Psychoanalysis: The Magic and The Lie
Diary of a Five Day A Week Analysis
by Esther Altshul Helfgott, Ph.D.
Nov. 10, 2006 - Naming the Analyst
Friday
10am
In the summer of 2006, I learned, completely by chance, although as a result of my research on psychoanalysis in Seattle,* that the analyst I wrote about in Analytic Entrapment, Richard Carter,** had been sued by a female patient for sexual misconduct. As I write I find it difficult seeing Richard Carter's name in print, at least by my hand. I wrote it myriad times in my diaries over the years, but I never expected that I would reveal his actual name in an essay about my work with him. These things are generally kept confidential, though it is the analyst who is not supposed to reveal the analysand's name, not the other way around. When I first entered analysis with Carter, whom I call Mr. Doctor in the Entrapment essay, in 1990 I did not want to speak his name (as if he were a god). Like a fawning analysand I wanted his name to myself; later, I wanted to protect him. No need for that now.
When I learned about the sexual misconduct suit a few months ago, I was too involved with caring for my husband, who has Alzheimer's, to pay attention to psychoanalytic goings on. Now that he has been safely transitioned to an assisted living facility I am able to come up for enough air so that I may address some major issues in the psychoanalytic community, issues that often lead to egregious behavior, do not serve to protect the discipline and, certainly, do not honor what has been and continues to be my intellectual home, psychoanalysis. For regardless of the mistakes made in the psychoanalytic treatment room, psychoanalytic ideas continue to help me probe and remember my childhood....
... continued for in-print publication ...
* See License to Harm: the Unchecked Problem of Sexual Misconduct By Health-care Professionals, Seattle Times. Tuesday April 25, 2006
** At the time of the 2003 suit, Richard Carter, M.D. was a training analyst and faculty member of the Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (SPSI) and the Northwest Center for Psychoanalysis (NCP) in Seattle. Ethics committees from both organizations reviewed his case, which he lost. According to documents I acquired from the Washington State Department of Health, Public Disclosure Records Center, he is not to see new female patients until 2008. He is to inform those he does see of his misconduct.
copyright2006Esther Altshul Helfgott
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This page was last updated on: January 31, 2007
This entry was posted on January 24, 2007
