Sex on the couch: The therapists who abuse their clients' trust

When Jo Adams was referred to the counsellor at her GP's surgery, she expected to be given help for her severe depression. But that was not all she received. During the six sessions, her counsellor paid her a number of suggestive compliments. In her desperately ill state, they gave her a boost. "They put me on a false high, even though I'm happily married," says the 35-year-old, who works in sales. "He made me laugh when I was suicidal. I felt I couldn't do without him and if he went out of my life I would go back to the hell of depression I had known."

When the sessions ended, she wrote to him to express her gratitude for helping her. For several months the pair exchanged letters. The counsellor, who was 20 years her senior, poured out his troubled personal life. One day he turned up at her doorstep and they embarked on a four-month relationship. As they kissed and cuddled, he would try to pressurise her into having sex, though she always refused. "It was all very manipulative," she says. "He kept saying it was OK, but I knew it wasn't. I felt powerless. I was very vulnerable. I was so ill, and saw this man as a way out of my depression. I thought I loved him."

Ms Adams had a breakdown and told her husband. It was the first time in 20 years that she had seen him cry. She told the counsellor it had to stop, and a month later, following another mental collapse, she told a doctor at her surgery what had happened. "I was even more depressed than when I had gone to see [the counsellor]," says Ms Adams. "I was suicidal again and had to have someone with me for 24 hours a day for nine months. I blamed myself for a long time. I had a lot of self-hatred. It put my recovery back at least three years." Two years later, she is still on medication.

The charity Witness, which supports people who have been abused by health and care workers, believes the problem of sexual abuse by counsellors to be so serious that earlier this spring it held a conference on the subject, called Broken Boundaries: Sexual and Non-Sexual Boundary Violations in the Psychological Therapies.

"There is a lack of awareness and attention to the issue on the part of practitioners and professional bodies," says the charity's chief executive, Jonathan Coe.

"If a therapist is struck off they are legally still allowed to practice. So for even the worst offences there is currently no enforceable sanction. At the moment anyone can set up as a therapist, even without training or experience."

The only UK study of therapist-patient sexual conduct found that 3.5 per cent of therapists admitted sexual contact with patients. However, Birmingham psychologists Drs Tanya Garrett and John Davis, who conducted the survey of 581 clinical psychologists, think the true figure may well be higher. Almost a quarter of the respondents reported having treated a patient who had been sexually involved with previous therapists. And nearly two-fifths knew of other clinical psychologists who had had sex with patients. "We know that it's likely that reported levels of abuse by professionals are lower than the actual levels," says Dr Garrett, who estimates the real figure to more likely be 6 or 7 per cent.