Criminalising professional misconduct: Legislative regulation of psychotherapist‐patient sex

The move to criminalise sexual misconduct by psychotherapists is neither new nor driven solely by consumer groups. More than 20 years ago Masters and Johnson (1976) argued that sexual relationships between patients and therapists should make the therapist criminally liable for rape, irrespective of whether the patient had consented. A recent trend in the United States that is increasingly receiving attention in Australia is the move to explicitly and specifically criminalise this form of professional misconduct via the introduction of ‘sexual exploitation’ statutes. These statutes typically prohibit sexual contact between psychotherapists (usually defined to include psychiatrists and other medical practitioners and psychologists) and their patients, and provide criminal penalties for psychotherapists who engage in this behaviour. This legislative development has been part of a package of reforms introduced in recent years to deal with the sexual misconduct of psychotherapists; other initiatives include th...

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