SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I will try not to bring in that subject which shall not be named on this forum, but here's the dilemma. Mods, feel free to move if necessary.

About a year after full disclosure, we relocated across country to our new home, and got a referral for a new couple's therapist from my new individual therapist. We've been seeing her for over three years now, and she eventually referred me to a new therapist when I got too stressed out over the commute I had to make to see new therapist #1. So I am on IC #2, and H also got a referral for his new IC from this couple's therapist.

Let me be transparent, I still miss our couple's therapist from our previous home. I really, really connected with her. Here's what happened - a couple of weeks ago, couple's therapist mentioned in passing (somehow the topic of Instagram had come up, I think that of one of my Ds, and how IG can play a role in keeping in touch with people we don't see) she has an IG following, then said she has a private account and a public account. I didn't think much of it that week, but for some reason, the following week (after we'd seen her again), I was goofing around and her comment came to me. I 100% thought, hey, she wouldn't have mentioned it to me if it weren't a professional account. I have various friends who have IG accounts that they use for education, so I thought I'd see what couple's therapist was posting.

Things went wrong very quickly. When I googled her name and Instagram, the first account that came up is a personal/private account (account #1) that is actually very, very personal. On that account #1, there's a link to a professional account (account #2), where she shares professional stuff regarding therapy, etc.

As I scrolled through #1, there were dozens of pictures and videos of her pole dancing, in very provocative clothing... two-piece outfits with bottoms that really didn't cover her butt. I am aware that some women are getting into pole dancing as a form of exercise, and I can't judge her for doing that. But on this #1 account, she also had some still photos of her posing very sexually... basically crotch shots, again in very little clothing. And her leaning across the front grille of a car, with her butt to the camera, and her looking over her shoulder. And again, not much covering the butt - probably the equivalent of a thong.

At first, I felt incredibly confused; I mean, why would someone I have a professional relationship with tell me about their IG following? And bait me with, well, one is public and one is private. In truth, they're BOTH public, because anyone can see them. Also, aside from the pictures on her IG, you can look at the pole dancing studio's IG account, and there are many pictures of her on that, too. What it boils down to is, all these videos and pictures are very sexually provocative and it is highly inappropriate for her to have mentioned the accounts to us. These are huge boundary violations to me, especially given that part of H's acting out was looking at pornography (which he no longer does). I mean, she refers to herself as a couple's therapist, and yes, is also a sex therapist. So I just sort of assumed she had a colorful sex life with her partner, but I don't need visual confirmation of that.

I.just.don't.get.it. Why do people go out of their way, to have other people take provocative and sexual pictures and videos of themselves, and POST THEM PUBLICLY??? And then, if you're a professional therapist, TELL your patients about it???

So the next day I told H about the information I'd found - we talked about it, and are really on the same page, that this is highly unprofessional, and unethical. I wanted to talk about it with my IC, but she was out of the office last week, so I won't see her until Monday. Because I couldn't talk to my IC about it, and how to handle it, we canceled our appt. with our couple's therapist last week, but will see her the day after I see my IC next week. I've made up my mind today it will be a termination appt. H mentioned all this to his IC when he saw her this week, and she knew exactly what he was talking about, and alluded that she'd found out from other therapists she networks with. She found it in very poor judgment and was very vocal with H on what she thought of it... that it's very unprofessional for her to be posting these kinds of pictures/videos for anyone in the public to easily see. So we've got one confirmation from another professional that this is wrong on many different levels.

Once you see these pictures, you can't just unsee them; she made the professional relationship untenable by implicitly directing us to this information about her activities. And what pisses me off even more is, now we have to find someone new to work with, and start over again, which is going to cost us time and money. One friend (who's a therapist) suggested we ask her to partly defray the cost of what it take to get us up to speed with a new therapist. I believe she does owe us something - it was her abysmal lack of judgment that is forcing us into finding someone new.

I'm mostly just venting here; yes, I'm judging someone for something they do outside of their professional life, but then don't make it public when you're a couple's therapist working with infidelity-laden relationships. It really just disgusts me. This is also now calling me to doubt the relationship I have with my IC because I got her name from the couple's therapist. Monday will be a big test for my IC, seeing how she handles this revelation I share with her. Ultimately, it may lead to my having to look for a new therapist, too.

I had to read this twice to be sure I understood.

Unfrigginbelievable!!!

I’m just going to respond to the question in your topic title line. What I would do is send her an email to let her know exactly what you shared here...that you are in disbelief that she would inform you about such a site considering the specifics of your seeing her as your therapist. And that as a result, you would no longer be seeing her.

Not trying to tell you what to do, but I would not be attending a last termination session. What good could possibly come from it?

Kudos to your H for seeing the problem with it.

Just move on.

Sorry, but this is beyond "out there" IMHO.

I would fire her so fast her head would spin in circles.

RUN. And may be write a letter to the board that oversees therapists with the whole story. THat she directed you to her personal account… yeah so freaking creepy and wrong. She should not be a therapist.

Where I used to work, IT was set up to override any screen saver we set up as personal because a co-worker had a nude photo of herself set up as her screensaver THAT POPPED UP DURING A CLIENT SITE VISIT.

Some people are stupid and have no boundaries.

I'd look for a different therapist and report her to the Ethics Committee.

Thanks for all of your replies and affirming my outrage.

H and I started researching therapists in our network last night, and will make some calls this week. I see my IC tomorrow, and have texted her to make sure she has the time to go over, if needed.

To be clear, the couple's therapist never told me to go look at her IG. But it came up in the context of discussing social media, and her response was, "I have an Instagram following; well, I have two... one is public, and another is private." But she told us in the context of a couple's session, so it's really a moot point.

H emailed his IC last night to clarify, and she said she wasn't aware of any other therapists talking to our couple's therapist, but some of them have talked to H's therapist about the situation.

I have been in therapy for a very long time, and over time have picked up what makes good professional boundaries with a therapist, and what is inappropriate. H does not have the experience to understand what is appropriate for therapeutic boundaries. It's been frustrating for me to try to explain to him why these are professional boundary violations. He absolutely sees that it's a poor lack of judgment and questions her intelligence. I think initially his reaction was mostly about not wanting to start all over again with someone else, and I get it; I don't either. But this therapist put us in this situation with what she did.

And I need to take some screen shots of some of these photos in case we do decide to file a complaint with the APA (American Psychological Association).

There was no need for her to mention her Instagram account. Period. Very unprofessional. And what you saw on her personal page makes the whole thing even worse!!

Not an excuse, but does she realize her page is NOT private??

I'm curious as to what your IC says about all of this.

This is crazy! In the paperwork my IC had me sign before we started therapy, it explicitly stated she would NOT interact with patients on social media. I confess I was curious and looked her up. She has her personal accounts locked down, which is totally what I would expect.

I have nothing against someone taking these kinds of pictures and such, and I get therapists are people too. But she should have the sense to keep it private. And not share it her patients!

1: her personal accounts should be locked down. It's just plain old professionalism. Teachers, doctors, lawyers, etc. all do it, a therapist should not be any different (ESP if they are marketing as a sex therapist - which can have MANY different meanings).

2: I would not bother reporting to the APA. I WOULD consider reporting to (a) the STATE licensing board and (b) your insurance company. If you are attending MC for porn issues, and the MC talks about their SM that contains explicit sexual materials (and yeah, opinions can differ on what is explicit), I see that as a problem. To me, it would be like advertising as an addiction specialist and then telling your alcoholic client about your SM that has a bunch of photos of you in a bar (or a nutritionist to an overweight person to photos of eating a big mac). They are free to have whatever SM they like, but need to be transparent and let clients decide for themselves.

You can always ask your / WS personal IC about what may or may not violate any state regulations.
And don't forget about things like yelp and healthgrades, where I believe you can anonymously post your experience.

I also did a quick google search and came across a psychology today article about therapists who also work in porn. You may find it interesting.

FWIW, my WH's 1st IC had a website photo with cleavage down to her belly button. I was never on board with her - she was a very very strange bird (I referred to her as the "booby shrink").

So, talked to my IC today; she was aware of the IG account, but thought it was locked on private. Even if it was a locked account, she thought it was a bit off-putting for someone to be posting such videos and stills. She honestly assumed it was private and was very surprised to hear it was open to anyone to see. She was surprised to hear other therapists were aware of it, and suspects no one has said anything to our couple's therapist. She was dumb-founded when I told her the pole-dancing club's IG had pictures of her on it, meaning, even if you couldn't access her personal IG account, you could see pictures of her on the club's IG account.

She affirmed my feeling of being betrayed and it gave us an opportunity to explore where I felt her professional boundaries came into play with me, which so far have been fine. She passed the smell test for me, for now. She said she was going to talk to the couple's therapist, but not share anything that came up in the context of our appt. today, much less mention my name, and let her know how harmful this behavior is. She did feel like she had an obligation to talk to her, and also said she will not be telling her what H's IC said, either. In fact, our names will not come up at all. She will hold off contacting her until after we have had our termination appt. with her tomorrow.

So yea, it did sort of surprise me that she was aware of the IG account, but she honestly thought it was for subscribers only, and had no reason to suspect it was open for her patients to see. Evidently, our couple's therapist has several IG accounts aside from the two we know about, which are also more on the professional side.

That's just awful. I'm sorry you have to go through all of this.

I wouldn't feel the need to go back. Sorry but this with her knowing your husbands weakness is so out of bounds even by mistake.

I would not attend a termination session. I would just call and cancel the entire appointment and not reschedule. You can go into why if you want, but it really wouldnt help you (it might help her realize she is not smart for posting that stuff online)

I would not ask for money or any compensation. She will get defensive and it would just be a mess (i believe)

I think I wanted to attend a termination session just to see on her face if she attempted any way to justify her behavior.

It happened yesterday. The meeting lasted 15 minutes, after which we got up and walked out. As of this morning, her personal account with all the disturbing images is now private.

However, she never acknowledgement that, all along, this should have been private and locked, and it was a mistake on her behalf, or that she regrets our having seen that, given the nature of what we were seeing her about. Her rationale was several things... one - she's a sex therapist, and feels it's within her realm to break down barriers that lead to a more interesting sex life. She described it as an irreverent way to make people think about sex in more open ways - said it's one of her goals to fight sexism and ageism. She used this word - aggressive - in admitting that her approach might not be for everyone. She repeated a couple of more times that she's a sex therapist, and feels what she's modeling is positive. Toward the end, she did say she was disappointed it was going to end this way, that after she works with a couple for several years, and it ends abruptly, it's painful. You know what.. NONE OF THIS IS ABOUT HER! She is the one with the license and power and she fucked up.

Obviously, she thought twice about it after we left, since that account is now truly private. I did grab about nine pictures on that page before it was taken down, and am in the process of figuring out what I want to say in a complaint to the California Board of Psychology, which is who she's licensed with. I told her she had violated professional boundaries, and that it felt like a betrayal.

Last night as I was trying to go to sleep, I kept thinking about her response, and I just wanted to run outside in our backyard and scream at the top of my lungs.

She didn't do anything to validate your feelings. It sounds like she made it all about her. If she really felt she wasn't doing anything wrong than she perhaps would not have changed the account to private. Very unprofessional behavior on her part.

I think that was very fair of you to have a conversation with her about it. She should have showed some appreciation for that and apologized.

I am so mad she didn't validate and tried to brush off your concerns. Geez.

As Blanche on the Golden Girls would say, I'm stunned, just stunned.

Saw my IC yesterday again. She's had some time to think about the situation and look into things further after our appt. on Monday. I told her the couple's therapist had taken her IG page private, and she applauded me for calling her out, which led to her taking it private. However, my IC is Facebook friends with the couple's therapist, and saw that she posted about the situation on FB, and said she got a lot of support!!! I'll bet a lot of her Facebook friends are people she's met through pole dancing, people who can't see the difference between exercising and being professionally appropriate with patients who have a history of infidelity and voyeurism.

It really hurts that she's getting positive attention for harming us. I was so shocked when my therapist told me (although she is completely on my side), that I didn't ask for specifics of the post. I would like to know how she skewed it to make us look like prudes.

Because my IC and couple's therapist have a professional relationship (although they only see each other a couple of times a year according to my IC), I'm just still having weird feelings about our therapeutic relationship. So I reached out to my old therapist from before we moved 3.5 years ago. We are going to have a FaceTime session next Wednesday. I'm going to pick his brain about what ways I might be able to look at this and approach it with my IC here. I mean, I saw him for over 20 years, and never did I experience anything regarding professional boundaries being crossed the whole time. Same with our couple's therapist we saw before we moved. Their integrity was untouchable.

Sigh...

I can't believe she posted about it on Facebook. So unprofessional.

Seriously? She's something else - not professional at all.

Honestly, a couples counselor having that type of IG and mentioning when your in recovery is very un professional.