Secrets Therapists Must Tell
Note: Reader discretion is advised. Graphic violence is in this article.
If you tell your therapist you want to harm someone—or someone’s property in some instances—your therapist is required by law to tell the police or otherwise protect that person or property. Other secrets your therapist must report to the authorities is evidence or suspicion of child abuse or elder abuse.
This article focuses only on the duty of therapists to protect the intended victims of their patients. It begins by summarizing the facts leading up to the first case in the U.S. that established the rule, which was the California case of Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California, ultimately decided by the California Supreme Court in 1976, and ends with a review of current trends in the law regarding this issue.
Note: The advice provided here is for general education only. If you think you might be involved in an actual lawsuit, you should meet with a good local lawyer who specializes in your type of case because the laws are different in different states. Also, every lawsuit is different, so each one must be handled differently depending on the facts.
FACTS LEADING TO THE TARASOFF CASE
Forty years ago, in 1968, a young man named Prosenjit Poddar came from India to the U.S. to study naval architecture at U.C. Berkeley. While living in the International House, he met Tanya Tarasoff who took folk dance classes, also in that building. They became friends and saw each other once a week through the Fall until the following New Year’s Eve, when she gave him a kiss. Unfamiliar with American customs, he believed the kiss meant they were in a serious relationship. When Tanya told him that was not the case, he began to lose his mind.
He became depressed and neglected his appearance, his studies, and his health. He isolated himself, stayed in bed most of the time, spoke nonsensically, and cried a lot. He told a friend he was in love with Tanya, he could not control himself, and he wanted to kill her by blowing up her room. His condition got worse through the Spring and Summer of 1969. He met with Tanya a few times and recorded their conversations to try to learn why she did not love him.
Poddar’s condition improved when Tanya went to Brazil during latter part of that Summer. He took his friend’s advice and sought psychiatric help at Cowell Memorial Hospital. He was first seen by psychiatrist Dr. Stuart Gold then seen by staff psychologist Dr. Lawrence Moore. After eight sessions with Dr. Moore, on August 18, 1969, during their ninth session together, Pollar told Dr. Moore he was going to kill a girl when she returned from Brazil.
On August 20, 1969, Dr. Moore personally told campus police that Poddar was likely to harm himself or others. On that same day, Dr. Moore wrote a letter to the Chief of Campus Police saying Poddar suffers from a “paranoid schizophrenic reaction, acute and severe” and posed a danger to himself and others. Dr. Moore also wrote that if the campus police would pick up Poddar and transfer him to the hospital, he would sign an emergency 72-hour detention order. Dr. Moore added that Poddar’s behavior can appear quite rational at times. Both Dr. Gold, who had initially examined Poddar, and Dr. James Yandell, Dr. Moore’s psychiatric supervisor and Assistant Director of the Department of Psychiatry at Cowell Memorial Hospital, agreed with Dr. Moore that Poddar needed to be hospitalized.
The campus police took Poddar into custody and found him to be quite rational. The two officers who questioned him said he “changed his attitude altogether.” After Poddar promised he would try to stay away from Tanya, they released him. Around the same time, the Director of Psychiatry at Cowell Memorial Hospital, Dr. Harvey Powelson, learned of the other doctors’ attempts to hospitalize Poddar. Dr. Powelson asked for Dr. Moore’s letter back from the campus police and ordered Dr. Moore to destroy all copies of that letter as well as his therapist’s notes on Poddar. He also ordered his staff to take no further actions to try to hospitalize Poddar. Poddar stopped seeing Dr. Moore shortly afterwards.
Poddar convinced Tanya’s brother, who knew nothing about the threat he posed to Tanya, to get an apartment with him close to Tanya’s home. In October, Tanya returned from Brazil. Poddar continued stalking Tanya and overheard her tell friends she had an affair with a “playboy.” On October 27, 1969, he went to her home. Tanya was not there, and her mother told him to leave. He came back later with a pellet gun and a kitchen knife and found Tanya home alone. When she refused to talk to him, he shot her with the pellet gun. She ran from the house to try to get away from him, but he caught her in the yard and stabbed her repeatedly until she died. Poddar went back to the house and called the police. He told them he had stabbed Tanya and asked them to come handcuff him.
Poddar was tried for murder and he was convicted of second degree murder based on his defense of “not guilty by reason of insanity.” Poddar appealed the conviction on various grounds, including the trial court’s failure to reinstruct the jury that if they believed Poddar had diminished mental capacity such that he could not have malice aforethought, then they could not find him guilty of either murder in the first or second degree. The California Supreme Court eventually vacated the trial court’s judgement and ordered a new trial. Rather than face another trial, the State offered Poddar the choice to leave the United States and never return, which he did. He is reportedly living in India, happily married to a lawyer.
TARASOFF v. REGENTS OF UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
Tanya’s parents sued the therapists for failure to warn Tanya, or others likely to warn her, about Poddar’s unstable mental condition and his desire to kill her. In in 1976, the California Supreme Court decided that therapists have a duty to protect third parties from serious dangers of violence from their patients. This duty can be discharged by warning the intended victim or persons likely to tell the intended victim, by telling the authorities, or by taking any other reasonably necessary actions under the circumstances.
OTHER CASES SINCE TARASOFF
Since Tarasoff was decided, there have been many cases in the U.S. that have adopted and even expanded on the rule. Here are just a few examples:
1. In Nebraska, a man receiving psychiatric care from a Veterans Administration Hospital daycare center told his health care providers he was not happy with his treatment. While still a patient there, he bought a shotgun but did tell anyone on his treatment team that he had bought it. Three weeks later, he stopped his treatment. About a month later, he walked into a crowded nightclub and shot at strangers, blinding one woman and killing her husband. In 1980, the federal district court rejected the argument that the Tarasoff rule was limited to identifiable victims and ruled that the jury could decide whether the Hospital knew or should have known of the man’s dangerous propensity and, therefore, had a duty to protect all of society from all “dangerous” persons.
2. In California, a man was brought to a hospital emergency room by his girlfriend after he tried to rape her mother. The psychiatrist who examined him determined he was a danger to others but did not warn the woman that the man posed a danger to her. The doctor could not commit the man for a 72-hour evaluation without his consent or further information, but did not order the man’s past medical records which would have given him the necessary data to commit him involuntarily. The doctor warned the girlfriend to stay away from the man if she was afraid of him. The man later killed her. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the hospital had a duty to obtain the records and failed to adequately warn her.
3. In Vermont, a 29-year-old man told his therapist that he “wanted to get back at his father” after a heated argument. The therapist asked him how he would do that. The man replied, “I don’t know. I could burn down his barn.” After they discussed the consequences of that act, the man promised his therapist he would not do it. Later, the man burned down the barn. No one was hurt. The Vermont Supreme Court ruled that the therapist had a duty to warn his patient’s parents of the danger posed to them. Since no one was injured, this decision suggests the court extended the Tarasoff rule to victims of property damage.
CONCLUSION
If you are a therapist and your patient wants to harm someone (or anyone if you’re in Nebraska) (or someone else’s property if you’re in Vermont), you need to do something to protect them. Tell the authorities, warn the person or someone who will tell that person, or do anything reasonably necessary to protect them.
If you are seeing a therapist, you should know that if you say or do anything to make them think you might hurt someone (or anyone if you’re in Nebraska) (or damage others’ property if you’re in Vermont), they are required by law to protect the potential victim and must break the doctor-patient confidentiality to tell the authorities or others to protect the potential victim.
Know your rights. Learn the law. Protect yourself with the power of knowledge.
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[For “How to Think Like a Lawyer,” click here.]
