First, do no harm

My experience with the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation

I was abused by a therapist for five years.

Even typing those words, I fill up instantly with shame. Shame because I should have known better. Shame because there were so many red flags. Shame because five years is such an incredibly long time.

There may be value in telling the full story of what happened with my abusive therapist. I didn’t realize how vulnerable I was when seeking treatment for mental illness, and it’s all too easy for vulnerable people to be taken advantage of. The details are messy and, quite honestly, shocking. I have documentation for almost all of it.

But today, I’m not hoping to expose my abusive therapist, although I’ll share a tiny bit just to provide context. I’m writing because 13 months ago, I reported my abusive therapist to the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation. To date, an investigator has not even been assigned and she still retains a license without disciplinary action.

When I went to receive mental health treatment in Delaware, part of what made me feel safe doing so was the belief that my therapist would be held to certain ethical standards. She would be required to maintain my confidentiality, at the bare minimum, for example, or risk losing her license. I believed I was protected because my therapist would lose her license and her livelihood if she broke these ethical standards.

What I learned, instead, is that the system in Delaware is incredibly strained. It is strained to the point where consumers in Delaware are simply not safe because the regulatory body that should be protecting them has a breadth of scope so wide that it cannot possibly be timely and effective.

This is my story.

In late February 2020, I had to leave the convent due to the impact the PTSD I had developed had on my ability to participate in formation for religious life. After one negative experience, I ended up finding a therapist who was a part of a Christian counseling practice and who practiced EMDR, which both seemed perfect for me. A few weeks later, the world shut down with the COVID-19 pandemic and I was overwhelmed with gratitude that I had secured a therapist just in time.

We began telehealth sessions and she quickly offered to be available by text and phone call in between sessions. I had been inpatient in a psychiatric unit just a month before, was adjusting to life outside of the convent after three and a half years, and the world was in chaos. In the months that followed, there were quite a few crises.

Every time I reached out, she responded. I felt lucky to have a therapist who was so committed and would be there for me outside regular business hours, especially knowing that she had children of her own.

After about a year, there was a Sunday afternoon when I was in crisis. For a year, we had been doing sessions over telehealth and had regular texting and phone calls. But on this Sunday afternoon, she invited me over to her home. This is what really kicked off the boundary violations.

After a few months, her practice allowed us to start having sessions in person again. This therapist told me that when I got to her office, I would have to take all of my clothes off in the bathroom before coming into the session in my socks and underwear.

I told her that I wasn’t going to come to our session. She told me it was a bad joke and brushed it off, suggesting that I was sensitive because of my PTSD (which was from past sexual abuse) and she shouldn’t have made the joke.

Now, I want to take a quick intermission here. This is obviously a major red flag. It is one of the handful of incidents where I actually did sense something was off and protected myself. In this whole situation, things could have been much, much worse. And for people who are familiar with the mechanics of grooming for abuse, that is pretty clearly what this is. But I was so incredibly desperate for help and had come to become reliant on this therapist to the point where not going to therapy with her was simply not an option.

Ok, now back to the story.

Soon, we were having therapy four times a week, twice at her house because her practice was alternating the days therapists could be in the office due to COVID restrictions. That’s when physical contact began. The unethical and illegal actions of this therapist were truly egregious.

Eventually, we spoke on the phone every single night. Nightly calls went on for four years, even after I had moved out of state and we technically terminated our therapeutic relationship.

Two summers ago, she told me she needed to be my therapist again even though her license didn’t cover Indiana. I felt lucky that she was willing to risk her license to treat me, and we began sessions again. We continued nightly calls, just like we had for years.

One day, I confronted her about the boundary violations. She immediately blocked my number, Venmo’d me money, and sent me multiple emails describing how much she missed me as well as begging me not to tell anyone about our relationship because she feared being reported to her licensing board.

What neither of us knew at the time was that the threat of being reported to a licensing board in Delaware is practically meaningless.

November 2024 is when I officially ceased contact with my abusive therapist. It took a few months before the shame subsided enough to the point where I was able to be honest with those closest to me about how far our relationship had gotten. In April 2025, I finally took the step of writing up a report to the Delaware Board of Professional Regulation, including the damning emails and documentation that I had on this therapist.

It is now May 2026, over 13 months after I reported my abusive therapist to her board. The Delaware Division of Professional Regulation has not even assigned an investigator.

Every 90 days, I receive an email from the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation stating that they are still processing my complaint. In the past 13 months, no one has called me, or asked for follow-up information. As I’ve discovered more communications from my abusive therapist where she admits to grave misconduct, I’ve sent them to the investigative supervisor for the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation, which I assume (hopefully) that they file away for when eventually someone investigates it.

At one point, my abusive therapist reached out to me on Yelp (I know it’s odd, but it happened). I reached out to the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation to ask if she had been instructed not to contact me. Their response was that she is considered innocent until due process has taken place.

In my most recent correspondence with the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation on April 6, 2026, nearly one year to the day after my initial report, the investigative unit of the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation told me in an unsigned email the following:

Your complaint has not been assigned to date. The Division of Professional Regulation, Investigative Unit has experienced an influx of incoming complaints. Complaints are worked in the order received and/or by the seriousness of the allegation. Our Investigative Unit is charged with investigating complaints for 54 professionals and 35 boards. So, assignment may not take place for some time.

Apparently, the ordinary time frame for an investigator to be assigned to a complaint against a professional with a professional license in the state of Delaware is over one year. And “may not take place for some time” even beyond that. And that is not even the amount of time it takes for a case to be prepared, brought before a licensing board, and a decision made.

I hope you, like me, find this utterly unacceptable. If you are reading this from Delaware, I am so, so sorry that your state has so utterly failed to properly regulate professional licenses.

Here’s the reality: the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation is responsible for so many different kinds of licenses that it is overwhelming even for the casual observer. They are responsible for regulating mental healthcare and medical licenses, as well as deadly weapons dealers, river pilots, and salons. If you see an acupuncturist, get a home inspection, or are involved in mixed martial arts, the Division of Professional Regulation is responsible for keeping you safe. If your loved one is put to rest at a licensed funeral parlor or you go to gamble at Dover Downs, the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation oversees their licenses. Strip clubs and lie detectors are also regulated by the state through the same department.

One of the most basic beliefs that lowered my inhibitions when seeking mental health treatment was that my licensed therapist was a part of a highly regulated profession that was required to adhere to the highest of ethical standards. In the 13 months since I made my report, which included five years of boundary violations and egregious instances of physical contact and abuse, I have learned that I was actually never safe obtaining mental healthcare in Delaware.

The professional licenses granted by the state of Delaware are practically meaningless because there is no substantive oversight. In the past year, the Delaware Board of Mental Health and Chemical Dependency Professionals has admitted dozens of professionals to be fully licensed in the state, mostly providers that are actually located physically outside of Delaware and are hoping to provide services to Delawareans via telehealth. They’ve issued at least 279 licenses to mental health professionals in the past year.

Do you know how many disciplinary actions has the Delaware Board of Mental Health issued over the same timeframe? Zero.

The Board of Mental Health is issuing licenses at a rate far beyond what the Division of Professional Regulation has the capacity to regulate. It is taking well over a year for my complaint to be investigated due to the backlog, and yet they issued nearly 300 new licenses in that same timeframe. And that’s just for mental health licenses, not even considering the remaining 53 licensing categories they are charged with regulating.

I reached out to members of the Delaware Board of Mental Health in January, explaining that I was concerned that the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation has such a backlog of complaints that cases are getting stuck in limbo and not making their way to the board. I assumed that the members of the Delaware Board of Mental Health had a serious concern about the integrity of their field. In charity, I figured they did not know about the backlog and would be moved to try to figure out why such egregious actions were not being investigated in a timely fashion.

Within three hours, I had an email from the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation reprimanding me for contacting the board and trying to circumvent due process. The “due process” that takes well over a year for an investigator to even begin looking at the case.

I have made it this far without naming a single individual. I have not named the therapist or the practice that she was a part of at the time and subsequently fired from. I have not named the individuals that I have been in contact with at the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation. That’s because this is an issue that extends far beyond any individual. It’s a systemic issue.

The gravest issue here, in my opinion and given the information that is available to me, is the scope of the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation. If a mental health therapist who has had regular physical contact with a client is not even investigated within a year of allegations being made against them, then how can one confidently say that consumers are safe undergoing chemotherapy or surgeries in the state, buying or selling a home with a licensed realtor with a licensed home inspector, or picking up a controlled substance from a pharmacy?

My case is grave and, according to the Division of Professional Regulation, not uncommon. By their own admission, they have received “an influx of complaints.”

If you use Delaware’s professional license lookup to find my abusive therapist’s information, it is all listed right there. There is a column for disciplinary actions that simply says, “None.” If you’re a prospective client, you might see that and feel safe going to her for therapy.

Given the scope of the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation’s responsibilities, it is all too easy to see how many issues might be falling through the cracks and putting Delawareans at risk. What will keep them safe?

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