Sex Offender As Therapist?!

[BuckarooBanzai]

If he's really changed, I could understand him wanting to work with offenders, to help them make the same change, but someone who really gets that what he did is a crime, and a real problem, would respect victims enough not to trick them into being clients.

Exactly.

I have a number of friends who are therapists. All of them have troubled backgrounds, to one degree or another. All of them have worked through their issues, to the best of their ability. All of them state clearly what their issues were, and still are. All of them went into counseling or psychology in order to 'fix' themselves. All of them, but one, specialize in a sector of the profession that allows them to work with people who have the same issues they themselves fought at one point.

This is responsibility in action.

My brother, on the other hand, hides his crimes and past. He actively lies about what he did. He refuses to work with offender populations and insists on working with populations vulnerable to someone with his past.

This is irresponsibility and shows an incredible lack of integrity. I don't feel good about what he is doing.

but it feels a bit like you've made it your job to make sure he doesn't work as a therapist which, from where I'm sitting, could just leave you with the same wounds never healing.

I am a survivor of CSA. Although my familial perpetrator (not my brother) was well-known to my family, and destroyed many lives in a number of terrible ways, my extended family and parents did nothing about him. He was never even reported to the police. He got away with everything scot-free. He died at the age of 95, with everything he wanted, and no one ever taking him to task.

As a working professional, I caught a young man, one of my students, attempting to rape his mother. It was not his first time. Also, his sister came to me and told me all of the things that he had done to her. I caught him with butcher knives threatening others, had him expose himself to me, have seen him in all sorts of violent, nasty scenarios. His parents, having witnessed much of it directly, protected him. He was never arrested, let alone charged. CPS tried to get at him, but the parents protected him. He never faced justice. His victims, including me, never got justice. He is free and living the good life.

I am TIRED of watching perpetrators get away with the terrible things they do. I am disgusted by people who actively allow them to get away with viciously hurting others.

While I have relatively little power in this world, at least I WILL NOT BE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO IGNORE THE PLIGHT OF VICTIMS and fail to act.

I must do whatever I reasonably can.

What would help me have closure, regarding my brother? Frankly, if he were to state that he had studied to help himself (a good thing), but go on to work in either another profession, or in a sub-speciality of psychology that is not therapy related (research, for instance).

I also agree with @joeylittle, have a conversation with him and mark out all of your concerns with him and maybe he can understand them (since he's a conselor now) and maybe even put some to ease. Such as he's not working with minors, or possibly even still being supervised in some way that you dont know about.

I don't talk with him any more. He lies and manipulate people.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I don't talk with him any more. He lies and manipulate people.

Yeah, when i saw:

In fact, he has castigated me for saying I have PTSD and DID due to CSA. He said my claims and diagnoses prove immaturity on my part, a willingness to blame others, and a failure to take responsibility for my own life.

Sounds like projection, to me.

In addition, he continues to lie about his crimes and conviction.

I was thinking "well, ok, conversing is out"

 

[BuckarooBanzai]

I was advised by my therapist, way back when, to put as much physical and emotional distance between myself and my immediate family as possible. Regarding my parents, in particular, my well-respected Stanford professor emeritus and therapst said, "They weren't good TO you, and they aren't good FOR you."

I am worried that my brother may be a sociopath.

When we were kids, starting when I was 12 y/o, weird things started happening. I came home from school one day to find my bedroom in utter chaos. My pictures were off the walls and on the floor, my bed stripped, every article of clothing had been removed from my drawers and the drawers themselves had been removed from the chest. Every piece of clothing hanging in my closet had not only been thrown on the floor, but someone had taken the time to take every single item off of its hanger. Even my mattress and boxspring had been removed from the bed frame and thrown on the floor.

There was no sign of forced entry in the home. No other area of the home was violated. We never figured out who did this.

This happened three times over a period of a year or two.

Each time, my brother helped me put my room back together. He was kind about it. And why not? He was my best friend.

After my parentectomy, my brother admitted to my mother that he had been the one to do this to me. He said that, even though we were best friends, he secretly hated and despised me. He resented me his whole life.

In my mind, the fact that he could do this and get away with it for some twenty years - more importantly, that he was able to do this to me while walling off his feelings and leading me to believe he was my best friend - paired with his sexual abuse of minors and, again, his ability to wall off his negative affect and trick others...sounds like a possible sociopath to me.

Ben

 

[BuckarooBanzai]

Sorry for all the posting and such. I just had to get it all out.

I am exhausted.

Ben

 

[Stickler]

I do agree with one thing...the guy's not your responsibility.
Suzetig is right.

I do really applaud you for going above and beyond to protect others from what he might do.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I think that you have really done your best to do the right thing regarding your brothers actions. I am so sorry that you have this going on in your family.

It has been really enlightening to me about how vulnerable I have been with therapists in the past.

One was a male and really horrendous and I cut him off pretty fast, but your brother sounds like he is a real con artist. I hate to see him get away with this but I do think that you must surely need some kind of resolution and closure about this problem.

I admire you for the steps you have taken to do the right thing.

I am so glad that you are aware to not be found stalking him nor harrassing him. I think that you have done so much good for others, you have no idea of the impact that you have made on innocent and naive lives.

I have a nephew who is in San Quentin for lighting a major arson fire in the mountains which killed five people and he is on death row now. So I do have an inkling of your situation. I remember seeing him on the news when he went to court.

I am concerned more for you now. You said you are exhausted. I believe you. I would hate to see him doing what he is doing if he was my brother. For what it is worth, I sincerely hope that you do have resolution and closure with this ugly situation.:hug:

 

[BuckarooBanzai]

Gizmo, thanks for your support. You don't know how much it means to hear (or read) kind words.

I sincerely hope that you do have resolution and closure with this ugly situation.

Now, this is going to sound truly awful.

My mother is attached to my brother at the hip. She listens and believes everything he says, even more so now that he has just graduated with his doctorate in counseling.

He tells her that I must be mentally unstable to claim I was sexually abused as a child, and that my claims and past diagnoses of PTSD and DID mean I am irresponsible, blaming others for my troubles, etc.., even though I am now healed (relatively speaking; is anyone ever?) and no longer have these diagnoses.

He has control over all of her bank accounts and investments, because she has listed him as a co-owner on every single account. Instead of writing a will, she has left it to him to decide how to distribute funds to his siblings after she passes away.

So, in a strange way, he controls me through my mother. It doesn't feel good. I want him out of my life, but I can't manage that as long as I maintain a relationship with my mother.

Ben

 

[Deleted member 12723]

You are welcome.

What an ugly situation that is happening so very intensely complicated. This must be so stressful for you to see him getting away with so much and that he has power and control over you in this insidious fashion through your mom.

I can sort of see where this is going perhaps? I think he is getting you back in making you out to be the liar and crazy one putting a wedge between you and your mom and what a total bastard he is. Thank you for sharing this. I do not envy you at all in this situation.:hug:

I think you keep on getting sucker punched. Many hugs of support to you.:hug:

 

[scout86]

I don't have any great suggestions. Somewhere....I have a biological brother a little like that (not a sex offender, I don't think.) Our parents are dead. There was a certain amount of ugliness before the end. I never saw a good path through it.

But, on the subject of things a person could do, I think it would be handy if Psychology Today had a prominent blurb, explaining the differences between the different ţypes of therapist and a warning about some of the reasons you might want to go with a licensed one. And concerned person might even want to suggest the idea to them.

 

[Stickler]

Wow, that's nasty, Ben...
Yeah. That guy is not ok. I mean, I was kind of hoping he'd turned over a new leaf? But no. He's still a con artist.

 

[void]

Dear @BuckarooBanzai

I think we'd all agree that you are an honorable man that has already done our society a great service by thwarting Him as much as possible.
Our world would be a better place if there were more people with the dedication you exemplify toward protecting the innocent.
Thank you for being such a good man.:hug:

You pain, disgust, determination and fear are palpable and understandable.
You are very close to all of this and though you have great clarity, I don't believe you have total clarity.
Because you are so kind and generous of heart, I think you want to retain hope that your brother can somehow be redeemed....that there is hope for him.

There is NO HOPE.

Your brother is 100% pure Sociopath/Psychopath.
He will NEVER EVER change.

I urge you to face this...it will really hurt.

I have lived my entire life around several men EXACTLY like him....I KNOW them inside and out.
My 'mentor' was one.:cry::mad::cry: He has abused hundreds....NO consequences:cry::mad::cry:. He still is.....

The lies, the manipulations...so subtle, so ruthless....always working the angles....everything is a lie(sprinkled with just enough truth).

Let any doubt go....his pursuit of this career is EXCLUSIVELY to access more victims....he will NEVER stop....he is a predator through and through.
Only 2 things stop these men....a cage or a flat line.

His pursuit of this career and its techniques/knowledge have turned him into a SuperPredator....now he will stalk his prey with fully conscious technical precision and finesse as he lures them into danger.

:cry::cry::cry:pls know that I know that this all has been an unending nightmare for you....may you find peace.:hug:

 

[lostforgottensoul]

After my parentectomy, my brother admitted to my mother that he had been the one to do this to me. He said that, even though we were best friends, he secretly hated and despised me. He resented me his whole life.

He could be a psych/sociopath but in my option, the room doesnt show that. It may show an angry teenager that resented a sibling (many do) that then felt bad about it later and showed empathy. These words are very important. Pschopaths and sociopaths dont feel bad and are incapable of feeling empathy, at all. Not low empathy, no empathy.

There are many mental disorders that have low empathy as a symptom, NPD being just one of the many.

I think its dangerous to name someone, by yourself, as a pschopath or sociopath as there is a dignosic manual for that. I didnt start calling my mom & step dad psycopaths until my therapist did.

He is, though, a predator, an abuser, and a pedophile and that should never be forgotten.

I appauld your efforts, I do. See something say something. I get that you dont want to turn your back on a potiental victim but you have advised many MANY outlets of his past and i do think this can become obsessive where all of your focus is on stopping him and none of your focus is on you, where it should be.

Again, as a fellow person with a pedophile in the family, i get it, i do. When my nephew gets out of prison i can see myself going insane to try fo warn everyone but in reality that isnt rational that i even could, most especially when i have no contact with him (and i dont, or with his mom, my half sister).

Try to shift some focus back on yourself a bit as i can see this as somewhat unhealthy.

Just my 2 cents.