This to me is the heart of what is so egregious about these cases-really this is why they should carry infinitely stiffer penalties. How the hell is someone supposed to trust a mental health practitioner after having been raped by one as a child? What is the magic bullet here??? How terrified do you have to be to even try, and it is quite likely that somekind of therapy is needed to deal with what happened....Good God.
According to an article in the publication "Annals" from the American Psychotherapy Association, “The AMA reports that in the psychiatric specialty between five and ten percent of psychiatrists have had sexual contact with
at least one patient,
based on self-reporting studies.” (The article discusses the ayres case extensively, by the way.)
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb013/is_1_11/ai_n29425800/?tag=content;col1
This means that if you see a shrink, the likelyhood that they're diddling at least one of their patients is probably better than the likelyhood that you've already decided to have pizza for dinner tonight. And that's based on numbers that were VOLUNTARILY reported to the AMA by the perpetrators (Oops, I mean therapists) themselves.
I'm no foreigner to the concepts/validity of psychology. I very nearly finished a BS in Psychology, and have taken many classes on diagnostics, clinical studies, and neural processes.
The profession is not mature enough to have so many "professionals" running around treating people. The potential for abuse is EXTREME. Understand: I'm not talking about just extremes of sexual abuse... These are PEOPLE and yet they MUST remain entirely neutral/detached emotionally in order to SAFELY treat patients. This is nearly impossible.
Consider: If a therapist becomes compassionate or friendly (not sexually involved) with a patient, and it prevents them from treating in the most appropriate manner, perhaps to soften a blow, or to let an occasional issue slide... they have caused harm. The extent of the harm that they can cause increases exponentially every time they re-enforce. I haven't even started talking about what happens when they deliberately take advantage.
ALL therapists should be monitored 100% of the time, and should have to pass rigorous personality inventory testing in order to receive and maintain a license to practice.
Even then I wouldn't recommend going to one.