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By Lisa Wesel
Mental health professionals nationwide are protesting the deposition
of counselors whose clients are suing Catholic priests for sexual
abuse. More than 80 professionals signed a Jan. 20 letter to Boston
Bishop Richard G. Lennon, urging him to reconsider the practice
because they say it re-traumatizes the victims, traumatizes the
therapists and destroys the safety - and therefore the efficacy
- of the therapist-patient relationship.
The letter was written by Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea, Ph.D., executive
director of the Trauma Treatment Center at the Manhattan Institute
for Psychoanalysis. Frawley-O'Dea was the only mental health expert
invited to address the Semiannual Meeting of the U.S. Conference
of Catholic Bishops in Dallas in June, when they confronted the
issue of priest sexual abuse by urging victims to come forward.
"The Church has invited victims to come to them for healing and
assistance, to speak up and not be afraid," says Thom Harrigan,
LICSW, co-director of Next Step Counseling and Training in Jamaica
Plain, Mass. "To then turn around and use those results against
(the victims) is a disturbing ethical choice. The letter was intended
to be a proactive request to consider deeply what they are offering
and what they are doing, and to see the disconnect between the two."
Bishop Lennon has not responded to the letter. Donna Morrissey,
a spokeswoman for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, says
he may not have read it yet, though it had been sent weeks earlier
and published in The Boston Globe.
Morrissey distanced the Church from the depositions, saying attorneys
representing individual priests or bishops, not the Church itself,
took the depositions. She says the Archdiocese's attorneys had not
deposed any therapists to date, but the Church would not rule out
the possibility.
"The Church wants very much to settle these cases," Morrissey says.
"I don't know what will happen if the cases go to trial. Our attorneys
reserve the right to defend their client, the Church. They are obligated
to do so."
That argument does not sway Karen W. Saakvitne, Ph.D., clinical
director of the Traumatic Stress Institutes in South Windsor, Conn.
and Northampton, Mass. Accord-ing to Saakvitne, the appropriate
response from the Church would be to hire independent forensic psychologists
to evaluate patients who are suing, rather than violating the sanctity
of their ongoing therapy.
"The message (from the Church) is that if you pursue this lawsuit,
you no longer have the safety of psychotherapy," Saakvitne says.
"In no other realm would they say, 'We're going to block your medical
treatment if you pursue the suit.' It's an untenable bargain."
"People have dropped out of therapy because of this," says Frawley-O'Dea,
"It's unspeakable."
"The ramifications are obviously huge for several reasons," says
Marcie Mitler, M.Ed., a Cambridge, Mass. psychotherapist specializing
in sexual abuse. "It takes survivors a very long time to talk to
anyone about what happened to them. When their abuser is a priest,
it takes longer.
"For us it's huge, too," Mitler says. "I'm an excellent therapist,
but my degree isn't impressive, and I haven't written any books.
Everything I say would be questioned." Some therapists will not
treat a client if they know a court case is imminent, Mitler says.
Others try to address the issue at the outset. "Many of us say to
clients that there are limits to confidentiality - if they are homicidal,
suicidal or committing child abuse - and, if we think of it, we
mention litigation," says Ellis Waingrow, MSW, LICSW, of Newton,
Mass. "It behooves all of us in the field to be more upfront about
this issue, but we're more interested in the healing stuff."
Some therapists also take minimal notes of sessions to lessen the
paper trail.
"It's a complex issue," Waingrow says. "It's nice to have a fair
amount of information available to you, but the risk to the client
is more important than the help I would get from detailed notes."
Saakvitne recommends that clinical psychologists accept their own
limitations as witnesses in a legal case."A lot of people have not
been as thoughtful as I believe they should be, even in my own profession,"
Saakvitne says. "I don't think we've always recognized the specialty
of forensic work. We are not taught the difference between forensic
and clinical work in graduate schools. There's a naïveté about it."
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