Master the Upper Rooms

Empower Your Therapeutic Journey: Recognize and Prevent Therapy Abuse

• Kerie Logan • Season 1 • Episode 40

Share episode

Unlock the secrets to a safe and empowering therapeutic journey with insights from Bernadine Fox, an award-winning mental health advocate with over 30 years of experience. We promise you'll learn not just how to find the right therapist, but also how to spot and avoid the red flags of therapy abuse. Navigate the complexities of therapist-client relationships with clarity and confidence, as we explore crucial strategies for verifying therapist credentials, setting clear goals and boundaries, and protecting yourself from exploitation.

Peel back the layers on the hidden dynamics of therapy abuse and exploitation, as Bernadine and I explore the chilling reality of how some therapists manipulate their clients through unethical power dynamics. Through a compelling discussion of the grooming, exploitation, and termination phases, we expose the tactics of love bombing, financial manipulation, and emotional control. We shine a light on the parallels between therapy abuse and other forms of exploitation, advocating for a trauma-informed approach to empower survivors and prevent further harm.

In our quest to guide you towards a healthy therapeutic experience, we delve into the profound challenges faced by survivors of therapy abuse, such as regaining trust and navigating new therapeutic relationships. We discuss the importance of structured therapy, regular assessments, and accountability, all while emphasizing the significance of supportive networks for those who have endured misconduct. Armed with resources and actionable advice, you'll be prepared to make informed decisions and advocate for a therapeutic environment that prioritizes your well-being and healing.

Speaker 1:

Hello everyone. This is your host, Keri Logan, at Master the Upper Rooms, and I have a special guest today, and the guest that I have today is someone that I probably never thought I would meet or learn about or talk to, but she's here today to share some really important information, or at least I feel, and I hope you would feel as well, is very important. So her name is Bernadine Fox, and she is an award-winning mental health advocate with over 30 years of experience, and has become a voice for those who are unable to speak about the traumas they have suffered in their therapeutic relationships. Fox is an author of Coming to Voice, surviving an Abusive Therapist and Volunteers. She has an organization that supports victims of therapy abuse worldwide and she is also the producer, slash host, of Re-Threading Madness.

Speaker 1:

It's one of Canadians only on radio program about mental health, which you know supports the global audience. And today we are going to learn about the red flags. We're going to learn what questions to ask, what to look for and also how to find the best fit. If you are seeking therapy because if all of you have listened to me, I always talk about talk go to a therapist, go to a therapist, go to a coach. She'll even share information about coaches, which I was like, oh no. So there's so much wonderful stuff she's going to share today and I'm excited to have her with me, so thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much for having me. I, I um, it's an important topic and I appreciate you putting time in your schedule for us to talk about this. I just want to clarify one thing, and that is that tell the therapy exploitation link line that does support survivors of therapy abuse and exploitation is not my organization. There is a whole group of us who volunteer to provide support and resources and networking abilities to people who've gone through this so that they are not struggling alone.

Speaker 1:

So, and it's all free, so no, thank you for sharing that that it's all free Cause a lot of people. Sometimes they're like I can't afford, you know, to do this. Who do I talk to?

Speaker 2:

Exactly, exactly. So one of the things I wanted to start out talking about is how to find a therapist, because we're kind of given these vague sort of you have to go to therapy if you have a problem and just go there and trust your therapist and tell them whatever your issue is and and they will help you that and you need to find the right fit and you need to find somebody with appropriate boundaries. The problem is that, as clients of mental health services, we are not given the parameters of what that even looks like. We were not told what ethical boundaries are, and so we're really at the mercy of our therapist to tell us and inform us what those are and what's a good boundary and where not to transgress and where not to go in that therapy because it will ruin your therapeutic relationship. So good therapists which there's many of them out there will hold those boundaries. They will maintain it because they know that that is your healing envelope, so to speak, that you need that structure to be able to heal within, and they hold it and they maintain it and they're rigorous in maintaining it. A bad therapist will use the fact that clients don't know and will come up with their own boundaries and their own ideas about what is okay and what's not okay, and teaching the client that it is okay to do whatever because in some ways it benefits them. And what we're finding with therapy abuse and exploitation is the exploitation always benefits the therapist.

Speaker 2:

So, just to go back in terms of how to find a therapist, one of the things to do is to kind of figure out what it is you want out of therapy and and you don't necessarily, if you can't figure it out, that's okay too. That's that that may be the thing you start working with in the therapist, in with therapists, in terms of what you want to do. So, in terms of finding a therapist, one of the things several things that you want to know is you want to know where the professional went to school. You want to know what degree and certificate they have. You want to know where they're registered Are they a part of a college or an association or a licensing board? And you want to know how long they're working They've been working in that, working in that and maybe even some information about their therapy modality, because there are very many different kinds of ways that therapists work and provide therapy to their clients. Once you have all that information. You can, and it's a good thing to do it right at the start because it will avoid all kinds of issues. If you're working with somebody who, say, is a social worker who lives in, works in California, they are licensed by the Board of Behavioral Science and you can go to their website, you can plug in their name and you can check has this person ever been disciplined for anything? Do they still hold a license? Are they still okay to work? And that just is just a check. It's sort of like checking out your mechanic with anybody else you know that has taken their car there. You just sort of a way of check and whether or not that person is an ethical therapist.

Speaker 2:

When you're ready to take the next step, you can talk to the therapist about your goals, and these are good things to do because it gives you a measurement and a sort of a way of seeing where your therapy is going. It's really hard for clients when you go to a therapist and you just go in and you talk and it's never set up what your goal is, how much time you're going to be there, what you know how and how you're going to get there. So that gives you an idea of what your therapy is going to look like and it gives you some control over where you're going and how you're how you're doing that. So you also want to ask them about their boundaries and this will give you an idea of you know where. You know. Do they accept calls late at night? Do they? Will they answer an email? All of those things are important for you to know so that you can adhere to what their boundaries are and it's not a surprise later on. Or you can talk about I have a problem with that boundary. It's because of this and the therapist can talk about it and you guys can figure out and know why that boundary is there and what it's important for.

Speaker 2:

Lots of people want to give gifts to their therapist and of course that's one of those gray areas. You know. Some people say it can't be over a certain monetary value, but and it does seem benign you know why can't I give a gift to my therapist? Talking to your therapist will help you know why that is an important thing to do. The other thing you can do, once you know where they're licensed, is you can actually go online and pull their ethical guidelines that they've agreed to and adhered to, so you know. So part of what we're finding, like I said before, is clients enter therapy and they don't know what the ethical guidelines are, and so if you have a copy of them, you're going to know and you're going to know when your therapist transgresses that boundary.

Speaker 2:

The reason that's important and why we suggest people do this is because once the grooming and exploitation start, it's really hard to kind of navigate your way out of that. But if you're already getting an idea that this person has transgressed this guideline or that one, then you've got a heads up that something's wrong in your therapy and you can talk about it, talking with the therapist that says you know, I know that this is an ethical guideline you have to follow, but you're not following it. So why is that? Those kinds of conversations can actually alert an abusive therapist who is intent on exploiting their clients that they don't want to exploit you, because you know, you know what's going on, so it may in fact save you down the line. So we want to talk about and again I'm going to say again, it's really important for us to say that there are a lot of good therapists out there.

Speaker 2:

In the work that I do, I can fall into feeling like they are all bad, because I see it over and over and over and I hear it over and over and the ways that abusive therapists abuse their clients and exploit them is so predictable. It's like there's a playbook out there and so that can make you feel like you know there are way too many out there, that all of them are bad. But it's truly not true. There are lots of good therapists. So let's start by looking at what is therapy, abuse and exploitation and please, you know, interrupt me if you feel I haven't answered or something confusing.

Speaker 1:

I did want to throw one thing out there for people, because I'm a therapist as well a clinical certified hypnotherapist and when I renew every year my certification well, they stopped after 20 years they're like no, you're in here Every time. I would renew. They would give me the code of conduct literally printed out, and when you see a therapist, you can ask for that. I'd like a copy of your code of conduct. I even made a YouTube video when I started getting more popular and I read out here's my code of conduct. I even put on my website the code of conduct for people to see, because I was being asked to do things that I felt was immoral and unethical. It's like no, I'm not going to do this. So they are literally given a document that they should have on display or on hand, or even framed up on their wall. This is the code of conduct of what they should and what they can do. So I do fully agree with that.

Speaker 1:

The hard part, too, is I loved when you were talking about boundaries. Boundaries are for our safety and our security, and when people grow up in a toxic home environment, there are no boundaries. So for them I would really say learn about boundaries, educate yourself about boundaries, learn to start to set your own boundaries, because when you, if you, fall into the trap of meeting, let's say, the wrong therapist. They're going to know right away. You don't know what boundaries are and that's how they can take advantage of you and manipulate you, because you haven't established them for yourself and with others already. And that's probably a lot of times. Why people go to therapy is they're dealing with people that push their boundaries and trigger them. Yeah, and it's so true that so many people have been traumatized in childhood.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and it's so true that so many people have been traumatized in childhood. Basically are sitting ducks, in my opinion, to these people because they really don't know, and when that therapist starts pushing those boundaries and starting to exploit them, that can end up feeling really normal, because that was their child. That's what they grew up with, and so it's really hard for them to identify what's going on in this.

Speaker 1:

I had a conversation with a lady just today and when she was explaining what it was like growing up for her, I said that becomes the norm for you and it's not normal. So someone that did not, wasn't raised in a dysfunctional home environment, goes in your house. They're going to be like whoa everyone's yelling at each other, calling each other names. You know in, you know, baiting them, insulting them, undermining them, stonewalling them. They'll be like this is crazy making, but that's the norm, yeah yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2:

So let me talk a little bit about what therapy abuse and exploitation is. There is a whole sort of continuum of harm that can happen in therapy, and so a therapist could be having a bad day and say the wrong thing and say something that harms their client. That is not what we're talking about here. We are talking about a very like I said, it's almost a playbook a very particular form of trauma that happens in therapy and therapy abuse and exploitation happens when an abusive therapist misuses the power and authority they have in the therapeutic relationship to groom clients to accept being exploited and then they misuse it again at the end of the relationship and these relationships always end, I don't care where on the continuum they are, they always end and they always end in a way that is not to the benefit of the victim, and they misuse that power and authority again to ensure that their victim is silenced and discredited. And I think one of the things that we, even therapists, sometimes don't fully understand I'm sure you do is the level of power and authority they have over their client. There are some who think, oh no, no, I don't have any power, I follow the client. The client is complete control. But the truth is is that your client is reading you like a book and is figuring out what you want them to do and is doing what you want, and so not taking responsibility for that power and authority can cause harm. These people know when they went to school and were told in that first class which I'm hearing is what happens I haven't been to school for therapy is that this is transference and you don't misuse transference. This is what you do with it. They are going. These people are going. I can use that. I can use the fact that they are falling in love with me and have sexual feelings for me and then they exploit that and move with it. So therapy abuse can include all manner of things. I'm going to talk a bit about a few of them and, like I said, I call it TAE because therapy abuse and exploitation is a mouthful. So TAE is a very specific form of trauma.

Speaker 2:

Victims will experience harm during the grooming phase, which can include things like love bombing and over-the-top compliments. They will experience harm during the exploitation phase, which is when the client is asked to do things for the therapist anything from walking their dog to having sex and when the relationship terminates and the abusive therapist then fears disclosure for their crimes and in 21 states in the US it is a crime to have sex with your client. They will attack the client and there is harm in that as well. And it's important to remember that abusive therapists have been trained on, like any good therapist has, on human behavior the mind, what motivates how to how to do those things. So, whereas a perpetrator of sexual abuse of a child, sexual abuse or spousal battery might use physical harm to control their victims when things are erupting, a therapist will use emotional harm and I will get more into that and of course, they're very well equipped to be able to use that emotional harm if they've been doing therapy with somebody who has revealed all their secrets and vulnerabilities to them. That termination phase is one of the hardest parts for people because they went from love bombing, where their therapist seemed to love them and think they're special, and to a situation Devaluing yeah, oh my god. It is on par with narcissistic abuse, where you have this love bombing and then you're discarded.

Speaker 2:

So there's three distinct phases of therapy abuse and exploitation and, as I just said, they're grooming, exploitation and termination. In the grooming phase you can think of grooming as that. It's anything that enables the exploitation to occur. So it can include calling the victim special, which if you know about child sexual abuse, that's going to hearken back to what offenders say to their victims all the time. You are my special person. I like you more than any other one of my clients. They might give gifts, they might create a sense of financial indebtedness. Create a sense of financial indebtedness, they might push the boundaries around, touch and they will encourage the victim to feel responsible for the perpetrator's well-being. Now, this is nothing new, because we know this happens in child sexual abuse. We know this happens in spousal battery where the offenders are saying if you go to the police, I will end up in jail. So there's this whole grooming around making sure the victim takes care of the perpetrator In the exploitation phase once it's moved out of grooming, although everything kind of meshes in.

Speaker 2:

We have four different specific types of exploitation.

Speaker 2:

One is financial.

Speaker 2:

So in that situation we have people who have been giving huge gifts to their therapist.

Speaker 2:

So I'm not talking about the card they made or the little picture they painted. I shouldn't say little picture they painted, because some people are artists and they create amazing things. I'm talking about cars and vacations and thousands of dollars of Christmas bonuses. And you know, we have one woman who ultimately it was hundreds of thousands of dollars that she was exploited for. It's terrible, it really is terrible was exploited for it's terrible, it really is terrible. Borrowing money from your client, using your client's credit to purchase a business or a property, together there's physical exploitation and that is it's kind of a misnamed in some ways, but I'm not really sure how else to define it. It's sort of when the therapist uses their client as their gopher. They walk the dog, they clean the car, they go and pick up errands, they take care of their mom, they take care of their kids, they clean their house, they clean their office, they paint their office, yada, yada. They do all their administrative work Because they know they're a people pleaser.

Speaker 2:

That may be true, but they've also been groomed, and so you know. I think that one of the things we misunderstand is that this can happen to anybody. So we have a whole host of professionals who've gone through their own training, who've gone through their own education about ethical boundaries, who have been exploited by their own therapist. And it's a particularly hard thing for them because they berate themselves with how did this happen? I should have known better, but the abusive therapist uses that. You know we can transgress this boundary because you're special, you're different, you're a professional. We can handle this, we can move with this. And the truth is is that that relationship between therapist and client, the power imbalance, is so significant that up here our College of Physicians and Surgeons says it's the equivalent of parent-child. Surgeon says it's the equivalent of parent-child. You know. So it doesn't matter where you are, what profession you are or how smart you were when you walked into therapy, because of that power imbalance you can be groomed and exploited. So this is why shows like this are important is to give us knowledge. You can. You know, hopefully somebody will hear this and when that might start happening to them, they can go no, okay, I'm out of here, I'll go find somebody else. So the therapist eventually has turned the session around so that the client comes in, pays their money for their session and then sits and listens to the therapist talk about their problems, and that can go on for years.

Speaker 2:

So there's other ways that emotional exploitation happens, but that's the one that's the most clear example of it. And of course there's sexual exploitation and we all kind of you know. Anybody who's paying attention to the news knows about human trafficking, knows about what sexual exploitation is. Here you have a situation where you know the therapist the abusive therapist is pushing the boundaries of touch. It's incorporating sexual content into the therapeutic sessions and of course that gets a little mucky because of course your sex life is a part of your therapy session. It's a part of moving forward and there's things that therapists need to ask. An abusive therapist will start exploiting it. They'll start pushing the sessions back to their sexual contact all the way. So touch talking about it, they'll share their own sex life, they'll talk about the problems they're having in their marriage around their sex life and they will.

Speaker 2:

Ultimately, the final part of that, of course, is sexual intercourse and of course one of the things that doesn't really fit in all of that is the client, who has been exploited to the point where they have been roped into a committed relationship, whether it's a partnership that's committed or a marriage. That's when things start to get even muckier, because then people start to think that marriage sanitizes what's happened, and nothing could be farther from the truth. That person is still a victim and they are basically being trapped into a legal relationship at that point, ongoing sexual relationship with somebody that is making you do that, but doing it through emotional coercion. And we have our popular TV scripts and movies that use it as a part of the script, but then don't really. They misrepresent the impact on the victim.

Speaker 2:

And so there's this idea that it's a romantic relationship and that it's like any other romantic relationship and the victim doesn't get harmed in any more capacity than that, and that's just simply not true. It's not a romance, it's not a marriage, it's not an affair. This person isn't your lover, this is your rapist who is trapping you in a sexual activity that you may not even want. So many times people say I don't even know how this happened, I wasn't even attracted to him, I would never have slept with him, but it's because of the power and authority and basically being exploited in that way.

Speaker 1:

Well, I, never Hold on a sec, I never touch my my clients. The only time I have touched a client is when I'm doing like past life regression or I'm doing anchoring, and I will tell them in advance are you comfortable with me touching your foot, your right foot? Are you comfortable with that, Are you? And you know, and this is the purpose of why I would do that, I, I, I let them know ahead of time and if they say no, then I tell them okay, well, here's another way we can anchor it. When I say this, I'm going to want you to do this with your hand or do this Right. That's something I think anybody going to see a therapist should say I'm not comfortable being touched, Period, that's my boundary.

Speaker 1:

If you're going to do work where you have to touch me, you need to talk to me about that first and I get to decide if I'm comfortable with that, because, as you know, there's many different modalities a person can take. They don't have to take one that you actually physically touch a client Right exactly, and all kinds of things can happen without having touch.

Speaker 2:

Now we have to be very careful about the concept of consent because in this situation we have abusive therapists who are coercing consent out of their clients. The biggest, most famous case up here in Vancouver, bc, is Professor Tyhurst, who was actually the dean of our major university here, the University of BC. He was the dean of psychiatry. He was seeing patients and he was getting them to sign master slave contracts so that he could sexually do whatever he wanted to. So it gives us a really sort of clear thing that says just getting consent isn't necessarily enough. Yes, it doesn't always mean yes, which makes this all kind of mucky and people just go. But we just got to no means no, how does yes might mean no, I mean yeah, it is hard. It does take a sophisticated attitude towards it and one of the things I tell people is that just because something is on the checklist of what happens, you have to take it all in context. So you touching somebody's foot and getting consent for that does not mean you're exploiting them. It's a whole sort of package that goes on in there. So thank you for bringing that up. It's a very important part on in there. So thank you for bringing that up. It's a very important part.

Speaker 2:

The next thing that happens and this happens in any abusive relationship. Hopefully it terminates right and we hope that for the victim. So the therapeutic relationship that's built on such an enormous imbalance of power in my opinion can never be equal. It doesn't matter if you marry, it doesn't matter if you have kids, it doesn't matter. That relationship's foundation is on that imbalance of power and it doesn't change, it is lifelong. And that again is also supported by the college and other people who know this topic is that this is not something that gets undone. Once you are a therapist, you are that person's therapist and it doesn't change. But when it starts to terminate, abusive therapists who fear exposure of their transgressions will again misuse that power and authority. They have to either silence their victim and or discredit them. So as I go through, see, let me make sure. So let's talk about silencing.

Speaker 2:

One of the things that they do is they will ask the victim to get rid of all their tax messages or all their photos or anything gifts that they gave them, anything that is evidence of that transgression. And if the client goes along with that and agrees not to say anything, which lots do, because they don't understand. They think this is just taboo and they're not recognizing the harm yet. And so lots of them will go along violence that they have to start pushing the person to do that. So in that they will start using threats of I'm going to tell your secrets that you told me in therapy, or pushing on their vulnerabilities, and if that doesn't work, they'll go all out and they will stalk the person. They will excuse me.

Speaker 2:

They have been known to call authorities on them and claim that they are a harm to themselves or others. So they end up getting picked up and committed and thereby discredited. They've been known to change notes in the file. I was just going to go there. There you go. So change notes in the file and call them borderline, because borderline unfortunately has a stigma and people don't believe people who are borderline, and they, you know you couple that with abandoning somebody. You've said I'm never going to leave you, I'm the only person that can help you, you are the most amazing thing, and then suddenly I hate you and go away and don't ever talk to me again. You've got abandonment issues coming up and then you tweak the borderline. It's just. It makes it really easy for them to discredit their client that's trying to get away from the harm.

Speaker 1:

So what I would tell people is if they ask you to do that to get rid of the evidence, do screenshots, do screenshots of it, and then you can delete it and be like okay, I deleted all our emails, but in reality you really didn't. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Screenshots. One of the things that kind of gives us a hint into the diabolical nature of these abusers is that they will actually set up covert ways of communicating with their client. So they set up an email address and they send emails back and forth via draft. So nothing goes out, nothing comes in, it's all drafts. And so what happens is both of them can sign into the account. They can read what the other person wrote to them, but if anything is going, if the abusive therapist feels at risk, they can simply delete the account, and there's no evidence that that happened. Same with Google Docs. I've heard it being happening with Google Docs. They share a Google Doc file and they can write things back and forth to each other, and if there is a risk that they're going to be disclosed on, they just simply delete the Google Doc.

Speaker 1:

Well, you can. Some people don't know this. Also, if you're on a PC, you can hit print screen and you can literally I mean, that's actually what I did. You know what I did with your, the calling card that you had, is it was too long for me to actually get the whole image without, so I did print screen here, print screen there, so I got all the information, but you can't. And then it goes into the picture folder on your computer, into screenshots. Yeah, and that's another way. If you're worried, you can protect yourself. Yeah, they can delete it, but you still have the evidence.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we do do a lot of work with people about what is evidence and how to collect that evidence so that it is able to be used as evidence. So red flags let's talk a little bit about what red flags are and they're kind of sort of repeating, in some ways, the stuff we've talked about, but it's important to reiterate it. So a red flag around the grooming process is daily contact. Therapists will give their phone number. They say call me anytime. They'll call their client. They'll send memes, they send texts, or they have sessions or they have two or three sessions in. You know a week Now. Two or three sessions a you know a week Now. Two or three sessions a week isn't necessarily a bad thing. They also will set up this session to be at the last session of the day and we say that on the checklist. But of course we also have to say is every therapist has a last session of the day. Just because you are in that place doesn't mean that that's a bad thing. They do it because they are wanting to be able to extend the session. And also there's a point if they're working in an office, there's a point at which people in the office go home and so, therefore, they are alone with their client in that place. They will break the confidentiality of other clients with you.

Speaker 2:

For me, as an abuse survivor myself, I did all the administration work for my therapist and so I ended up knowing all of her clients. I knew who all of them were and I knew because of that what their issues were and what they were working on in therapy All of those things I should not know. They will do a lot of love bombing and, like I talked about before, they will call their clients special. You're different, you're amazing, you're so incredible. You do such great work. And they do that to kind of you kind of get taken off guard if somebody really really likes you, right, so they'll set themselves up as the only person who can help that client. So no one else will understand you. No one else can help you. I'm the only one willing to.

Speaker 2:

You know, do these things or risk my own practice to give you what you need, and often that is around things like having sex. Actually, that's one of the things that they'll do. They've said is that this is what you needed of. That's one of the things that they'll do, they've said is that this is what you needed. It's a part of your treatment, but the ethical guidelines say I can't do that. But I'm willing to take that risk, risk my practice, to give you what you need so you can heal. Um, and of course the poor client has no idea that that is absolutely, completely not okay.

Speaker 2:

They will isolate their victims so that any friends or family that are around them they are separating them from that. And we see that as well in child sexual trauma and we see that in spousal battering, where abusers will isolate their victims. Often, when people finally figure out, hey, this is not okay, what's happening is not okay, they look around and they literally have no one left. Everybody has been estranged from them. They'll foster dependency. And we go back to that daily contact. If you have daily contact with your therapist, every issue you have in your life you are running by them and so at some point you no longer make decisions on your own. You wait to talk to your therapist and what do you think? And they will create dependency around.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'll give you another example. If your client, if a client, comes into therapy and says nobody has ever loved me and there are people out there who have never felt love in their whole lives and they feel unlovable because of it. The therapist can work with you. I'm sure you know this. You can work with that person to understand that feeling, to move through that feeling, to come through it someplace on the other side. The lazy way of doing that is to understand that feeling, to move through that feeling, to come through it someplace on the other side. The lazy way of doing that is to say oh, no, no, no, I love you, I care about you, and then it's not dealt with, it's not worked on, and so the person still has that feeling, they still feel like that, but they don't feel like they can talk about it and they don't feel like and they're absolutely dependent on that person who said I love you because that's the only person now that's ever loved them. So they create dependency in a variety of ways until the person is so dependent on that person for almost everything. So they are their social life, they are the, the only person they know. They're the person they go to to make decisions, they are the person that gives them an emotional relationship of any kind.

Speaker 2:

And when the therapist feels this is how it works is when the therapist feels at risk and pulls away or shuts the door, that person is left all alone with nobody, feeling completely abandoned and unable, with no life skills, to figure it out, because the therapist didn't teach them life skills in there. They'll do a lot of pushing the boundaries around physical contact, so they'll put a hand on the leg and the next time they put it up a little higher and a little higher and a little higher, just to kind of push and see how far they can go. They'll do a lot of stuff around secrets, um, and and I've seen examples where they've actually tested the, the client, to see whether or not they will keep a secret, um and they'll do a lot of oversharing of personal information. All we have to do is look at um, um, stockholm syndrome and I know some people think that that's not a real thing but in Stockholm, yeah, stockholm syndrome the offender, the person that's doing the thing to you, is telling you a lot of personal information about them. This is my child and this is what happened. This is why I'm here. You know I didn't want to be here.

Speaker 2:

And what happens in that is you develop in your client a sense of responsibility for the well-being of the abusive therapist, and that is what they use on the tail end to try and keep people from talking. So I think I already went through exploitation and what that looks like. So you financial, physical, emotional and sexual exploitation. And always remember the grooming is there to make the exploitation possible. It grooms the client to accept the exploitation On the tail end.

Speaker 2:

Therapy abuse survivors I'm sorry. Abusive therapists act like every other offender we know. So we want to believe that therapists have come into this profession to do good and most of them are that they would not purposely harm somebody, harm somebody. But when you're talking about an abusive therapist, you're already talking about somebody who is not in that realm, is not working on the same plane as the good therapist. They are like every other offender and one of the things that's true for me is that I was there when rape victims were being recognized and changes were made in court to protect them and you couldn't talk about the length of their skirt or their sexual history anymore to get the offender off.

Speaker 2:

You know, I was there when child sexual abuse was being recognized and people were getting it that when children disclosed, you believed them, you didn't send them back home to their abusers and we were getting help for those people. Um, I was there when spousal batteries, so you know, was being recognized and we start, we created transition houses for women to get away and ways for them to get away. I was there when human trafficking finally was being um dealt with in canada. I don't know about the states, but in canada they they at one point thought, and this we're talking early 90s. They were saying, oh no, speaking finally was being dealt with in Canada. I don't know about the States, but in Canada they at one point thought, and this we're talking early 90s. They were saying, oh no, no, that doesn't happen here. That was the police, the Me Too movement.

Speaker 2:

You know all of these things, the clergy abuse, all of those things I have lived through and I can tell you the abusive therapist is an offender just like every other offender in any one of those things.

Speaker 2:

So if you know about trauma and you're trauma informed and you understand the offender and the victim in any form of trauma, you will understand therapy, abuse and exploitation, because it is exactly the same thing.

Speaker 2:

So when abusive therapists are about to get caught and they can't get their victim to get rid of everything and they can't get them to be quiet and shut up, then what they will do is they will go into what is commonly known as DARBO, which is deny, attack and reverse the victim and offender roles initially try and, like I said, use the grooming. Or they may, you know, respond to a licensing board thing saying I never did anything like this. She wanted to have a sexual relationship with me and I said no, and so she's just mad at me because I won't sleep with her. They will, and if that doesn't work, they'll attack. So it goes from um well, even in that one there's an attack, right, but they will also, uh, set up, uh ways of using emotional abuse. They will threaten to tell your secrets. They will use all the things they know that will trigger you to trigger you into one of the worst emotional places you can ever imagine being as a person on this planet.

Speaker 1:

Um, and if all you're doing to submission is really what they're doing to get you to comply and to submit and and a lot of people do.

Speaker 2:

A lot of people say I, I don't know, I don't think I can cope with them telling people my secrets. I don't know where they think their therapist can tell those secrets. I'm I haven't really quite figured that out.

Speaker 1:

But they serious because it goes against their code of conduct. They're not allowed to share that stuff outside the office space. They're not.

Speaker 2:

No, they're not yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

But they can go to the police and say I'm worried about my client. They can do things that make you feel very, very vulnerable and feeling know the things the way the therapist groomed them and made them feel special, you know, move through the exploitation where they feel some people have called it feeling like the only thing I was ever good for in my life was sex, and they proved it, you know right through to the termination place where they're being discarded. Basically, there's a lot of emotional damage that goes along with that, and there's also a lot of physical damage. It's one of the things that we're starting to recognize is that, in the same way, stress in the body will cause physical damage for anybody. This situation is so stressful and hard on people to get through that they are also having the same kind of physical reaction. So so one of them is stress seizures. We started to hear victims talking about how, all of a sudden, they were having seizures that they'd never had before so also a psychological abuse, because they're totally manipulated, absolutely so.

Speaker 2:

I just want to give a rundown, because we really have this idea and we can go back to say rape and there were. The uneducated perspective back then was that it wasn't rape, you just agreed to it. And now you changed your mind. Right, there was some idea that you consented, you went along with this and there was no harm.

Speaker 2:

Therapy abuse and exploitation is incredibly damaging and there is an assumption of lack of harm because of how it's misrepresented in popular culture and because in lots of ways, even therapists are not trained on the damage that happens to a survivor of therapy abuse and exploitation. So I just want to run through some of them. One of the most common one is profound anxiety and panic attacks. So I'm not talking about, you know, just feeling a little anxious. I'm talking overwhelming anxiety that you go through 24-7 for weeks at a time that's punctuated with panic attacks, the inability to eat or sleep, stress seizures, which I talked about, of course, chronic post-traumatic stress disorder and Stockholm syndrome, which both of those things complicate how somebody is presenting to the world Stockholm syndrome.

Speaker 2:

We have survivors often who will go to a board. They hear that their therapist is being investigated and they will go to the board and lie and work to help that person, not have to be held accountable for what they did to another client. Dysregulation which impacts on their ability to work or function and consequently leaves them at risk for losing their job, their housing and sometimes their children. The inability to trust is a big one and the betrayal in this is so profound that that inability to trust is going to impact on all their relationships to trust is going to impact on all their relationships, so as they're trying to build relationships back with their family or friends or even their children, it is impacted by a tremendous fear of trusting. And that is also true for subsequent therapists, even just going into another therapist who may very well be a good therapist, because they use some of the same techniques and the office is set up in the same way and a lot of stuff in therapy becomes very, very triggering for them.

Speaker 1:

I wanted to throw one thing in there and this actually popped in my mind and this might spare some people is when I took my daughter to child care. I did independent you know people that weren't in a facility and she got hurt. She literally got hurt and I'm sorry and I learned the hard way. Literally the hard way to protect her was get her in a facility, an organization, because the emails are through that organization. They have to follow the guidelines of that clinic.

Speaker 1:

So I'm what I'm kind of suggesting is don't go private practice. Go for a place that has multiple therapists and one organization, you know, and ask the question of how long is the session going to be. Is it 45 minutes, you know? Is it 50 minutes, what is the cutoff, and how. You do see other therapists in the office. I think that's a safer way to go about it. So, like with my daughter, I had to put her in preschool and I knew she'd be and she was. She was a lot safer. Everyone was held accountable. The state investigated it, you know, did all. They had all those protocols they had to follow. So and I did want sometime, cause I know there's so much we got to share, how you were sharing with me about when a therapist loses her license, they go into coaching, and that was a shock. I was like no, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and then what's terrible? We're, we're seeing how what happens when they lose their license. We have somebody who simply became a sex therapist because it's regulated. You know we need to, you know we there. I live in a province where therapists and counselors are not regulated and so you can throw up a shingle, call yourself a counselor, charge 150 bucks an hour with absolutely no training whatsoever and no oversight by anybody. So we also have a level where people are it's true for my therapist where you are a professional and you join a professional association and they vet you and they give you some credibility as a professional because of that, because you are a member there. But the problem with that is is that when you make a complaint to that organization, because it's a nonprofit association, they can only work with their members, so all the abusive therapist has to do is resign their membership and the investigation closes and it's done, it's gone, wow. So there's all these little loopholes that happen, and becoming a coach is one of them, unfortunately, because I think there are, like therapists, a lot of really good therapists out there.

Speaker 2:

One of the other things victims often have to face is victim blaming, where their friends tell them they're a horrible person for what they did that's awful. Tell them they're a horrible person for what they did that's awful, you know. Or they get victimized by an institution where they're not being recognized for what they are. They're being told they had a romantic relationship and they consented to all of this and so they shouldn't be coming to them for a complaint.

Speaker 2:

All of that stuff. When you add all of it up, you add up what happened to them in therapy and then what happens to them after therapy and what they're dealing with it, it brings that person to an untenable position where they are at a greater risk many, many times greater risk of suicide than any other victim population. And so we are often dealing with people who feel very suicidal, who are and who can't go to see a therapist because that's the person who hurt them, and so they're very isolated and very alone, which why? What makes what TEL does very, very important? In that they are a free service and they do a lot of ongoing support with people in that situation. So the victim will experience both emotional and physical damage from therapy abuse.

Speaker 1:

so and they'll be afraid to, you know, and that can create fear to when they actually do need therapy later on. They're afraid to share, they're they're afraid, they're so guarded, and that's.

Speaker 2:

Not only that, they can't trust a therapist oh, I know they have a hard time even picking up the phone and calling and saying are you taking clients? Because they no longer trust the profession. So it makes it very, very difficult and one of the things that I think has happened over the years like TAL, has been around for 40 years In the last 10 years, of course, social media has exploded. We have all kinds of platforms. We have all kinds of ways for survivors to find each other, to talk to each other, to provide support for each other, and that has changed this issue. We're starting to get a sense of just how often it happens and people are coming from all over the globe.

Speaker 2:

This is not a North American thing. We have people from Mexico and Germany and the UK and Norway and Romania and New Zealand and Australia. So this is an issue that happens all across the globe and it makes sense because if you have somebody who's willing to abuse power to get what they want and what they need, they're going to do it, whether they're a therapist or the guy down the street, if they've got that power. So so one of the things I want to talk about is what to do if you've experienced this, because it is possible that you have listeners who's gotten to this point in the show and you go oh crap, that happened to me, um, and and and or it's happening to my friend or someone.

Speaker 2:

I know, absolutely, absolutely. So I just want to talk a little bit about what people can do if this has happened to them or somebody they love. The first thing is to recognize that you are not alone. There are services out there for you. They may not be next door in your city, but they do exist and you can access them. So there are Facebook groups and there are subreddit groups and organizations like TAL. There's also Advocate Web and there's a couple other websites that you can get to. You can find those by using the hashtag therapy abuse all one word and, of course, facebook groups and subreddits, even the organization like TEL. We aren't therapists there, but it does offer peer support, and peer support is a known thing that provides a lot of healing opportunities for people and helps people get through things so that they can stay stable and move on with their lives. If they can't see a therapist, they can stay stable and move on with their lives if they can't see a therapist. So you can also look to find a peer support worker, somebody who's also gone through it, whose function and job is to specifically help you get through it using their own lived experience and or support groups. I don't want to tout my own horn here, but I do run a support group and it's actually the only support group I know for survivors at this point. It's online, so it's accessible to anybody across the world.

Speaker 2:

Read, if you're a reader. If not, get Audible or make your computer read it to you. A reader? Um, if not, get audible or make your computer read it to you, yeah, um, there's a lot of written material out there and there are books out there. Um, I, I can speak for tell because I volunteer at tell and they have an entire website full of essays and papers, a free ebook with chapters from first-hand accounts from survivors, but also chapters from lawyers and other people, therapists in the industry. So it's a very complete set of types of resources. So podcasts, written material, books, etc. So do a lot of reading, learn about this thing and you will find yourself in those pages and be able to locate. You know where you fit in therapy, abuse and exploitation. So the I just want to go, oh. Oh, the other thing, sorry.

Speaker 1:

Well, let me explain one thing while you're looking for that. Yes, I, just to let people know, I've done therapy before for myself, because I experienced PTSD and when I went to a therapist I did ask you know, do you have your code of contact? What? What is the protocol? They're supposed to hand that to you. I asked what it? You know you're going to do a treatment assessment. Okay, then give me. Tell me what that treatment assessment is. How long do you project that treatment assessment is? What things do I need to achieve you?

Speaker 1:

know, like when it goes to PTSD. It was. You know dislike in activities, you know insomnia, trouble sleeping, flashbacks. You know they go over that whole criteria with you and setting those goals. So if anyone wants to know this is how therapy should be, this is. You know what the goals is. This is what we're going to work on. How many sessions do you think it's going to be? It's going to?

Speaker 1:

You know, I never, ever, get email. I mean, I sometimes get emails where it's like we need to cancel this appointment or reschedule, but I do not get personal emails. I have never gotten personal text messages. I've never gotten her personal. You know email or tech or cell phone, anything offered, any of that. You got to call into the office, call into the office and you know schedule, all that stuff and all appointments are about 50 minutes and then it ends and so it's really having more.

Speaker 1:

I'd say structure and stability is what anyone wants to look for. When it goes to finding, I'd say, a therapist is like what is your protocol Right? You know, like you said, how many years in business have you? You know, been and and and sometimes I've, you know, I've, I've asked you know like, well, what, what is your success rate, whatever it is they're you know working on, and you can flat out tell them I'm not comfortable with this, this, this and this set your boundaries. I'm not comfortable with personal touch. I don't want your personal you know email account or personal cell phone number. I will call the office, right? No, literally you're the one that's in. That's the thing is. You're the one in control. You're the one that really should have the position of power, not them, because you're the one getting the help.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so it should be, but unfortunately there's no way to change that power structure. Unfortunately, you've got one person exposing all their secrets and telling all their stuff and the other person just receiving it, and it's not an equal relationship. It never becomes one. One of the things that also happens is people come out of this very afraid. Oh, of course. So when we say you can make a complaint to a licensing board or a regulatory body, you can get a civil case going. You can, you know, go to the police and report this. In the 21 states where it's a crime to have sex with your client, you can go to the police and report it to the police. But all of that is very, very terrifying and it takes a long time for people to be able to actually do that. They need to work through a lot to be able to get there. But those are the three things you can do. If you have experienced this, it's your own complaint to whatever regulatory body they were a part of. If they are in Batman BC, there's people who there's no place to complain to a civil case or a criminal case. And then, going back to what you were saying, I know somebody who.

Speaker 2:

It was an interesting question because the question was OK. I keep hearing everybody come here and say that you know, they got to the end of their therapy and their therapist did termination with them and sent them on their way and they got to get out of therapy. I've been in therapy for 20 years. They said you know what's wrong with me, that that doesn't happen. And she couldn't identify what the goals were why she was there. It was just like she had gone for 20 years and the therapist had done whatever and she just assumed that she couldn't leave unless the therapist said it was okay. And that happens over and over and that kind of therapy leaves people feeling not in control of their lives. They don't know what's wrong with them, they don't know why they're going, they don't know what they're supposed to be working on and they're completely dependent on that person every week to tell them you did good or whatever. So it's. It's.

Speaker 1:

That's not the way to do therapy either well, the standard protocol is in three months or six months you do an assessment review. Where are you? You ask them the same checklist list questions how is your sleeping? Are you engaging in any hobbies? You know you go over the things you're struggling with and you rate them from a scale of one to 10. Where are you at? And you compare notes and you have an annual review, literally when it gets to the year end. Let's go over your goals, let's go where you're at. If you're not having that, there's something wrong. There's something wrong. There's something.

Speaker 1:

I tell everyone that because I have met people that have been in therapy, like you said, for 10 years, 15 years. I have a conversation with them and in 15 minutes, I nailed met people that have been in therapy, like you said, for 10 years, 15 years. I have a conversation with them and in 15 minutes I nailed them like that Right, and I'm like this is your issue, this is what you should be doing, this is the homework you should have, these are the tools you should be working on and they're like wow, my therapist never said anything like that and I said, well, then you're just venting. Yes, go there, you vent, you vent or you listen to their issues and then they're like oh, great conversation and you leave. They're not giving you homework, they're not giving you tools. If they don't, they suck.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. So the only other thing I really want people to know is that you may feel alone in this and physically you may be alone, but there is a whole communities out here of survivors now who've gone through this, who are going to understand. If your friends and family don't know how to understand this, there are people out there that can and that you can heal from it. It does feel like you'll never be the same and you may not be the same, but you will get to a place where you are okay. And again just saying, most therapists are good and we just need to start figuring out a way to weed out the bad ones and start making sure that this profession stays safe for its clients.

Speaker 1:

So all right, well, and that it holds its integrity. Because I I mean, I was I was shocked, but then, at the same time, not shocked because in in my business, I've heard horror stories about hypnotherapists that I was just like, are you kidding me? Ouch. And it's just there, you, we got to ask the right questions and kind of it's like have one foot in and one foot out, because you get to decide if they're the right fit for you. And so that's why I tell people, even when they call me and they want to work with me, I'm like you need to still shop around. I want you to find the right fit for you. It might be me, it might not be me, but that's okay. It's all about you forming a rapport and a relationship with this person, because you're going to talk about personal stuff and you want to make sure that you trust them, you feel safe, and these are. And I even tell people ask them these questions. If they're not going to answer these questions for you, like I'm answering, then that's a red flag.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I want to ask these specific questions and you know, because it's all about your safety, your security, your peace of mind your safety, your security, your peace of mind, yeah, and you moving forward.

Speaker 2:

It's. This is your therapy process, right, and so it really is something that clients need to need to be able to own, and that's not necessarily going to change that power imbalance, but it is going to give you something to bounce against. Whether you know, whether or not, is this a good therapy process for me or not?

Speaker 1:

And see if they offer like a free consultation over the phone so you don't have to physically be in the office. You could have a checklist. These are the questions I want to ask you. Can you email me a copy of your code of conduct, or is your code of conduct up on your website? You know you can ask all these questions without physically being there. You can even say can we do it? You know like a Zoom meeting where it's just 15 minutes of me asking.

Speaker 2:

you know a series of questions asking you know, a series of questions. I really love the idea that you have your code of conduct on your website. I just think that that is. That is excellent, the only thing that I've ever found with therapists here and I'm not an expert on it but there was a psychiatrist who had a note on his wall that said I'm with the College of Physicians and Surgeons and if you have a complaint, this is where you go. But it was just a little tiny thing on the side, you know, it wasn't something he handed out to people that they could take away with them. And another therapist that said I'm on RCC and I'm registered with the BCACC and right, you know those kinds of things, but is really rare to have that happen here. This is very, very rare.

Speaker 2:

The other thing that we're finding and I really want to talk about that I miss saying is that we have up here this and I know it happens everywhere to some degree but in the code of conduct there's this idea that you can wait two years. So if you terminate with a client two years later, you can have an intimate relationship with them. And I'm currently on a crusade to get that thrown out, because we're finding over and over and over abusive therapists using that as a loophole. So, for instance, I just interviewed a guy yesterday whose therapist saw him for three months and then said okay, I'm going to fire you because I want to develop a relationship with you outside of therapy. So I'm firing you, and the next day they went out for coffee and had sex. So there's this way. They're basically using it. So we have abusive therapists who are going pro bono and so there's no financial record that they were being paid. They will throw out medical notes to you know, get rid of evidence that it was within the two years.

Speaker 2:

We have situations where abusive therapists will just hold somebody on hold and in limbo for that two and a half years. So they're still talking to them, they're still having conversations on the phone, they're still doing therapy, but they wait that two years to engage in a sexual relationship. So they didn't actually quit therapy, they didn't give up any power and control. They just extended this thing out in such a way that it made it look like they had done the two years. So we have we need to get rid of it. We know that when you're a therapist, you're the therapist and that's a lifelong thing, there shouldn't be a two-year or three-year interval between end of therapy and the beginning of an intimate relationship. And, as I say, you know there are billions of people in the planet. You don't need one. You know it. It's not necessary. Um, and if you're soulmates, you kind of screwed up in this life and you have to redo it in the next one because it's not okay, it'll never be okay so yeah, anyway so where can people find you?

Speaker 1:

I I mean just tell us all the links, websites, you know all this stuff because it's it's important, it's vital. Yes, I will create a blog post so I will have all that in there. But some people like say, in an emergency, right now, is like no, I need this now.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, that's okay. So the best thing they can do, the easiest thing they can do, is Google my name, which is Bernadine Fox, b-e-r-n-a-d-i-n-e, last name Fox F-O-X. Like the animal, I'm fairly findable on Google and and, of course, on google um and um. And of course, there's the coming to voiceca website, which includes all kinds of information. You can also find me on linktree slash bernadine fox. You can find my radio show. It's called rethreading madness. It's all one word rethreading madnessca.

Speaker 2:

There's a website. You can find all the all the radio shows up as podcasts, wherever you stream your podcast from. You can also contact TEL, which is the Therapy Exploitation Linkline Long name, but their website is called therapyabuseorg and so all of those things will get you to me. I'm fairly visible and out there and easily accessible, so and I will make sure you have all of that as well so that you can put that up on your blog. Thank you, thank you for doing this. It's a very, very, very, very important topic and if we can do these things and just one person I always hate this comment, I always think it's overused. But honestly, if one person sitting in therapy going I don't think you should be doing that and leaves and avoids the harm, we may have saved a life, quite frankly. So thank you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we may have saved a life, quite frankly. So thank you. Yeah, no, you you have, because I had a really good friend. That was, you know, she I don't want to call it abuse, but it to me it was unethical is she would go to this therapist and vent and vent and vent and get all worked up and the therapist wouldn't give her any tools and would say, oh, that was a great session, you got a lot off your chest, and she would leave and be irritated. And her husband was the one that told me about it. He's like I hate her therapist. She goes to the therapist, she brings out all this painful stuff, gets her so worked up and then she lets her go and then she comes home and she's mad and she's irritable and she didn't give her tools to or solutions to calm down. How can you think about this differently? Shift your perspective. He's like I ended up becoming the therapist in the household and she was paying for this therapy. Yeah, I had to tell you know the husband she needs a different therapist.

Speaker 2:

You know, this is interesting, that therapists do that. I got into a place, after getting away from my abusive therapist that where I cried. I just I cried at the drop of a hat and and I spent months and months and months cried at the drop of a hat, and and I spent months and months and months crying at the drop of a hat. And so I went to therapy thinking the therapist was going to help me, and I cried through the entire hour for seven visits. I even said to her you have to help me stop crying, because I can do this at home. I don't need to come here and do this. And she didn't.

Speaker 2:

And after seven visits I thought I need to spend my money elsewhere, because this, this, I'm not. I wasn't processing anything, I wasn't, nothing was changing. It wasn't like I needed a good cry. I'd had a good cry for three months or so already. I needed to get out of my body and out of my feelings and and be able to do something other than cry. So it is really important to to kind of always sort of check in with yourself Is this therapy, you know, going the way I need it to go? Is this healthy for me? Am I getting somewhere? Am I getting something out of that and then bounce it off with your friends, you know, don't yeah?

Speaker 1:

No.

Speaker 1:

I hear you, because I remember working with this one guy that went in and he was struggling with alcohol and went in and out of treatment, in and out of treatment, and he'd been with the same counselor, um, for a year and I'm like, dude, is she giving you any tools, is she giving you any resources? Like, what has she done? He's like like, oh no, we just talk and I just wanted to just bang my head against the wall. That's not helping you. She needs to get to the root core of why are you drinking? What's triggering you to drink? Is it the people you're around? You know? She needs to get in depth and then give you the tools you need to cope with those situations of when you want to have it. You don't want to end up in treatment over and over and over. It's it's a vicious cycle and that just infuriated me.

Speaker 2:

So the therapist job is to lose their job. Right, that is your job is to become unnecessary. When, yeah, doing what you're describing, um, you don't. There's no way you can become unnecessary because that's where the person does their venting or they're talking or whatever um, but there's no movement in that, unless unless that person um does get a lot out of talking and does their own work to move, and people do do that. I mean, you know I always tell people the therapist isn't healing you, you are doing the healing. The therapist's job is to bring their training and skill and observation to you and your issues and, you know, offer that to you where you need it to move ahead.

Speaker 2:

That's their job.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, because I've always said I'm the tour guide, you're the one taking the journey. Yeah, you're the one that's got to do the work. I can give you as many suggestions and do this and that, but I can't force you to do it. And if you're not congruent with some of the suggestions, well then let's find something else. Yeah, and I loved how you did share. You cried for those seven sessions and realized I'm not getting anywhere. I could do this at home.

Speaker 2:

I was doing it at home.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that's people got to realize that if you're not, if you've been with your therapist for a certain period of time, they're not giving you solutions, they're not giving you homework, they're not holding you accountable, they're not trying to figure out. Is it something internally you know how you talk to yourself or self-sabotage? Is it external, like a family member, your boss, a co-worker? You've got to get to the root of it, or else you're just on that hamster wheel just spinning, spinning. Yeah, yes, treatment should stop. I always tell my clients I don't want to sign you up for five or six or so many sessions. I want to get it done in the you. You know, from point A to point B let's fix this. Let's do it now.

Speaker 2:

That's cool. That's a way to do it. Thank you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, oh, thank you. I'm just like yes, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 2:

You're welcome at this.

Speaker 1:

I really appreciate the time that you've taken to get this and I I appreciate everything that you're doing because I was, I was kind of, I was, I was shocked, I, I was surprised, and so I want to thank you for reaching out to me about this and and wanting to be on on on this show. I really, really thank you. So thank you, burton dean you're welcome.