A Comparative Analysis of Retrospective Victim Reports

Former patients ’ (n = 24) accounts of their experience during a sexual liaison with their psychotherapist (Therapist-Client Sex, TCS) could be classified as ei-ther romantic (TCS-Romance) or as an abusive encounter (TCS-Abuse). During TCS, individuals in the TCS-Romance group reported having experienced overall better emotional states and more favorable perceptions of both the perpetrating therapists and the treatments they provided. Pre-TCS assessments showed that initially TCS-Romance subjects may have had a relatively higher regard for their perpetrators and the quality of their treatments than TCS-Abuse subjects, but these between-group differences disappeared when the same variables were assessed for two post-TCS periods. These periods were marked in both groups by deteriorated indices of psychological well-being. These findings suggest that a romantic nar-rative of TCS could have a shielding, albeit temporary, impact on the subjective experience of what is otherwise considered an abusive relationship. KEY WORDS: therapist-patient relationship; sexual exploitation; therapist abuse. Most of the literature on therapist-client sex (TCS) is based on data gath-ered solely from therapists (e.g., Bernsen, Tabachnick, & Pope, 1993; Gartrell