In yet another example of therapist abuse in Maryland

Another example of how Maryland has failed us.  This is an outrage and I can't believe they allow it to happen and not put in laws to help the victims of this kind of abuse.  What is it going to take for Maryland and the boards to make a law to help all victims out.  Come on Maryland get your act together.  

This in an article by Mike Ricksecker and I couldn't say it better if I tried.  

"In yet another example of therapist abuse in Maryland, Clarence W. Green, Jr., 57, of Salisbury was charged last week after a client reported repeated sexual harassment, escalating sexual advances, and exposure by Green. The exploitation and abuse of therapy patients continues to be revealed as a rampant epidemic throughout the state.

Legislation to criminalize therapist abuse in the State of Maryland, known as Lynette's Law, made it through the House of Delegates this past session in a unanimous vote, but was drawer vetoed in the Senate by Judicial Proceedings chairman Senator Brian Frosh (D-Montgomery). Disallowing this legislation from being voted on in the Senate was a complete failure to send a message to therapists across the state that the exploitation and abuse of patients needs to stop.

Green's charges depict an escalation of behavior of sexual harassment and exploitation that began with hugs that were tighter and longer than normal and grew out of control. He allegedly began asking his patient to imagine herself in the shower with another patient, started slapping and grabbing her buttocks while leaving appointments, and called her from his cellphone to invite her to a hotel room. Green's actions culminated in asking his client to bare her breasts. When she wouldn't comply he “declared that he was not shy” and dropped his pants.

While Green's escalation seems blatant and obvious, in most therapist abuse cases victims don't recognize the signs of manipulation and exploitation in the therapeutic relationship and either don't understand what just happened to them or are too afraid to come forward. The deep level of trust developed within the therapeutic relationship nurtures an environment in which patients commonly feel admiration or attraction to their therapists. Therapists are well aware that this happens, are well-schooled in their ethics about taking advantage of patients, but many do and use a technique known as “grooming” that is designed to make the victim believe that a relationship that develops with the therapist beyond therapeutic is normal and consensual.

Grooming may start with the therapist suggesting that he or she sit on the couch with the patient in order to ease boundary tensions, creeping closer with each visit and then introducing other “methods” such as touch and beyond. The article “Don't Call It Consent: Being Groomed For Sex” onsurvivingtherapistabuse.com describes one case of escalated grooming starting with the therapist becoming a friend with weekly hugs to a kiss on the cheek and back rubs to holding during sessions to fondling all for “therapeutic reasons.” The patient continued to open herself up to her therapist in their sessions, fully trusting this manipulator, but the conversations grew more sexualized in nature. Finally, with the patient thinking she was in love, sex became part of therapy.

However, sex in a therapeutic relationship is never consensual. According to the Sate of California publication Professional Therapy Never Includes Sex, “a therapist who accepts or encourages these normal feelings in a sexual way — or tells a patient that sexual involvement is part of therapy — is using the trusting therapy relationship to take advantage of the patient.” Therapist abuse is a felony in California. Standard 10.05 of the American Psychological Association's Code of Conduct specifically states that there shall be no sexual intimacies with therapy clients. The State of New York just recently closed a loophole within its therapist abuse criminal code and defined it as statutory rape.

Maryland could have adopted similar laws this past session and become the 27th state to do so, but failed in the Senate. The Lynette's Law movement is working hard to make sure that doesn't happen again next session and vows to bring the proposed legislation back to protect Maryland's therapy patients."

http://www.examiner.com/article/green-s-failed-grooming-underscores-maryland-s-growing-therapist-abuse-epidemic