This was brought to me by a colleague and I had no idea what to offer him. The owner of the agency where he was going to intern met with him for 15-20 minutes where they talked about his experiences with another agency he was leaving because of a toxic work environment. According to him, the male owner/potential supervisor simply blurted out at one point "you're a narcissist. He asked for an explanation of the comment which was refused and instead was asked to talk about how that made him feel. As it was explained to me he went along with it to see where it was going and ended up being asked at one point to say he is a piece of **** and then was told he had NPD.
I've told him to run, not walk, from that place but is this not a vile breach of ethics? I've never heard of anything like this from any other student/intern/colleague and definitely have never heard of unsolicited diagnosing in 15-20 minutes, let alone diagnosing a potential intern. I said it sounded like this guy was an all too common personality type in the mental health field where the "clinician" uses predatory emotional tactics to get the "client" to feel as badly about themselves as possible, and then tries to become the "one person" that can help the now hyper-vulnerable client. I think I was right because this "clinician" keeps sending unsolicited texts asking my colleague how he is doing and when they can meet again.
I also told him to file a board complaint.
I know this person pretty well, spent a lot of time around him in various contexts, and have never sensed the slightest cluster b symptomatology so wanted some thoughts on this in case others think I should be giving different advice on the situation.
I've told him to run, not walk, from that place but is this not a vile breach of ethics? I've never heard of anything like this from any other student/intern/colleague and definitely have never heard of unsolicited diagnosing in 15-20 minutes, let alone diagnosing a potential intern. I said it sounded like this guy was an all too common personality type in the mental health field where the "clinician" uses predatory emotional tactics to get the "client" to feel as badly about themselves as possible, and then tries to become the "one person" that can help the now hyper-vulnerable client. I think I was right because this "clinician" keeps sending unsolicited texts asking my colleague how he is doing and when they can meet again.
I also told him to file a board complaint.
I know this person pretty well, spent a lot of time around him in various contexts, and have never sensed the slightest cluster b symptomatology so wanted some thoughts on this in case others think I should be giving different advice on the situation.
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