I don’t agree with David Olsen (Executive Director of Samaritan Counseling of the Capital Region) and Jenness Clairmont (former clinical director) that therapists are entitled to a ‘preferred mode of treatment’ when that treatment involves repeatedly suggesting to a client that they must believe in God and admit their character defects or die from alcoholism, and that wanting to discuss this is indicative of a personality disorder. Especially not if you train NYS social workers and have not-for-profit status.
That just sounds like a recipe for covering up sexual abuse. And it’s something David Olsen seemed all to comfortable with. As a sex therapist and pastor/trainer, who wrote a BOOK ABOUT CLERGY SEXUAL MISCONDUCT ENTITLED “SAYING NO TO SAY YES“…..? And there’s nobody to complain to?
To label a client as having ‘entitlement issues’ for expecting to be able to discuss after he put months into ‘his side of the contract‘, this is very hypocritical and closed-minded. It should not be legal for state-licensed social workers to act this way.
That is in fact the impression I got from Jenness Clairmont (that I was being unreasonable to think this deserved a discussion, as she terminate-referred me to a 12-step interventionist directly after my complaint about 12-step coercion). My therapist told me things like ‘You may THINK I promised you something.’ and ‘It was a possibility, not a promise’ that I’d be able to discuss the treatment they referred me to again and again. She acted like I was harassing her when I asked her for a session to listen to what I had been through. But in fact, they had made this agreement, then pretended they didn’t. I have records showing these agreements, and that they were denying me that meeting as a form of punishment for not bowing down to AA and not keeping my concerns about their tactics to myself.
The weirdest thing was that both Jenness Clairmont and my therapist had expressed to me that they didn’t really like Alcoholics Anonymous. It is impossible to know if they were being sincere or not, considering their subsequent total denial of those private interactions and their proceeding to continue playing the same games as if nothing had gone horribly wrong for very clear reasons that they refuse to acknowledge.
David Olsen, the Executive Director of Samaritan Counseling, thinks he’s entitled to disregard and remove my complaints from my records without explanation, which is almost definitely a HIPAA violation (I have not received any response about this from Miguel Diaz, the HIPAA compliance officer at Samaritan Counseling of the Capital Region). There has been a clear and sustained effort by both Directors to silence me and to portray me as not credible, when in fact the evidence is very clear. Samaritan Counseling’s primary purpose is to avoid any responsibility.
This petition is signed by many people who have experienced such dangerously unprofessional and childish behavior by professional cult members: To Health Workers and Academics About Alcoholics Anonymous
“While maintaining a full-time practice, Jenness had served as the clinical and training director at Samaritan Counseling in recent years. She provides educational services in the form of clinical supervision for mental health professionals and is an adjunct professor for the Sage Graduate School teaching Family Counseling.
Jenness currently serves on the New York State Board for Mental Health Practitioners for the New York State Board of Education Office of Professions.
She is a clinical member of the NASW and the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy. She is an AAMFT Approved Supervisor and has served as the Legislative Committee Chair and the President for the Albany/Hudson Chapter of NYAMFT.”
Jenness Clairmont, Oona Edmands, and David Olsen have remained eerily silent in response to my well-researched and documented grave doubts about their ‘preferred treatment’.