I’m not a licensed psychiatrist, but I’m fairly certain this a terrible, terrible way to treat a victim of abuse.
You know who else is about to not be a licensed psychiatrist either? Steven Schachter of Montreal.
He came up with a radical idea to treat a guy who came to his office seeking anxiety and panic attacks. The patient believed his problems stemmed from being abused as a child.
Schachter’s idea? Make the man take off his pants and slap his ass, while yelling “feel the shame” and “feel the guilt.”
Not sure how that was supposed to work. From the Regina Leader Post:
It was the client’s strained relationship with his father that led Schachter to suggest a new “therapeutic method” to address the lingering guilt from his childhood. Though he’d initially refused to be spanked by Schachter, the patient eventually accepted to undergo the “treatment” in September 2013.
Throughout these sessions, the patient was placed on his hands and knees as Schachter slapped him. On one occasion he hit the patient with a piece of wood — just as the patient’s father had done years back — according to the tribunal.
The client allegedly cried during a few of the spankings and believed he deserved the pain just as he had during his childhood when his father beat him.
Schachter was initially suspended after his patient lodged a complaint. This week, a three-member tribunal found him guilty of engaging in sexually abusive practices with a patient.
He could lose his license or be fined.