I am addressing this to the HIPAA compliance officer, David Olsen Executive Director, my former therapist, and also Jenness Clairmont the Clinical Director at the time.

I am asking you for a meaningful response to my complaint about 12-step coercion on notpowerless.com and your apparent portrayal of me as being not worth speaking to for various reasons (I didn’t use a stamp, I have a ‘personality disorder’, I drank alcohol, my complaint letter about the harmfulness of ‘addiction treatment’ was somehow ‘harassment’, etc).

I am also asking you for my records.

If James Garrett has not shared his records with you as I requested, I am happy to share them with you so that I can have the discussion with XXXX as agreed upon a year and a half ago. I know it took me a few $110 meetings and I was talked out of getting my records from him several times. When I did finally get them from him, it was apparent that there was significant miscommunication going on between you and him about the nature of his services and agreements made.

My intention was to escape ‘addiction treatment’, not to be referred back to it again and again. This lack of response landed me in a psychiatric ward where I was given anti-psychotics to ‘help me stop obsessing about it’ and was told that I somehow broke boundaries with my therapist (asking me questions like “oh, you touched her?”) I am insulted and disgusted by your treatment of me. I did nothing wrong in therapy except open my heart to be told I’m defective and insane.

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Hello,

I have not received any response to this so I am attempting to contact anyone I can at Samaritan and Samaritan Institute Centers country-wide. This is not a personal contact (as I was banned from any personal contact with anyone at the center or its affiliates – I assume this means any Samaritan Institute accredited agency – by David Olsen and Jenness Clairmont after not using a stamp to deliver my letter of concern). This is a sincere business inquiry regarding my concerns about HIPAA violations, censorship, and 12-step coercion. I release my records to anyone who receives this e-mail, because I actually want to discuss this and think that you have a fiduciary responsibility to not censor my feedback.

Was there some administration error that explains why my complaints were removed from my records?

Is 12-step coercion your policy alone or is that something across the board with Samaritan Institute accredited Samaritan Counseling Centers? If so, you should let clients know that before they spend a year thinking that they may have had a choice about it, so that they can provide informed consent. Also, you should address a complaint about 12-step coercion because if you don’t, it leaves the client wondering why you don’t care about the effects of this kind of ‘treatment’.

Proper follow-up to a complaint about 12-step coercion is not termination-referral to a 12-step interventionist.

Please give me a call or e-mail and we can discuss this serious problem.

You can see my website notpowerless.com for more information about this case.

Again, I release my records to anyone who receives this e-mail, and would like to discuss them with someone at Samaritan Counseling. I can provide copies of my complaint letters if they have been discarded before or after the NYS Office of Professions investigation.

Looking forward to your response,

Tom

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I have not received any response to this. Please explain why my complaints were removed from my records.