When a Therapist Breaks the Rules

Abstract

This article chronicles Dr. Green's experiences as a client in Seattle between November 1977 and May 1979. The history includes how the author came to find this particular therapist, the therapist's cutting the author off from family and friends, the shift to a friendship relationship, co-owning a business and being a co-therapist with the therapist and her partner, the disentangling of the whole mess and the aftereffects of that time spent as her client. There is a discussion at the end of the article of how this experience has affected the author's work as a lesbian feminist therapist who does primarily long-term therapy. Recently, Dr. Green has seen more clients who have been damaged by their lesbian feminist therapist. Much of this damage has been done by the slow erosion of boundaries which separate therapist from client. It is this erosion and subsequent exploitation that the author explores in her article.