You went to therapy hoping to help work through issues and better yourself. Instead, your therapist exploited your trust and groomed you for a sexual relationship. You can hold them liable for this egregious violation.
Our Indianapolis therapist abuse lawyers, working with attorneys licensed in Indiana, are here to support you in whatever way we can. Call Jenner Law today for a free, confidential consultation.
How Therapists Can Prevent an Abusive Environment
Therapists hold a lot of power in a therapeutic relationship. They have the responsibility to do everything they can to avoid mishandling that power and harming a client. Most therapists take this responsibility seriously, creating and maintaining boundaries and protecting a client’s vulnerability.
Therapists can prevent an abusive environment by creating a “therapeutic container” (i.e., a set of boundaries) that might include:
- Physical distance during sessions
- No physical contact
- Not volunteering information about their personal life
- Not requesting information about the client’s sexual relationships, unless it’s therapeutic
- No contact outside of sessions
Some therapists will subtly breach these boundaries while others fail to create them entirely.
For a free legal consultation with a therapist sexual abuse lawyer call,
(888) 585-2188
Your Options if Your Therapist Abused You in Indianapolis
If your therapist breached your boundaries and groomed you for an exploitative sexual relationship and then abandoned you, you deserve justice. Our Indianapolis therapist sexual abuse lawyers can help you hold them liable for any harm you sustained.
While we’ll seek justice for you, we’ll also recover compensation for anything the abuse cost you. This could include:
- Medical bills
- Lost wages
- Lost earning capacity
- Miscellaneous expenses
- Pain and suffering
While no amount of money will make up for what happened to you, we will fight for every last dollar you deserve.
How Abuse Happens in a Therapeutic Space
As stated above, therapy requires a lot of trust and vulnerability. During interactions with a therapist, a client may experience what is called “transference.” This is when a client transfers feelings they have about someone in their personal life onto their therapist.
Transference is a totally normal part of therapy and does not mean the client wanted a relationship or consented to this abuse.
Therapists receive training to manage transference and use it within the therapeutic space if it would help the client. Most therapists do this. However, there are some who encourage those feelings and/or develop countertransference (a complementary response to the client’s feelings). Therapists may allow countertransference to dictate how they interact with a client.
Therapists should never act on their feelings for a client. A relationship between a therapist and client is immoral and can have an extremely detrimental effect on the client and their mental health. This is especially true if the therapist then abandons the client.
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What Our Trauma-Informed Legal Team Will Do for You
You have experienced serious trauma. Not all lawyers, even those who truly want to help survivors, know how to interact with trauma survivors. We want to make sure that we do everything we possibly can to ensure you feel safe, secure, and seen with us. That’s why two of our attorneys and one of our paralegals received specialized training on how to offer trauma-informed legal help.
We Strive to Make You Feel Safe and Empowered
First things first, we’ll ensure that you know you are safe, seen, heard, and believed. Many survivors don’t come forward or get legal help because they think they won’t be believed. We believe you. We ensure that all the language (including our body language) we use supports that.
Our Advocates Meet You Where You Are
We also meet you where you are. We know that trauma can affect your memory and make it difficult to process and retain information, so we can determine the best way to give you that information to allow you to better understand and remember it.
We Recognize Trauma Responses
Everyone responds differently to trauma. Responses can include:
- Anger
- Screaming and cursing
- Crying
- Speaking very quickly
- Not making eye contact
- Showing no emotion at all, flat affect
- Speaking very articulately
Trauma responses can be confusing for those who don’t understand them. They can lead a well-meaning attorney to accidentally trigger a survivor which could worsen their mental health or cause them to shut down entirely. We want to do everything we can to avoid causing you further harm, so we keep a careful eye on you when discussing your experience. We can encourage you to take a break or to revisit the experience later.
And unfortunately, a trauma response can be used against a survivor who isn’t showing the “expected” response. The other party can claim that you aren’t affected if you aren’t showing the “typical” signs that people associate with trauma.
Our team understands that, so we can prepare you for tactics the other party might use. We can create a mock trial and run through what could happen. We will also examine your trauma response to see where the other side may attempt to poke holes in your story. We’ll explain how trauma responses work to ensure that your normal reaction to the abuse you suffered isn’t used against you.
We Manage Communication With the Other Party
We will do everything we can to avoid you having to speak with or see the other party. We will manage communication so you aren’t retraumatized by having to interact with your abuser.
We Fight for Every Cent You Need
Your abuse is not something we can put a dollar amount on. However, we know that you need compensation to cover your expenses and losses and begin your journey toward healing. Our Indianapolis therapist sexual abuse lawyers will seek justice and everything you deserve.
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Call Our Trauma-Informed Therapist Sexual Abuse Lawyers for Help Today
Our Indianapolis therapist sexual abuse lawyers are dedicated to getting you the justice you deserve after suffering abuse by your therapist. You are our priority, and you can trust that we will fight for you.
We handle cases on a contingency-fee basis. This means you pay us nothing upfront for our help and only pay our attorney’s fees if and when we recover compensation for you.
Call Jenner Law for a free, confidential consultation today.
Call or text (888) 585-2188 or complete a Free Case Evaluation form