, what this experience was like because I imagine that quite a few people do end up going into the therapeutic relationship feeling that way. But I don't think a lot of therapists think about that. That you know a lot of people have clients who come to therapy have struggled. They're there because they don't have someone to talk to or no one has been supportive. And so that's what they're looking for. That's what they're there for. And it's like somehow inherently vulnerable to be the one walking into somebody's office and saying, you know, can you help me? And I think I bet sometimes like a lot of therapists lose sight of that. So I appreciate your kind of perspective like describing how it what how it started for you. Yeah, it was definitely a different experience because like every other therapist I had met with before was typically female and typically I had met with like two other male therapists but we were on very different like very different parts of our life like they were much older. So from day one he told me that he allowed email contacts and phone calls and he just allowed it like open for anyone. So I didn't it wasn't just me it was everyone. He and highly encouraged me to use it. Here's my personal cell phone number. Here's my personal email address reach out as much and as often as you want. And I was like I'd never heard this before but I didn't and I didn't at first. So in the beginning I was seeing him once a week and I did not use anything any email or anything in between. But very quickly I was feeling just intense like just intense feelings about everything about my marriage about therapy about trauma that I had not processed before. It all just kind of started coming out without much control in my part. So I remember like the first time I emailed him I was very I was very like unsure about it but he responded back and it was just like this is accidentally keep doing this. I want more of this and that kind of began the between session contact and at the same time he told me and I had never heard of people going to therapy more than once a week but he told me you know I see other clients multiple times a week too and full disclosure I'm still in therapy twice a week so I don't think this is strange at all. So I started seeing him twice and eventually I started seeing him three times a week with email in between because things escalated pretty fast at this point with the between session contact to the point where we were in contact every single day. So at the same time I was seeing a psychiatrist and I was going through a lot of medication changes trying to find something that would work for me and I had was taking one medication that had really bad side effects and I got what ended up being suicidal and I also had some stuff going on in my life. My grandmother who I was very close to was on home hospice and I was on her home hospice team and losing her of course was going to was inevitable but was a big deal is going to be like one of my first big losses but I told I told John that I was suicidal I was open about it I was texting him in the middle of the night at this point you know that it was email but that I was suicidal like I couldn't go to sleep unless I promised myself that this was the last night and what he decided to do and I consider this the turning point and I really can my addiction to him for lack of a better term was that he was going to require that I text him or email him every single hour that I was awake until he gave me permission to stop so that began and I it's I remember feeling very mixed on this on one hand I began I had never had anyone like be this attentive to me before right I'd never had anyone care like this so that was happening but at the same time I was very aware that this was making me so dependent on him and it was literally like if I didn't message him within the hour he would message me and be like you need to respond otherwise I'm sending the sheriff to your house and I would respond and eventually I emailed him after this I've been going on like a week or so I mean this was it went on for a couple weeks and I said like I don't like this anymore I'm feeling too attached or too dependent this is making me too dependent on you this is not healthy I don't think this is right I want I want to be able to stop and if you think that I still need to be hospitalized put me in the hospital because I don't want to do this anymore and he said we'll talk about it like at your next session which was the next day the next day he gave me permission to stop and then of course there was this huge backlash to it stopping of being like I know this is what I wanted I wanted it to stop but like all of a sudden this person who I've been dependent on every hour of every day for two weeks is gone in a way is not going to be like checking up on me and there was just all of this crazy backlash and that's what I call the turning point that's when I felt like super dependent on him and when emails and text messages became just every day all day really for the next three years from longer I can't remember um yeah so that was the end of 2014 and we had been working together for only a few months at that point so it didn't take long for that to happen I think you're you're articulating something that is I'm reminded of the therapist who rather bizarrely said you were too self-aware because I can't I don't understand what that even means but I think some of that self-awareness is shining through here because you are articulating something that I think some clients of therapy and not just in therapy but some people can experience in relationships where simultaneously you feel a very strong attachment or even feelings of love towards a person but there are also moments where you feel like you don't want anything to do with them or they're unsafe or there's something that you want to stop and in a therapeutic relationship that can happen and the therapist becomes responsible for saying I'm noticing this happening let's talk about it how does this impact you because it's often so difficult when you're in the throes of it as a client to recognize to be able to talk about it to say let's let's let's process this together. And so I'm curious, did you get the sense that John was open to having conversations about this dynamic between the two of you? Or how did he respond to what you experienced as the turning point? So never once did he say that I was overly dependent on him or that there was some sort of attachment issue happening. When I would bring up concerns about whether he was the right therapist for me to work with, whether what we were doing was okay. His response was, yes, everything is fine. Everything is okay. The theme of our relationship at this point was that he was teaching me how to be a human. Like our literal saying between us was that he was teaching me to human and teaching me what the world really was like and that I really couldn't trust my own judgment anymore. I know that sounds awful now. In retrospect, I don't know why that wouldn't have raised flags, but I was very trusting that what the problem was was that the rules that I had learned about life, and I still believe this, the rules that I had learned about how to be safe in life and what life is like and what people are like and what safe people are like are incorrect. And I still believe that to be true. That isn't to say that I can't trust my own intuition, but it is to say that I have trauma and that has impacted the way that I experienced the world. And so there's something to look at there. But what we had turned into was, John's going to tell me what's real. If I have any doubt, he's going to tell me what reality is now. And so yeah, I mean, no, the answer to that is, sure, he would have had a conversation about it, but and I'm sure we did. It's really hard to try to remember three years of therapy and putting that in quotes for a reason. And all of the conversations, I know later on, this is much later on, my family was expressing concerns. And when I went to him with that, he said, well, you don't have to tell your family everything. Like you don't have to talk to them about this. Carries dying. And Carrie, I'm just happening for you here. I'm so angry. I'm so angry right now because I, you know, like, how could you know? How could you know how like absolutely red flaggy that is? How could you possibly know? If your therapist is so taking advantage of the therapeutic relationship to the point where they're telling you, you can't trust yourself to assess reality. You have to trust me. Reality that you don't know how to like be a person. And therefore the only person who can tell you whether you're human in correctly is him. That is an enormous amount of power. And I mean, I think if I were in your shoes, I'm not sure that I would be able to ignore like recognize that as a red flag. Something that I'm curious about, I'm wondering if you, you mentioned that like when you first started working together, he said to you that he was going to do things differently. Do you have a sense that he meant like you or he was going to do things differently with you than your previous therapist had done? Or did he get, did you get the sense that he was declaring I work differently from the typical therapist? And I work with all of my clients in the same way that we're that I'm working with you. So it was I'm going to do things differently with you than I've done in the past. I was an experiment. Literal, his literal words was that I was an experiment. So the experiment was that he was going to give me untethered, unfettered, what's the word unfettered access? Complete access to him. And that yeah, I mean that was obviously different than any of my therapist had done. But it's funny like all of this stuff. It sounds so so crazy all at once, but understand it was very slow. It was also a slow process. And like I haven't even gotten to some of this stuff that you would be like, you know, Lisa, how did you not know? And I say that to myself all the time like, how did I not know? But the truth was that I got to a point where I felt like I couldn't live without him. So even when I did know, I didn't care. I didn't care. And there is there is still a part of me that would go back even now. Is this a good point to ask about some of those things that either at the time or in retrospect really stand out as just completely inappropriate or is there other other details that kind of get to that part of the story? Well, I'll I'm going to try to just continue the story, but it gets we're getting there, right? We're getting to the stuff because it all happens next basically. So when before my grandmother passed away, when all of the intensity was going on, when all of this, you know, whatever this hospitalization hospitalization thing was with him, I developed a restrictive eating disorder. So I told you I used to have like a much larger body. I actually had lost a lot of weight, hopefully, but then I got it into my head for some reason that because I couldn't pay him enough in money because I was paying a reduced fee that I could pay him in pounds. I don't know where my brain was going with this, but it was like as long as I'm losing weight, then I am doing something to pay him for this. And like it makes me closer to being good enough for him. So I lost a lot of weight, like 50 pounds in a couple of months. I just and it was so intense like this and he knew about this to be clear. I was very clear with him about what was going on. And we never talked about it, we just never talked about it. That was probably one of the scariest times because yeah, it was pretty dangerous. I was and I started self-harming, which is something I hadn't done in many, many years before that, you know, since I was like a teenager. And it all just escalated. So as a point as I was deteriorating, like pretty fast, and my family was certainly noticing. And he and I, oh gosh, this was so hard to put into like a linear story. So I'm actually kind of rewinding again because I forgot about this point. But the other thing that was going on is I remember very early on having this intense fear of abandonment happen. And it was only like surrounding him, but he would tell me over and over again that he was never going to leave me and be clearly never the rest of my life therapy would end. He would still be in my life from day one, that was the promise that he was never going to leave. And he would tell me like, I will tell you this over and over and over again as long as you need to hear it until you believe it. And then one day he changed to, and was like, well, actually what I meant was I'm never going to like intentionally abandon you or whatever I can't remember. But he's changed it just a little bit and understand that like I was just a mess at this point. And while I understood that there are some things you could never control, just that slight tweak in this like draining over promise over and over again just sent me spiraling of like suddenly the message that he's never going to leave me changes and think then, you know, the eating disorder started and it was just a big ball of crazy. But from day one, his goal for me was that we would eventually be friends. He wanted a transition into friendship eventually. So that was one goal from day one. Another goal from day one was that one day he would be able to sit next to me with his arm around me and that would be okay for me. Because when we first met like I was super afraid of physical contact. And we worked on this slowly. So this is it began with him sitting next to me on the sofa. I remember that like the first time he did it, I froze. I mean, I just completely froze that he was sitting next to me. And then he turned and I like nearly leapt off the sofa like into duck and cover because I was just like out there terrified of this. So that's how it began like with him sitting on the sofa and he would do it every session until I stopped being afraid of him sitting next to me on the sofa. And then eventually it escalated to us playing like a hand game. If you ever played the like hand slap game with the kid where you put your hands on each other's hands and try to slap the other ones hands. We did that a lot. And then later it would lead like we started hugging at the end of sessions. And then obviously later it got farther where I don't want to like jump ahead of myself. But the obvious thing here would be there was a day where I was having a panic attack in session. And he put his arms around me and was like and I like just instantly quieted. And he was like is this is this what you've always wanted or like is this what you've wanted from the beginning. And I remember being like yes, I mean actually yes this is what I wanted but I had no idea it's what I wanted. And so at that point that became our sessions was like I would go of my session and he would hold me the entire time. That was our session. And then also at one point, I remember I was emailing him and saying like, this is a bad night and I was like, I wish that I could have a hug or whatever. He was like, well, come, I'm off at eight, come by and come get a hug. And I was like, really? And so then that began where I would drive to his office pretty much every single night to hug him when he would get off of work. So that's like the physical stuff, just a lot of holding. And there were other things though. Like we a couple of times during our sessions went out to eat. He also like came over to my house a couple times. A couple of times he came after I had my daughter to like have our session at the house, which I think is fine. But he also would just like surprise me at my house, just like come by and I give me a hug or whatever. And one time, see this, this is hard because it means a lot to me that he did this, but it's weird because he's also, he was supposed to be my therapist. But I foster cats and I was fostering this cat for three years and it was time he was very sick and we had to put him to sleep. And I had never been there when we were putting a pet to sleep before. And John showed up at the veterinarian's office when I was there and like came in and just like gave me a big hug and was just there for me for a few minutes before leaving going to work. And like if I were to tell you this about a friend, right? A friend did that. You would be like, that's an amazing friend. But this is supposed to be my therapist and that's why it's so confusing. That is such an important and insightful distinction that so much of what you're describing is the like the qualities of a great friend, but the therapist simply can't be your friend for so many ethical reasons and legal reasons. And it's the therapist job to hold those boundaries because as a client of therapy, you can develop strong feelings. And it can be something where you actually want that relationship. And for somebody to not only either not be aware that this is what he's doing or be aware and choose to do it anyway is, I think I'm starting to share some of Carrie's anger because it has to be like the first order of business for a therapist is to say, where does the line stop? Like where can I no longer do things in support of a client because then it becomes confusing and potentially harmful. And like you said, it develops a sense of dependency. Yeah, I find myself without any specific questions just a lot of strong feelings about what you experienced and just how unfair it was. That's really confusing. Even now, I wish I could say like this many years out that I understood it, but I still don't. I there was always this like battle between us too, especially at the end. Right before this, I was looking, I still have like the emails because I filed them all with a complaint. And I was looking at some of our last emails and he outright told me like he didn't want me as a client anymore. He wanted me as a friend. That's what he wanted. And I was saying the opposite, I can't be your friend. Like I can't transition to being your friend. And you know too much about me. Like you've seen me in a place that none of my friends see me. And I wanted him as a therapist, but I mean therapist. Let's put that in quotes again as a therapist. There's so much more like how do I, I think to some of the things now that looking back, you know, we were, we were as far as I knew we were like people who had met at the wrong time and the wrong place. So I viewed him as a friend. And then I remember he went through a time where like he was losing his aunt to cancer. And he, when she passed away, he had to go to a funeral for the first time. He had never been to a funeral or so he told me. I actually don't know if that's true, which we'll get to that in a bit too. But so when he, even before she died, like he asked me if I could tell him some about like the dying process because I had been on the home hospice team and stuff. And then I, so I walked him through that. And then when he went to this funeral, like he asked me like email him, just encourage me while he was away. So I kind of became his support for a number of things. Like that's hard because I actually feel a lot of good feelings about that time because I felt like I was being a support to him, someone who I cared about. It's very confusing when you think of the like other therapist you're not supposed to be their support, whatever. But I'm jumping all over the place now. There was the big one was his ex-wife. So he told me everything about his ex-wife, their child together. And like that's a whole other story. But I'm not going to get too into that because I don't want to invade their privacy. But I will say like there was a point where he found out like his ex-wife had a baby registry online with her roommate. And so he asked me if I could help search like because I guess I'm good at internet slew thing. That's a little weird. But ask me if I could help search to figure out if she was pregnant with her roommate's child. So I basically like internet stalked this person for him in our session to try to figure out if she was pregnant for real. Gary's dying again. I'm dying. I can't even. I cannot. So one of the things one of the voices in my head or I may be the way that I'm hearing some of the stories are like. So you know we know that not all male therapists are predators, right? And I'm wondering like you know is a male therapist who's not a predator. Like listening to this and I imagine it could be very helpful and instructive for them to hear oh gosh if I say something like this that might come across in this way or what like it might help people think about the impact therapists think about an unintended impact that they might have on a client. Something that they might think sounds or is like you know maybe not conventional therapy but is still intended to be therapeutic that it might come across or have unintended consequences that are not quite so therapeutic. And then like you tell me something like that which is like I don't think that there is one male therapist in his right mind who isn't just straight up a shithead who would do something like that with a client in therapy. It just blows my mind. That wasn't near the end I will say like you know when things were very deep and I was very much like you know I think he had tested their relationship enough to know or to think that I wouldn't ever tell anyone basically because I know that this is a lot to like to any person who's just hearing it like they'd be like why did you stay but understand there were three sessions a week hours and hours and hours a week of just good stuff too. I mean heck this was like my best friend slash lover it sounds really bad but the truth and like it was very confusing. I had thought what we were doing was attachment work. I discovered early on what attachment theory etc was and when I brought it to him I said is this is this what we're doing is this why it feels so intense he was like yeah that's why I was like oh so it's supposed to feel like this okay so that's why like this is so crazy and and therefore I excused a lot of things that one maybe not so much but like you know whatever we're gonna eat some dinner together we're gonna we did some fun things like paint I painted with him a lot and one time we like twice actually two years in a row with carp pumpkins together for Halloween like we did like friend things right and he had told me early on too he was very clear about this I was going to be sorry he was going to be the one man who did not hurt me and specifically who did not hurt me sexually so like it was very clear like that was his thing like I'm not I'm going to be the one man who doesn't do that it is what it is if you listen to the recordings of his complaints there are multiple now that's a thing for him being the one man he's got very much of the like god complex he also told me well it's I'm just again jumping everywhere so I'm I'm not embarrassed about this I have a background in the like BDSM lifestyle when I was much younger which I told him about and he told me that he was going to be or he was like my dumb but without the sex so but that would mean it'd be like he's like my carry the dying again yes like dominant telling me that you can't say that that's their role and say without the sex is if it's not gonna be a sexualized role because it is a sexualized role like you can't get away from that and like later things got weird uh where like he told me about having a sex dream about me and that it turned him on and everything like that so he crossed that line a little bit in the end he also told me all about like his genital piercings and all of the sex he was having with other women and what he enjoyed and all of that stuff so you know I know a little TMI about this person now I have a I mean so many thoughts I want to make sure we we save time for something that you briefly mentioned about other complaints because I know that's a very important post script to your experience with him. But I'm sure we'll get to that. The thing that I think I wanna shine a spotlight on is, you know, you mentioned BDSM culture and his idea of him being like you're dumb, but without the sex. But I mean, as far as I'm aware, that like the number one rule in BDSM culture is consent. Is that this is done in a way where consent is 100% required at all times. And in something like therapy, there isn't a powered differential that can never be fully eradicated. There is always going to be one person with more power than the other, no matter how hard you work to undermine that and to flatten the hierarchy. And so consent is always something in therapy that hasn't asked her next to it because it's consent in a relationship where one person has more power. And it just seems so incredibly exploitative for him to try and like take something that was personal to you, bring that into your work and then make it like, oh, like this is the thing we're doing when it can't be equivalent because there is always gonna be some kind of a power issue that can't just be, you know, agreed upon to eliminate. I don't know if that makes sense, but I feel very strongly about it, even if it's like an abstract concept that is kicking around in my head. - I mean, it makes sense to me like 100%. It's hard for me now. Like I think I would say like one part is like 100% in agreement with you and other parts like, but I was consenting and will not agree to the fact that you can't really consent as a client, but 'cause it is hard, right? Like I'm not going to sit here and say that I was kicking and screaming the whole way through this 'cause I wasn't. I just didn't know what was happening really. I also would say that Dom without the sect is a very good description of what he was. That's exactly how I would describe him. I mean, I would just throw out there, like I hear what you're saying about consenting and I feel like of course you were, you consented to treatment, right? And I think that that's kind of what's like grinding on me is that everything that he is doing is under the auspices or the veil of something that is therapeutic. This is intended to help you go from wherever you were to where you want to go. And that I think is inherently, like that's super powerful and obviously therapists have an ethical obligation to do that, to stay in that lane, right? Whereas like it seems like it had at least as much to do with what he wanted out of the relationship as it did with your goals for your own life. - Yeah, I met Zira goals. I'm not gonna lie. It was one of the things I think I said in the complaint process was like, I would like to know what progress he thinks that we made was at the part where I descended into an eating disorder, the part where I descended into self-harm, the part where I ended up hospitalized after my daughter was born, like, where's the progress here? But it was, I don't even know. Like I'm still working in therapy now to understand what happened. And that's where I'll pick up with this now as we will get to what happened after. So in 20, so I started seeing him in 2014. And in 2018, now sorry, 2017 is when he told me that he was moving away. So when he told me he was moving away, like, I can't even describe what that was like for me. It was, I thought I was going to die. I am surprised. I think maybe if I'm really honest, had I not been married with a child, I would have tried suicide because I had zero desire to live. Or I would have followed him. That's another option. But yeah, the night he told me, I think we spent like four or five hours together that night and then he came to my house the next day. So yeah, so he told me he was leaving. And at the same time, like about a week later, he told me that he had been diagnosed with cancer. And to this day, I have no idea if that is true. A lot of people have speculated that it's something that he did to try to keep me from complaining too loud. And I really don't know. I would like to think that nobody would do that, but I have since met, for instance, I now know his ex-wife. And she also knows what he asked me to do because I felt very strongly once she and I met that she know what I had done. And when I told her about his cancer diagnosis, she did not believe that it was true and said that he's done things like that in the past. So like lied about stuff like that in the past. So who knows if that's true, but it works, whatever, 'cause I was all of a sudden like, well, forget my problems, like you have cancer. So once he told me he was moving, I couldn't go to just another one therapist. I couldn't put my trust in one person like that again at the time. And so I entered individual therapy but also group trauma counseling. And the group trauma counseling was led by two women. My individual therapist was another male. And it was actually, at this point, I was still in contact with him. We tried to transition into being friends. He terminated with, well, sorry, let me rephrase that. I terminated with him via text message. It was an awful termination. Do not recommend. I think it was text message or it was in his parking lot. I mean, he was telling me he had cancer either way. When I was in, started this trauma counseling and this individual therapy and they started hearing about what had happened. It was the individual therapist and one of the trauma counselors pulled me aside and were like, we aren't sure if we are obligated to report this because it seems like something badly. We might have to report. I freaked out. I was very much so like, this is a person I want in my life or forever. If you report him, I will lose him and I was so panicked. And it's funny. I look back on it now and I know now, Kelly, what they were doing was trying to protect me, trying to help me and protect others, right? But God did not feel like that. It did not feel like that. I was against it, but they ended up not reporting it. So they didn't. And John moved away. I continued with this therapist. I actually ended up transitioning to a new individual therapist who allowed me in between session contact because I needed it. I could not go from constant contact to zero contact. And the therapist I was working with, the new one, had very, very good and solid boundaries. Everything was written up. Everything was signed and agreed upon. It was, he was just stellar boundaries and I needed that. And I was still in the group counseling. So that kind of began the good therapy for me. And for about a year, I stayed in contact with John. He came back into town and saw me twice when he came back into town. And the second time that he came into town and we got together, something seemed really off. He seemed like he was on something. He was making really rude comments about teenage girls and said, what was happening? We walked back to the car and this teen girl called out to him that she liked his shirt. He said to me, that's why I'm in this line of work. That's why I like to work with that population because they want the D. I was like, that is a child and that is terrifying. And at that point, we didn't have therapy to explain anything away anymore. So I was like, hey, if my husband was out here doing this with someone, I would not be okay with it. Be, this is disgusting and not okay. And so I sent him a text message that night that was, I didn't want to anger him. So my last message to him was like, I can't do this to my husband and my family. I love you. I will always love you. But I can't do this anymore. So, and then I blocked him and I moved on. And for about a year, I had like a good year. One of my friends like made me a 30-day sobriety chip of like 30 days without contact. (laughs) It was really funny. I still have it too. But so it was a good year. And then at the end of 2019, I still used to search his name on Google because he told me I had cancer and I wanted to know if he had died. I mean, that's the honest truth. So I searched his name at the end of 2019 and up popped this complaint with the board of psychology in the state where he was. And I, in that state, publishes a lot of information and I was able to pull it up and read about it and eventually even listened to the recordings of it. And I was like, oh my God, he did it again. He did the exact same thing again. And only this time, it was an ex-husband alleging that he had actually like crossed the physical boundaries and was having like a sexual relationship with this client. And at the end of that complaint, all he had gotten probation, right? I mean, it kind of makes sense in that this was an ex-husband coming forward. There wasn't the actual complaint or patient themselves. And so he had gotten your probation. And all I knew was I was just like, I've gotta go forward too. They need to know that this is a pattern. If nothing else, they need to know this is a pattern. So I filed my complaint at the very beginning of 2020 and spent 2020 going through that complaint process. God was that hard. I mean, it was really hard because I hadn't heard his voice in over a year and there he was and I had to do this like with him there and he, while at the first complaint, it's very interesting now. At the first complaint, like the other person, he had come up very like cocky and defensive. Like, this is just somebody, somebody's ex-husband complaining and like I am not, I did not do anything. With mine, he came forth as like in tears, like I just was trying to give this person everything. I had a superhero complex. I, you know, just, he said I won't deny anything. I'm not gonna deny anything she's saying. But how could he? He had lost, lost, quote unquote, all of my notes. He had zero notes for my, for patient notes at all. He, I had like a bajillion emails, I don't even know. I had been able to pull up all these text messages and stuff, including like half-naked pictures he'd send me and everything. So, what was he gonna, what was he gonna argue with, you know? But also, he was very good at knowing me. So he knew, and I will say this, like it would have worked except that I found an organization called Tell, which is Therapy Exploitation Linkline. And I contacted them and they work with people who have gone through Therapy Exploitation and they themselves have also been through the process and done their own complaints against people. And they helped me, like just tremendously. They helped me come up with my statements. They listened to the recordings and were able to tell me like what the truth was behind what his manipulative tactics were because I couldn't hear it. Like the moment he started talking that first time, I broke down. I was, I wanted to say never mind, he did nothing wrong. I'm so sorry I did this. I'm leaving now, but I pretty much had to like climb everything down and just barrel through with my pre-written statements because I could not say much more than that or I would have gone, I would have been on his side like arguing against myself. At the, so, and you know, my experience with the complaint process versus some of the others you had was very different. I felt really good about the people I worked with. Like I felt the board really heard me really soft through John's facade. Really were on my side. I never felt that they were putting me down or judging me in any way. So that was great. And then at the end of our process, which was like four meetings, I mean, it was like eight months long. They voted to revoke his license. And I've learned now that he was gonna fight this. So once they once the board decided to take your license, it goes to like another part of the government. I think it's more like judicial at that point, more legal. And he was going to fight it there. But what happened was at the tail end of this and without any knowledge that I had filed a complaint, the original client whose ex-husband had filed the complaint, filed her own complaint. So she came forward with proof that they had had a sexual relationship and he gave up and gave up his license. And yeah, so that was a lot, right? This sounds like a, they should make a movie out of it. It's very intense. I thought that she knew that she had seen that I had filed a complaint, but I know now she didn't, she had no idea. This was just like, I don't even know, coincidence of the highest degree. So yeah, and after that, what happened was like, like I was telling you earlier, I posted that Reddit post 'cause I couldn't, we couldn't find each other this woman and I, but I posted the Reddit post saying, like this is me and here's his full name and like she apparently also posted on Reddit looking for me. And about six months later, a third victim found both of our posts, put us all together. And then we all got on a Zoom call and we had this like, two or three hour long conversation about our experiences. And then I also like obviously had known out, I had posted like on a local Facebook page about it to like let anyone out to see if there was anyone else in the area who had an issue. And that's how his ex-wife got in touch with me. And so we pulled her into our groups and now there's a group of four of us. I'm gonna, I mean his ex-wife is like the biggest victim of everyone, so like let's not classify these as the same thing, but we have our own little support network, right? We don't, we don't stay in touch too much because I think that would be unhealthy, but it was very validating to hear the other experiences because I know now that he, that the lies he told this other woman are incredible. He made up an entire like family and entire back history. People that don't exist made up stories about being this virgin who had never had sex before except being abused by a sister that doesn't exist. And that's why he needed to have sex with this client and it's insane, it's insane. And so now I have the business of trying to accept who he really is, which is, I would say, a sociopath, but a definite manipulative predator and not the dream come true person. I thought he was and trying to reconcile what my experience looks like now versus like what I thought it was when I was in it. - I'm glad you used the word sociopath because I feel like it gives us permission to use that label as well because I mean, there's no doubt in my mind that he fits that criteria. And your story is so remarkable. And like you said, it could be a movie without a doubt. And on one hand, I am just blown away by the details and everything that happened and how captivating the story is. But on the other hand, I am in no way losing sight of the fact that there is some incredible suffering that you experienced, that these other women experienced. And just how incredibly difficult this whole thing must have been, and I'm sure still is at various times. And I just can't thank you enough for your willingness to share it because it is all just so hard to hear from like an empathic standpoint that to go through this must have just been excruciating for you. And I, yeah, I think where it's found me. - Yeah, I mean, the phrase I would use is fucking monster. The incredible irony that he is gonna teach you how to human, you're right, like it is cinematic. Like this whole thing, I feel like I'm watching a movie. But more than anything, like we do these interviews on Zoom. So I can see Lisa's just telling the story. And it's like I, so feel like I would have done everything exactly the same. If I were, I think I can tell like the, how conflicting and how confusing this is for you. Because of how meaningful this relationship was and how deep his care felt and to have, like I mean, I feel like we all desperately go through life, like looking for those people that will feel that way about us. And for him, for a human like that to be this, devious is like not even like, like I need a word orders of magnitude beyond that. And I can't think of it. But like I am just so incredibly horrified. And so I feel, I so feel for you in the experience you've had with us. I cannot imagine what it must be like. - Unfortunately, he's actually still practicing without a license out of his home. One of the reasons I kept this post on Reddit up, right? Was there people to be able to find me? Well, low and behold, someone who is still working with him decided to do a search because she felt that his reasoning for moving to working in his home was weird and she was just like, this is a little weird. So she Googled his name, found my post, reached out to me. It was like, hey, like is any, like what happened? What is this? And I, you know, I was very reserved because I will say this, like I'm scared of people who first reach out because you don't know. Like this is someone who had me try to stalk his ex-wife. So, but I actually do believe that this person was completely true. She shared text messages between the two of them with me to show that what he ended up doing was telling his current clients that he was going to go and work for the university or he was trying to work for the university. So he was not going to renew his license. And so, but he could still see them. Just it was going to be more of a like life coach or counseling situation. But because he wasn't going to be licensed, he had to like legally tell them he wasn't licensed anymore. So he has moved his practice to being in his house and I guess it's hiding under the guise of life coach, which is actually extremely common. The folks at tell who I am still in contact with warned me that he would do this, that this was what was going to happen. Absolutely wonderful group of people, by the way. Like anyone out there who is in the same position, tell is the best organization I've ever found to walk me through what a person like this will do and how they'll think because I just, it's beyond, beyond what I can imagine. I have no words. I don't-- I am filled with rage. and I want to do some internet stalking of my own. - Lisa, I'm having the thought, you know, but before we hit the record button, you know, we were going over our usual stuff and like the pre-recording stuff that we tell everybody and we said, you know, in case this is really difficult, you know, you can take time, you can pause, you can tell us you need a moment. And you were saying, this, you know, I've done enough work around this, this isn't gonna be like a therapy session for me. And it's funny that, you know, an hour later, I feel like Carrie and I are more in our feels about this because it's just so horrific. And I guess I just want to reiterate how grateful I am and we are to you for sharing this with us. Because I think there's a lot of people out there both clients of therapy and therapists alike who would think something like this couldn't happen that anybody who gets into the field to be a therapist would never go this far. And you are living proof that not only has this happened but that you are not alone, not just with this specific therapist, but there's a whole organization tell that you mentioned and we'll put a link in the show notes about it, that this happens. And it's just so sorry that it happened to you and that you've had to be kind of on the receiving end of this kind of treatment. - Thanks, yeah, I mean, I'll end with like the last thing, the things that tell has told me that have been the most beneficial because I found your podcast because I was going through the complaint process, right? So if there's anyone out out there like me, there's two things. One is that victims of therapy of use are not like weak people. We tend to be very intelligent apparently and like very self-aware, et cetera. And like falling for this is not a sign of any sort of weakness that inevitably the people who have been exploited are actually very intelligent people. I will end this with, yeah, I'm sorry it happened to me too, but I'm also glad that he fucked up. He picked someone he thought was never going to tell and he picked their own person. - Awesome. - Actually, people, because the woman who came behind me, she also spoke up, right? So he picked the wrong people. - I got, there's no, I can say nothing after that. Thank you, Lisa, from the bottom of my heart for sharing your story. And I sincerely hope that anyone listening who feels like maybe they're going through something similar, I am sure that they have gotten something incredibly valuable out of what you've shared today. So thank you. If anyone listening would like to share their gratitude for you sharing your story, is there a charity that you would like to donate, suggest they donate to? - Well, it's gonna say tell, but I don't think that they actually accept donations. So we'll go with, I've mentioned that I foster cats, I still do that. So your local rescue is as good as any. - Wonderful. We'll put some links in the show notes. And Lisa, thank you again for taking the time to talk with us today. - Thank you. (upbeat music) - Well, Carrie, of course we start the back end of episodes where we don't have a guest expert, which is the case here, 'cause I think you and I both agree that Lisa's story just it stands on a tone. There's not really much else. We could possibly say or add about what she described. So this is where we do our empathy checks. And I don't think there's too many interviews that we've had where it's harder to find empathy for the therapist, but let's talk about it. Do you feel like we responded too strongly? Do you feel like there is empathy for what this therapist did and how he acted, not just to Lisa, but to the other clients? Really everything we heard. - I have a lot of strong feelings about this one. Obviously, as you could hear in the conversation, it had a lot of strong feelings during the conversation. I've had some time to think about why I had the strong feelings. So I do wanna get into that, but I would rather just start with you. I'm curious before I start ranting about empathy for this particular therapist, how are you feeling? - I'll tell you my thought process. As I was re-listening to Lisa's interview to prepare for us, recording the front and back end as we always do. And this may be a strange train of thought, but I was thinking about how I used to be in favor of the death penalty. I forget when that changed, probably maybe 10 years ago or so. I started to feel differently and now I'm against the death penalty. Because two reasons, one is people have the capacity to change. And two, I think we all have a lot less free will than we think we do. A lot of our decisions are who we are, the opportunities we have had or haven't had, or the offenses that we commit. I think you can often trace a line back and identify something that says, wow, how did somebody get to the point where they did X, Y, and Z and ended up on death row? And I think you can find empathy there. It's perhaps very, very difficult. And my past self did not have that empathy. And I'm not saying it's the right stance to take. It's just where I stand personally right now. And you hear a story about somebody like this therapist and you think, holy shit, what a monster. But also, what on earth has happened along the way that makes somebody think that this is an okay thing to do to another person or other people. And I don't know what that answer is. I don't want to assume that there's something you can just say and be like, we don't have to blame him for his actions. Like, that's into a whole philosophical discussion about, you know, what is the point of the criminal justice system and we just go completely off the rails. But that is where I find empathy is in that like far off corner of the part of my brain that has empathy for people who have done horrible acts. There's still a part of me that says, wow, I wonder what has gone into deciding that this is an okay thing to do to another human being. And I don't know. Yeah, no, I think that that's a really, I feel you. I really, that really resonates with me. And I absolutely think you're right. And it's a very familiar thought process to me. And I will tell you why, because this is my own empathy check. And it's funny, as I'm trying to figure out like, how to explain myself right now, I'm reminded of Halisa, throughout the interview said, like, it's so hard to tell this linearly. Oh my God, did that resonate with me. And that's kind of how I feel right now. So I obviously had really strong reactions throughout that. And what you're saying here about like holding some space for how does somebody get to there, right? Is a path that I've been down, not with a therapist, but in a romantic relationship. And I realized that a lot of my strong reactions to Lisa's story were very much empathizing from my own. Like experience in terms of this romantic relationship. And it's so funny, because this relationship was a long time ago. I've had two toxic romantic relationships in my life. The last one was like with a pure sociopath, like absolutely, like just a human with no empathy. Like he's just a bad person. But this one was much longer, a long time ago, I think I was maybe 25. And the same thing, like this is exactly the meaning I made of it was I wonder what happened to him in his life that made him that do be like this. And the conclusion I came out of that relationship with was, like if you're gonna be fucked up, if you're gonna have like an inability to connect with their humans, fine. And you don't wanna address it in therapy or anywhere else, fine. Do you like have a great life? Just don't drag other people down with you. And because that's what I felt like I got caught up in. But coming out of that is where I felt like, you know, there's a responsibility there just as a human. And then hearing Lisa's story, like it made me realize if there's any experience worse, like in terms of like this, this particular, I don't know, character dynamic. If there's anything worse than what I felt, it's what Lisa felt because that was a therapist. Like at least I could look back and be like, I was getting myself into a romantic relationship. I shouldn't have been in. But Lisa, like truly was put in a situation where she walked in good faith into a office of somebody who as a professional was offering help. And again, your point is we'll take a holding empathy for what's going on in his life that, you know, this is how he decides to conduct himself. Clearly this human, you know, has probably, probably has a really hard time connecting with other people and having relationships with other people. And so of course he's going to get, he's going to look for relationships that are intense and focused on him in a way that feels really good without any of the responsibility of a real relationship because she had, you know, Lisa had her own family. She had a husband and a daughter. And so she was very safe. He had no responsibility to her. He could get all the benefit of this like, you know, love essentially. that probably sucks for him. Like that's probably really hard for him. And so I hold like, I would say it's probably like two ounces. - You know, ounce and a half, oh shot. A shot of empathy for that human. But I also, like I just, in listening back to that episode, I was just like overwhelmed with anger and was surprised, you know, I know what I'm thinking when I'm hearing myself talking in that interview, in so many times, I was just holding myself back from being like, Lisa, this is not your fault. I wanted to be on the Zoom calls with their support group. Like I wanted to join in on that. I actually think a lot of people, and I don't know. Well, I'm curious to see maybe what you think about this, or maybe I'm going off the rails, but I think this is something that a lot of women get stuck in because I think we are, to some extent, socialized to seek out love. And then also to not expect too much in return. And I feel like what a perfect storm released it to walk into in terms of that, like cis hat dynamic, romantic dynamic, and then also therapist client dynamic. Like that Venn diagram, right? Where literally, how could she possibly, how could that have gone any other way? - First, I just want to thank you for sharing that, and sharing that bit about yourself. I actually didn't know that about your two past relationships. And my thoughts on what you said are similar to one of the things I just wanted to make sure we found time for in the back end of this episode, just to reinforce something that Lisa had said. She was talking about how people who end up in these scenarios are often very intelligent. It reminded me of the first time I worked with a client who was describing how she had been in an emotionally abusive relationship in the past. And I remember her just saying, like when I realized what was happening, I couldn't imagine that I would ever be the kind of person who would get in this scenario. And something that motivated her to heal was to try and give back to other women who had been in that scenario in relationships. And she was incredibly intelligent. And I fully support, not support, I agree with what Lisa's saying. And to reinforce what she's saying, like as a therapist, you see this in clients of therapy who have experienced abusive relationships, it is not that they are weak. It is not that they are ignorant. It's that abusive relationships become abusive because of behavior like what this therapist did. And I mean, I guess it just feels important to reinforce that because I think a lot of people don't necessarily intuitively know that, especially if you've been in that scenario. And you feel like you're all alone and you must have done something wrong. And I think that's one of the reasons why I appreciate you disclosing that about yourself because I know you, I think very highly of you, I think you're very intelligent. And it makes sense that it isn't about you in a sense. It's about the abusive grooming behavior, the kind of stuff that we talked about in the intro when we said people can check out our episode number 82 with Diane Gayhart that some people just take advantage of other people. And when those people are therapists, really bad things can happen. So I guess I also just wanted to find space to thank Lisa again in case she listens to this, or even if she doesn't. I know we said thank you a million times in the episode but just how powerful that story was. So if you do hear this Lisa, thank you so much again for sharing your story with us. - Yeah, like I said in the conversation, I feel like Lisa sharing her story was a huge gift because I do. I think that a lot of, I think it's easy to go through an experience like that and come out the other side and be ashamed. She specifically said that she didn't feel shame about it and I'm so glad that she doesn't. But I think it's easy to come out of that and feel like you misread something, you did something wrong. You were the one who had poor boundaries or you had who knows, like whatever, not for nothing after that relationship was what got me into therapy the first time, which is when I ended up with my therapist who fell asleep on me. But for a while, that story was dramatic enough that he stayed awake, so that was good. But I do, I think it's so important. I feel like I hope that anybody in a situation like that really understands it's a two way street. Like therapists are and often can be fallible. And if something feels not right, if something feels too much if something feels like this isn't what you were looking for out of therapy, it's probably not right for you. It's probably not a good fit. That doesn't say anything about you as a client or as a person. And I really think Lisa sharing her experience, both how it ended up, but really how it felt like to be in it was really helpful and hopefully, you know, can save somebody else some of that pain. So thank you, Lisa. - Well, should we finish this one up with a bit of sort of listener mail? - Oh, absolutely. - 'Cause you know what this is gonna be. So it's definitely a change of tone from this episode, which maybe it's nice to end with something that's a little bit. A little bit. - Lighthearted, like a little bit more positive. - Yeah. So this is not via listener mail, but a review on our Apple podcast page. And this is as good a time as any to, you know, throw out a quick support pitch. If you have not yet left us a rating and review, we sincerely appreciate it. It helps us out. It helps us get more exposure. And we've had a lot of new listeners lately, which is really cool to see our download numbers go up. And we'd love to hear your thoughts. So if you wanna leave us a rating interview, please do. And Karen, those have been a few episodes late. We're a reference to the fact that sometimes when we record, I get cold or that when I'm with clients, I often wear long sleeves because having a slight bit of anxiety, which is always the case when I'm doing therapy, it's like a baseline lingering anxiety makes me feel cold. And so I'll wear warm clothes. So we have a incredibly validating review that made me smile so much, instantly take a screenshot and send it to you, Carrie. This is from Amanda C.V. The title of the review is, "I get cold too when I'm nervous and it's five stars." Much appreciated. The review is, Ben, I just wanted to say that I also wear sweaters and 90 degree weather with clients because I get cold when I'm nervous. I also have a heating pad on my lap during Zoom sessions. I thought I was the only one that got cold like that. And Amanda, I felt the same way. So we can thank each other for the validation. I cannot tell you how much I smiled when I read that review. - That makes me so happy. I mean, like seriously, I want to get you a warming blanket, like an electric blanket now or something. But I love that. Thank you so much for leaving that review and for validating, Ben. - If there's anybody else who also gets slightly cold when they're a bit anxious, include that in the review, send us an email, we can start a club. Hey, maybe that can be one of those Zoom meetings of like people who. - Support group as support Zoom. - Absolutely. - I think that's a great idea. (upbeat music) - Thank you for listening to Very Bad Therapy. The views and opinions expressed do not constitute therapeutic or legal advice nor did they represent any entity other than ourselves or our guests. - Visit us at verybadtherapy.com for more content, ways to support the podcast, or to let us know if you have a story you'd like to share on the show. If you'd like to join our Patreon community and get access to our monthly bonus episodes, check us out at patreon.com/VeryBadtherapy.