I (23M) started therapy today, hooray!
Only problem is, my family is too goddamn spicy. Once I got into my brother’s (25M) increasingly homicidal fantasies and animal killings, she stopped me before I mentioned the threats he made to kill people and told me that she is a mandated reporter and has an obligation to report certain situations to the authorities.
I think adding police to the equation will make everything worse and immediately paint a target on my back because I am the only one who would ever disclose the violence that happens under this roof. It might result in me being homeless if I have to flee for my life. I live in Ohio and it’s the middle of winter, so not a great start.
I wanted to work with a therapist because I grew up in this place and it traumatized me so badly that I’m scared of leaving this dump. How much will I have to tiptoe around here? Is merely being afraid that someone will use violence against me reportable? What about if they fantasize about murder and domestic terrorism? What about violent crimes that they committed in the past? Or specific threats in the present?
Is therapy just not the right fit for this kind of thing? Did I end up with a heavy duty “fuck you” problem and therapy is just for “I feel sad sometimes” problems? It feels like bullshit to have to self-censor so much just because things were harder for me. How is throwing cops at the problem supposed to help when there is no universal basic sustenance or housing for the victims to escape to?
What are your experiences with mandated reporting, and how do you avoid triggering it?
Professionals are required by law, depending on state but I presume all of them, to report credible violence threats. Like if you say you plan on killing someone. Or someone else says that about someone. Or an abusive person is reasonably going to hurt someone. No doubt reactionary laws where professional ethics prevented doctors and physciatrists from reporting clients that later went on to hurt people.
The way to prevent that would be to remove the reasonable fear of harm to others. Then instill a reasonable fear that disclosing the information could cause harm, and a lawsuit and professional ethics complaint. But veil that one don’t come right out with it.
If a professional is required by law to make these reports, and makes you aware of these duties at the start of your care, then there is no valid ethics complaint and no violation of trust. The therapist must tell you in their informed consent about these limits to confidentiality and should have done so before any personal information was disclosed to them.
While there is a potential of some harm due to this disclosure, therapists are not in a position to investigate and determine if abuse / credible threats of violence occurred and are explicitly not supposed to do so. They are supposed to make a report and allow other state agencies to investigate. If OPs family ended up hurting someone and the therapist was drawn into legal proceedings, they could equally be sued for having this information and not following their duty to warn.
OP, these issues do belong in therapy and you should be able to get support for them.
Yeah you are right idk about scaring the therapist off honestly, the courts would always side with the therapist sharing information every time honestly, and the therapist would know that.