I am a patient with Borderline Personality Disorder, and I sometimes frequent a BPD message board site. Anyway, there is a woman with BPD who posted on the site about a problem she is having with her male therapist. The therapist is a marriage counselor and a pastor. He had been seeing the woman separately and seeing her and her husband together also. She felt safe with this therapist and that he genuinely had her best interests at heart. About 2 weeks ago, she and her therapist were emailing each other, and they began discussing sexual issues in her marriage. At some point, the therapist told her that he was becoming aroused. Then they engaged in some sexual talk back and forth, with the therapist saying that "I could easily go down that road with you." In the past, the therapist had also made some statements like, "I feel like spanking you, but you'd probably like it." He had asked her on a couple of occasions not to wear such a low-cut blouse. He also regularly gave her hugs at the end of her sessions. Now that the therapist has told her that he is aroused by her, she is having very strong sexual feelings for him too. She is very attached to him and she is very unhappy with her husband at home. She posted to the BPD board, asking what she should do. Most replied that she should drop this therapist immediately. But her attachment is keeping her hanging on. She has canceled her next two appointments, but cannot make a decision whether or not to stop seeing him. I am worried, both about her and about this therapist's practices. A couple of people on the board told her she really should turn him in for his boundary violation. But I seriously doubt she will do this. She has not told her husband, as he has an anger problem and because she feels guilty for her part in the sexual banter emails. The therapist has told her "We just got carried away, and we need to get back to the issues at hand." He is basically sweeping it under the rug. When she told him she feels uncomfortable about how things went, he tells her "Well, therapy is hard." I realize that there is nothing I personally can do about this, other than encourage her to quit seeing him. But I want this board to know that this kind of thing DOES go on. Two other posters to the board said that a similar thing had happened to them (but in their case, physical things went on). I don't know why I am feeling responsible to fix this. But maybe if someone here could reply as to what she should do, I could direct her to this board and she can see that, from a professional point of view, it is dangerous to continue seeing this therapist.
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