[Disclaimer: I have used aliases to protect the confidentiality and identity of clients or patients. No other names have been changed.]

The year was 2000, and life was going great for me. I was successful in all areas of my life. I had been living with the love of my life, Lynn, as husband and wife for several years now. This was evidence of success for me.

To be loved and to love another person was part of what I had always wanted in life.

I had the career that was meant for me as well. It was only through hard work that I had achieved this success. I never took for granted all that I had accomplished. Sixteen years ago in 1984, I would not have considered social work because I had been so shy and as a result, I lacked social skills. That was a lifetime ago.

I had come so far. Everything felt right. Now. At this moment! In the early spring of 2000. I had no idea that things were about to change.

I had a client base that was large enough to keep me busy forty, fifty, or more hours per week. That was okay, I loved the work.

It might seem surprising that someone like me who has a great deal of empathy would feel "good" when I am spending time with people who are dealing with severe depression, for example. I could resonate with others and their feelings and experiences. I felt with others what they were feeling and experiencing.

However, it does feel good to know that you are helping another person to cope with psychological problems like major depression.

So, yes, it feels "good" to spend time with people who are dealing with negative emotions... if you can help them.

The Importance of My Role

I would reflect upon my role as a mental health professional and the importance of that role in the lives of others.

If someone came for family therapy or couple's counseling, I felt like I had a solemn role in the family or in the relationships between two people. A couple was paying me to help them to live in harmony and to have a healthy relationship with one another.

That responsibility or the importance of the role I played might seem more obvious to a layperson when dealing with serious psychiatric conditions or disorders. However, it never occurred to me that one client's issues were more important than anyone else's.

The next statement will make sense to consider in light of later events in my life.

I remembered a particular conversation I had with a young woman who had anorexia, named Anne Marie. I had described this previously. I was meeting with her parents and her. I explained that a medical doctor should be the primary person that they contact about her health. I explained that I wanted to be helpful, and I supported Anne Marie, but her physical health is outside my area of expertise. and so all medical matters that concerned them must be discussed with their doctor, not with me.

I had known that my role and my billable hours with her would decrease as a result of this, but Anne Marie's health was so very important.

I knew that despite her starving herself, she wanted to live a life that was meaningful, and I hoped she would continue to see me from time to time for individual therapy, and she could and was invited to come to the groups I was having for persons with eating disorders, which she found very agreeable.

I had so many different clients, dozens of them with different problems, issues, or disorders. Each of them had invested in me a solemn responsibility to care for their mental and physical health - their health and psyche as it were. It was a solemn responsibility indeed.

The past few chapters have focused on Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) as a trauma disorder and the role I played in providing treatment to persons who presented with symptoms of DID. This represented only a small fraction of the time I spent each week in therapy with people.

I have put additional focus on this particular disorder because of the unique characteristics of the disorder at least in terms of what the general public thinks about psychiatric disorders.

I have previously described the problems that I had discovered when I learned that psychotherapists were spreading conspiracy theories.

To say that my colleagues across America had some unusual beliefs about what had been done to their clients who had DID is putting it mildly.

Neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris came out with a book called "The End of Faith" in which he presents many of his beliefs that form the basis for his choice to embrace atheism.

During the years I spent with Lynn, I noticed that she was the touchstone of morality for me, and yet she was opposed to any of the symbols and terminology that makes up religious doctrine. For example, she didn't like the term "sin."

For me, I was beginning to align my beliefs with Lynn who had doubted that a loving God could have allowed innocent children to be born with a chronic, fatal illness. I noticed that Lynn had an open mind even though she did not embrace any religious faith.

My faith had been rooted in love, compassion, and empathy. That never changed even when I turned away from religious ideas.

I was beginning to think that, indeed, science might be the only tool for understanding reality. I could trust what my senses told me. That would be it!

I had at one point told Lynn that God was real and factually known and not a part of our beliefs and faith. That was such a naïve and irrational statement to make!

Religious ideas also lead people in America to embrace conspiracy theories about satanic cults, despite there being no evidence that could support a belief in these things. It seemed like the nation was being rocked by a mass delusion.

Religion seemed to inspire people to believe things without sufficient evidence and to see the world in black and white categories.

I respect the beliefs of others even if I do not share those beliefs.

I'm not sure what to call a person like John Freifeld. He was charismatic and persuasive. He looked like Charles Manson. Later, a woman named Ruth Parris would describe his charisma by saying that "if he said the sky was pink, she would see it that way," and it sounded like she was being literal. Ruth was never a client of mine, but she was a friend. So, let's call him a pseudo-therapist.

As I stated previously, by John's own admission, he had no specialized training, no credentials, and no college degree. As of June of 2000, I had not had any contact with John in about a month or so. The situation with Tracy had so disgusted me that I could not speak to him at all.

Jessica had long ago admitted that he had deceived people into thinking he was a therapist. I mean, I got the impression that he wasn't denying that with her.

Other than Sadie and Jessica, it seemed that those clients who had DID were getting worse. I should clarify that Tracy who left the area did not seem to have DID.

At some point, I discussed the problem with my colleagues. I was the president of the local chapter of the Society of Clinical Social Workers. Chris Hauge, my mentor was at this meeting.

I didn't really have to go into much detail about what I was observing. I just said that I knew that he was not trained in the field, that I felt he was doing what would be considered "therapy" and that I noticed that people seemed to be getting worse.

The advice I got was to tell them that if they want to keep seeing me they MUST stop getting therapy from John!

Based on a review of the book, this is not a sentiment that is obvious to every layperson. It was obvious to John's sister when I spoke to her in 2020 before this book was reviewed and without me having reviewed nearly as much as I have just recounted to you, dear reader.

A website was created to warn people not to trust people like John - there were others who were practicing without credentials. Patt Stubbs had started a website called HIP - Hazards on the Internet and Protection. I had found on one of John's websites his attacks on Patt and HIP.

She was now the target of his attacks along with others.

HIP was a website established to help inform people about people online (therapists) who were making false claims about their expertise, training, education, or credentials. Indeed, according to Patt, there were others who were providing therapy online, who were announcing their services online who were misrepresenting themselves.

I did find out that there were what seemed like a number of people who had been treated by John.

On one of John's websites, he attacks all those he sees as conspiring with Patt Stubbs and HIP. That includes me, Patt Stubbs, Ruth Parris, who I would later meet, Christine Brandon, and Stephanie Bryant.

Patt had shared a story about how Christine and Stephanie had gone to John's "Treatment Center" in Virginia where he had announced that he had a nurse on staff which was his girlfriend whose credentials were questionable. I never tried to verify who she was or what her credentials were.

At about this time, I had learned that John was reaching out to other clients of mine. Anne was a client of mine who had problems unrelated to DID. She told me in late July that she had been out to the home where John was living.

I asked her, "why did you go there?"

"He said he wanted to tell me about you and why I shouldn't trust you," she answered.

"So, you didn't know him?" I asked.

"No, but he seemed like a guy who belonged here, at your office?" she answered.

I was still trying to wrap my mind around what it was about John that had people trusting him at all.

"So, you went to where he was living?" I asked.

"Yes, Jessica was there and a few other women," she said.

Then she added, "It's like a damn treatment center."

"What do you mean, it's just a home?" I asked.

"Well, they have a room for working through anger issues related to their trauma. They have a plastic bat, a bean bag, an inflatable punching bag."

My intuition seemed correct from the bits and pieces of information I was hearing, it seemed like he was trying to set up something like a treatment facility at Jessica's home.

It didn't seem at all farfetched that he had been doing this previously, that he had held himself out as a therapist. When I say he had done this previously, I mean that the claims that he had invited people to a treatment facility in Virginia seemed entirely plausible.

I talked to Lynn about my concerns, and I said, "I feel like I should do something to help these people or at least to have someone look into these matters. Patt had said that I would be credible to the authorities and others who could look into this – like the licensure boards for clinical social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists.

My wife, Lynn had said to me, "don't get involved, you could get hurt."

I thought, "what can he do to me?"

In fact, there was nothing I could do and nothing that I did do. Everything I knew was confidential information from therapy sessions and I couldn't share that with anyone.