Case library / Sexual boundaries
Coffee three days after the final session
In short
Revocation stayed. Four years of probation
$4,254An intern who never told his supervisor, “for fear of being fired.” Four years of probation.
Pre-licensure conduct follows the license, and the reason he gave for not consulting his supervisor is the reason most people give.
What happened
He treated the client for five months while still an intern. In what became the final session he told the client he had feelings for him. They agreed to end therapy and to meet for coffee three days later.
A romantic and sexual relationship followed and ran for about two years and three months.
He did not consult his clinical supervisor about any of it — the decision records his reason as fear of being fired.
The client later called a crisis line and described feeling “confused, anxious, distracted, worried, and was trying not to cave into pressure or guilt.”
What it was charged as
Gross negligence, and violating the chapter and the Board's regulations.
Recklessly causing emotional harm.
Sexual relations with a former client within two years of termination.
The outcome
Revocation stayed. Four years of probation.
OAH No. 2023060971
$4,254ordered in cost recovery under B&P §125.3What the rule actually says
Pre-licensure conduct follows the license. He was an intern when this began and an LMFT when it was charged, and the discipline attached to the license he eventually held. The supervision point is statutory too: §4982(u) makes violating the rules governing the gaining and supervision of experience its own ground for discipline.
Discussion
Analysis, not part of the decision
He was an intern when this began and an LMFT when it was charged. The discipline attached to the license he eventually held. There is a widespread assumption that pre-licensure conduct is somehow outside the Board's reach because there was no license to discipline at the time; there is nothing in the statute that supports it, and §4982(u) separately makes violating the rules governing the gaining and supervision of experience its own ground.
The line the decision records — that he did not raise any of it with his clinical supervisor for fear of being fired — is the most repeatable sentence in the entire library. It appears in different words in several other cases here. The structural point is that supervision is the mechanism the profession relies on to catch exactly this, and the mechanism has a known failure mode: the supervisee's employment depends on the person they are supposed to disclose to.
Three days is not a gap. It is a continuation with a break in it, and the decision treats it that way.
Where insurance reaches, and where it does not
An associate covered under an employer's policy is usually not a named insured on it, and the employer has no reason to carry board-defense cover for someone else's registration. This is the single most common coverage gap for California associates, and it is the reason the individual policies start at roughly $35 to $65 a year for a registrant.
What would have changed it
- The sentence “for fear of being fired” is the whole case. Every supervision relationship should be able to survive the disclosure that a supervisee is having a reaction to a client. If yours cannot, that is a fact about the placement worth acting on before it becomes a fact about your license.
- Consultation is not just protective clinically. A documented consultation is the single most useful piece of evidence a respondent can bring to a boundary case, and it did not exist here.
Questions
For a law and ethics seminar, or for yourself
- If a supervisee's honest disclosure could cost them their job, the supervisory relationship has a built-in conflict. What would you change about how supervision is structured to reduce it?
- The relationship ran for more than two years. Would waiting the full two years from termination have made it lawful on these facts? Explain.
- Which cause for discipline attaches to the supervision failure rather than to the relationship?
Source. This write-up is drawn from the signed public decision in the case number above. Names, cities and employers have been removed — why. To pull the original, open the Board's quarterly newsletter archive, find the issue covering April 4, 2024, and match the case number in the Formal Disciplinary Actions section. Not legal advice.
