- Dec 20, 2018
- 43
- 34
- 60
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Catholic
- Marital Status
- Divorced
I am looking for suggestions on where I might submit an article for publication. I am feeling led to write about my experiences dealing with Christian counseling in the effort to save my marriage.
In a nutshell my wife became addicted to the internet and started showing various symptoms of mental illness. We learned that she was having an inappropriate online relationship with someone in another country and was secretly planning to travel there. I was scared and knew next to nothing about mental health at that time. I wanted to keep her safe and to save my marriage, so I contacted a well-known national Christian counseling organization to try and find someone who could help her.
One of the people they referred to me offered to come to my home and lead an intervention with guaranteed results.....for $6000. When I refused he offered to cut his price to $3800. Eventually I was referred to a counselor who had previously worked in a mental hospital, which I thought would make him well-qualified to help her. He pushed her to start taking psych meds, and in fact referred her to a physician he knew who would prescribe them to her. The meds made her worse. They had made her even crazier and then dumped her back in my lap, and nobody wanted to talk to me because crazy people won't sign HIPAA releases.
Not long afterwards this counselor informed us that he had taken another job and was moving out of state. He referred my spouse to a former colleague. Unbeknownst to me that woman had a practice specializing in the counseling of abused women. I was shocked one day when my wife left me a note, packed-up, drove 1000 miles away and filed for a divorce. I was further shocked when the divorce paperwork filed with the court included an affidavit from this doctor claiming that she had been the victim of "adult emotional abuse". I had NEVER done anything to abuse my wife in our 25-year marriage, nor had she ever complained to me about any behavior that she deemed to be so.
Needless to say that baseless accusation made our divorce far more complicated, and has had a serious negative impact on my life. After hearing a caller to the Dr. Laura show with a similar tale, I am more convinced than ever that my ex-spouse got the idea to accuse me of being an abuser from her counselor. I am not saying that the counselor intended to do this. Only that either my ex is a good enough liar that she convinced these people she had been abused (which they really should be on-guard against if they are going to work in that specialty) or she merely was inspired to do this by the fact that her counselor had such a practice.
The basic problem as I see it is that current law and privacy arguments shield these counselors from having any accountability for their work. This has to change. Once things went south everybody hunkered down behind privacy arguments and refused to address my complaints.
Okay, I get it. Nobody would pursue or accept counseling without a guarantee of privacy. But no rights are absolute. It has famously been said that your rights end where my nose begins, and I was quite literally run through the gears of a machine here and spit out with not a lick of concern.
As part of a drive to bring about change I am thinking of writing an article about my experience. I am looking for a Christian publisher who would be willing to publish my words without sugar coating them or tamping anything down in the name of protecting Christian counselors. I have some harsh things to say, and they need to be said. I will not however be naming any names, as I am determined to show the sort of concern and respect for the reputations of these people that they never showed for mine.
If I were to shop this to a secular publication my fear is that they would use it as just one more club in their hand to beat-down Christianity in general. So I am trying to thread the needle with someone who would be willing to publish honest criticism in the spirit with which it is intended.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
In a nutshell my wife became addicted to the internet and started showing various symptoms of mental illness. We learned that she was having an inappropriate online relationship with someone in another country and was secretly planning to travel there. I was scared and knew next to nothing about mental health at that time. I wanted to keep her safe and to save my marriage, so I contacted a well-known national Christian counseling organization to try and find someone who could help her.
One of the people they referred to me offered to come to my home and lead an intervention with guaranteed results.....for $6000. When I refused he offered to cut his price to $3800. Eventually I was referred to a counselor who had previously worked in a mental hospital, which I thought would make him well-qualified to help her. He pushed her to start taking psych meds, and in fact referred her to a physician he knew who would prescribe them to her. The meds made her worse. They had made her even crazier and then dumped her back in my lap, and nobody wanted to talk to me because crazy people won't sign HIPAA releases.
Not long afterwards this counselor informed us that he had taken another job and was moving out of state. He referred my spouse to a former colleague. Unbeknownst to me that woman had a practice specializing in the counseling of abused women. I was shocked one day when my wife left me a note, packed-up, drove 1000 miles away and filed for a divorce. I was further shocked when the divorce paperwork filed with the court included an affidavit from this doctor claiming that she had been the victim of "adult emotional abuse". I had NEVER done anything to abuse my wife in our 25-year marriage, nor had she ever complained to me about any behavior that she deemed to be so.
Needless to say that baseless accusation made our divorce far more complicated, and has had a serious negative impact on my life. After hearing a caller to the Dr. Laura show with a similar tale, I am more convinced than ever that my ex-spouse got the idea to accuse me of being an abuser from her counselor. I am not saying that the counselor intended to do this. Only that either my ex is a good enough liar that she convinced these people she had been abused (which they really should be on-guard against if they are going to work in that specialty) or she merely was inspired to do this by the fact that her counselor had such a practice.
The basic problem as I see it is that current law and privacy arguments shield these counselors from having any accountability for their work. This has to change. Once things went south everybody hunkered down behind privacy arguments and refused to address my complaints.
Okay, I get it. Nobody would pursue or accept counseling without a guarantee of privacy. But no rights are absolute. It has famously been said that your rights end where my nose begins, and I was quite literally run through the gears of a machine here and spit out with not a lick of concern.
As part of a drive to bring about change I am thinking of writing an article about my experience. I am looking for a Christian publisher who would be willing to publish my words without sugar coating them or tamping anything down in the name of protecting Christian counselors. I have some harsh things to say, and they need to be said. I will not however be naming any names, as I am determined to show the sort of concern and respect for the reputations of these people that they never showed for mine.
If I were to shop this to a secular publication my fear is that they would use it as just one more club in their hand to beat-down Christianity in general. So I am trying to thread the needle with someone who would be willing to publish honest criticism in the spirit with which it is intended.
Does anyone have any suggestions?