The subject of dual relationships in the helping professions has received increased attention over the past years (Borys & Pope, 1989; Koocher & Keith- Spiegel, 1998; Reamer, 2003; Nigro, 2004). Dual relationships may occur in many forms. St. Germaine (1993, 1996) suggests that dual or multiple relationships involve situations in which professionals engage with clients in more than one relationship, whether social, sexual, religious, or business. Kagle and Giebelhause...

HIPAA is a Federal Law establishing rules about health information and must be followed by health plans, certain businesses, doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare providers. HIPAA is intended to eventually streamline healthcare by mandating consistent standards for storing and transmitting health records and claims. In this process, Congress wisely realized the importance of establishing a patients right to privacy, adopting standards for protecting the confidentiality of patient...

Board notifying her of a lengthy complaint from a former client that they were investigating. As she outlined the various complaints and defenses, I told her it sounded as if she might have all but one of them dropped against her.

I told her that the dual relationship charge might be difficult to defend, and she was silent on the other end of the line. She knew she was in trouble here, but for all the wrong reasons. She had befriended the client early on in their relationship,...

In mid-February I was deathly sick, or so it felt. I’d been ill for three weeks with this season’s flu bug—feverish, nauseous, vomiting for a 24-hour stretch, with an intense, continuous headache, and a flaring pain throughout my body. I hated it.  Sickness is so self-absorbing. I was always scanning my illness, hyperconscious of the ongoing flares of my pains and discomforts. I was in constant internal complaint about my inability to escape pain and...

In 1945, AA co-founder Bill Wilson addressed the American Psychological Association’s annual meeting in New York, and received a standing ovation. As he sat down, he was amazed because this group had soundly criticized AA. Bill turned to the president of the APA and said, “I’m surprised that they’re applauding my theories.” To which the president replied, “I don’t think they’re applauding your theories....

One hour before starting to write this article, God sent a new patient my way, John L., a 40-year-old sales rep from Atlanta who was filled with distress. He was in such acute distress, in fact, that I offered him a Klonopin wafer, a medication which would have ended his panic attack within four minutes and kept it away for eight hours. He refused, having a strong desire to "tough it out" without meds until he recovered from therapy alone. "None of my family of origin had...

Stephen Fagan always needed to be in charge. When he bought a house that needed extensive renovations, he oversaw the work himself. He ordered his second wife, Barbara, to say "I love you" into the phone whenever he called. He demanded that she stand in the front window each day and wave until he drove out of sight. This behavior was all part of his carefully constructed world—a world of compulsive control that began falling apart in the spring of 1998. That's when Fagan...

Stephen Fagan always needed to be in charge. When he bought a house that needed extensive renovations, he oversaw the work himself. He ordered his second wife, Barbara, to say "I love you" into the phone whenever he called. He demanded that she stand in the front window each day and wave until he drove out of sight. This behavior was all part of his carefully constructed world—a world of compulsive control that began falling apart in the spring of 1998. That's when Fagan...

What is Psychosis and Who Experiences These Symptoms? The term psychosis, or the presence of psychotic symptoms, implies a gross impairment in reality orientation— toward self, others and the world. Psychotic symptoms may emerge in a number of psychiatric illnesses and medical conditions. 1  Patients who have never exhibited psychotic symptoms may develop symptoms rather slowly or rapidly. In cases where we have an established therapeutic relationship (i.e.—seeing the...

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) or Split Personality, is a challenge to even the most experienced clinician. Patients often experience confusion, fear, suspicion, anger, helplessness, and a myriad of other feelings. Proper diagnosis is often difficult, but the greatest difficulties come in the treatment phase.  The movies “Three Faces of Eve” (1957) and “Sybil” (1973) introduced the...