Couple Sues Psychiatrist, Claim He Hit On Wife.

By D.L. BENNETT www.ajc.com

An Alpharetta couple who sought out a psychiatrist to help their 4-year-old son contend they were emotionally victimized by their therapist's efforts to break up their marriage and seduce the wife.

Beverly Wilhelm contends in a lawsuit filed late last month in Fulton County State Court that Dr. Jonathan Lauter's improper advances drove her to depression. Her husband, Madison Wilhelm, alleges Lauter preyed upon his insecurities in therapy sessions.

The couple's lawyer, William G. Quinn of Decatur, said the case represents a horrific violation of trust even though Lauter and Beverly Wilhelm never had sex."In this case, my client came to me feeling decimated emotionally and betrayed," Quinn said. "Psychiatric literature confirms that when a patient feels they have been exploited by a trusted professional therapist that the psychological consequences are very similar to incest or child molestation."

Lauter, who moved to New York in 2006, was practicing in Roswell at the time. He acknowledged the Wilhelms were his patients and that Beverly Wilhelm confessed her love for him during a therapy session but said he did nothing wrong."I have no idea what this is all about," Lauter said Thursday in a phone interview from New York. "I've never even been sued before."

The psychiatrist emphasized that "there wasn't even a touch between us."The case highlights the potential dangers that can occur when people in crisis seek help from doctors, lawyers, therapists, ministers and others.

Dr. Spencer Eth of New York, past chairman of the ethics committee of the American Psychiatric Association, said the power a psychiatrist can develop over a client is so strong that APA ethics rules say its never appropriate for a therapist to have a romantic relationship with even a former client.

"What we are really talking about is exploitation," Eth said in a telephone interview. "Our ethics are very clear on what we should and should not do."Dr. Glen Gabbard, a psychiatrist with the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston said at a recent Manhattan conference reported on by the New York Post that about 12 percent of therapists admit to sexual contact with patients. Many who cross the line are "the last person we would expect," he said. There's a Web site, psychwatch.blogspot.com, devoted solely to cataloging "psychiatrists behaving badly."

And, Eth said, psychiatrists are trained to be wary of transference, when a patient in crisis falls for the counselor, and counter-transference, when the therapist becomes attached to the patient.

The topic has even become the focus of HBO's new show, "In Treatment," about a psychoanalyst who falls in love with an attractive female patient.The lawsuit doesn't contend that Lauter consummated the relationship, just that he took advantage of a confused patient by pushing her toward romance, even pursuing her from afar after he moved.

The suit claims the Wilhelms went to Lauter in August 2005 thinking their son had issues adapting to a new sibling. The therapist saw them for about six months before deciding he no longer needed to treat the boy. By early 2006, Lauter began couples counseling for the Wilhelms and eventually individual sessions for both.

By April 2006, Beverly Wilhelm confessed to Lauter she had fallen in love with him, the suit says."Beverly, you have to know that I feel the same way about you. Nothing exists in a vacuum," the suit contends Lauter told her. The suit alleges Wilhelm wanted to break off therapy, but Lauter convinced her to continue the relationship.

Lauter "had targeted her and had embarked upon a plan to sexually seduce and exploit her in order to meet the defendant's own personal sexual and emotional needs," the suit states.
The suit contends that in June 2006 he told Wilhelm, "I would love to make love to you. I have always been attracted to you. I saw doors opening when you told me how you felt."

Lauter moved to New York in August 2006 but continued to call her in Alpharetta, including an invitation to rendezvous in New York; the contacts continued through July 2007, when Lauter told Wilhelm he no longer matched her feelings, the suit says.

"Rather than strengthen her marriage, and increasing her self-esteem, the defendant caused the plaintiff to feel unworthy, depressed, isolated and at times suicidal," according to the suit.
It further claims Lauter was counseling her husband, in part, because of stress from a prior marriage that ended after unfaithfulness. Rather than helping him, Lauter was trying to undermine the couple's marriage, the suit maintains.