I use to post here some time ago, left the church some time ago.
I currently seeing a therapist due to PTSD from a rough childhood and my chosen career.
Has nothing to with the LDS Church.
so earlier this week was happened to be talking about my time in the church, once my session was over he asked if he could ask me some questions about the church.
I said sure no problem.

He says to me that he has a couple that are LDS. One is not happy with the church the other is very happy with the church.
He feels as though what they talk about seems almost alien to him with out a frame of reference.
I told him if something comes up I'll answer to the best of my ability in giving some insight i witnessed between couples and a little with the LBGT+ community.

my thought/questions is this.
Am I wrong for answer his questions or giving him what little insight to this?

Welcome back.

I find it strange he would talk about other clients in any way to you. You could possibly spot a couple coming to his office that fit his comments.

I don't question your ethics talking to him, but I do question his ethics sharing that with you.

I agree with everything dagny said.

The therapist would be far better to ask you general questions about Mormonism without even mentioning his Mormon clients.

I don't see anything wrong, though, with you answering his questions about the church in general. He definitely should not mix interacting with his clients and specifically questioning you about anything that they discuss with him. They have a right to expect, and receive, 100% privacy even if he is sincerely trying to help them, as likely he is.

I remember one time when I mentioned to a friend what I thought was a small general anonymous detail about a patient in the medical office where I worked. Right away my friend blurted out "oh, I know her, blah blah...". I could have fainted with the shock of having committed the cardinal sin in the medical world of blabbing out a patient's personal info/details. Fortunately for me there were no repercussions. But for sure I was exceptionally careful from then on. Even without malice you can unintentionally cause extreme issues for people by being careless with their private information. It doesn't take much in the way of description, or details, to accidentally identify one party to another party who knows them.

It's the therapist's responsibility, not yours, to employ the highest ethics of his profession. In general, I don't see anything wrong, at all, with you talking to him about Mormonism. The more he understands about it perhaps the more he can be of some value to you in discussing your own issues. I find that even as a short term convert, but one who dived in and tried to experience the whole Mormon world, it was a struggle for me to "get over" the negative experiences I had in the church. I can see that being brought up within Mormonism can obviously be a much bigger hill to climb when trying to process it all, choose a new path and find some peace and joy in it.

I'm left with the embarrassment (that still rears up and bothers me at times) of having actually chosen to dive into their font and facing the fact that for me it was all a self-inflicted injury. Even the guy who got me into it, who I had considered a good friend, said to me "it's your fault" when things went south for me in the church. It must be great to be able to so easily slide away from taking any responsibility himself for what turned out to be exceptionally negative times.

And I think that if the church can cause so much grief to a short term "investigator" turned one-minute convert like me then for BICs it must be excruciating to live through growing up in the church, being immersed in the church, and then leaving the church and facing the likely tough consequences of that, at least as far as family and friends goes.

Hopefully, most exmos, especially BICs, are able to process their mo experiences and eventually find peace about it all. I hope that for you.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/29/2024 03:27PM by Nightingale.

I had a similar issue with a doctor friend of mine. She is a pediatrician, and mentioned how she was dealing with a family of Mormons who had about ten children and had multiple issues. She doesn't know about my LDS background, but I knew which family she was talking about immediately. Some of them live within half a mile of me. There aren't many LDS families that big around here. I didn't say anything to her, but it stressed me out for a few days afterwards. I am still in contact with the family and some of them are inactive but I like them very much.

I felt like saying something to the doctor, i.e. I knew they had problems but are good people etc, who have maybe made one or two bad life decisions.

Very uncomfortable.

I had a similar issue with a counselor friend of mine. (I never went to him myself) He told me this story about a transgender woman and their workplace, and from the details he told me I knew exactly who it was.

The best place to start would be a Mormon glossary. There are many terms like "stake president" or "Relief Society" which are not obvious to outsiders. Some such as "bishop" or "counselor" may also produce different associations than the Mormon ones.

…the second anointing.

Maybe he was making smalltalk. Therapists have to build a rapport if they are going to do their job.

Mormonism is a type of abnormal psychology he probably did not study in school.

therapist. Any information that can help him with another client is a positive thing I believe. How can he possibly know what it is like to live as a mormon? How can he help them without learning?

My therapist and I have discussed issues that I have faced and he will tell me about someone else who also faced it or he will ask me questions.

If I talk to someone about a surgery I typed up and I don't give any names, I have never been told that is a problem. I have a lot of people ask me questions.

I did actually tell my therapist, and I know he can't discuss things with me, but I knew someone who was going to start going to him. A family member by marriage. They were fighting with their son about mormonism and him not going to church. The son went with them. I told him that I had info that would help him and I told him what it was. He thanked me. Some things can have a huge impact on their ability to help the person. I Know he has used my situation when working with families in mormonism who have gay children. He gives speeches all over the U.S. and he uses my story. It in the podcast that he did with John Dehlin some years ago. He said he better tell me as he knew I'd recognize it was me. I told him I didn't mind. In fact, what he had said in his speeches gave me a better picture of how he saw things in my life and how I had dealt with them. I felt it was a compliment.

You can't help someone if you don't know something like how mormonism is. If my therapist hadn't been an exmormon, I never could have found the help I needed.

I agree, cl2, that it can only help the therapist to know as much as he can about Mormonism so he can understand his Mormon clients better and thereby perhaps be of better help to them.

I just meant to indicate that it sounds from the OP that the therapist said he was looking for more information to help some clients that he identified to another client as a Mormon couple. That seems like a little too much information that could potentially identify the clients if, for instance, they happened to be in the office at the same time as the OP is (likely wouldn't be scheduled that way but you never know).

The therapist should/could have just said he is interested to gain some insight into Mormonism and leave it at that.

I also agree that the more insight the therapist has into Mormonism the more he can potentially help his Mormon clients.

I think we're basically on the same page. I was just saying I thought the therapist didn't have to explain why he was interested to hear more about Mormonism. It may seem like a small insignificant detail but there is a reason that strict guidelines are in place for therapists. The world is full of coincidences and people in the helping professions, in positions of privacy and confidence, need to be ultra careful to observe all the relevant guidelines.

Meanwhile, the good news is that perhaps this therapist's mo clients will get some useful assistance once he gains more info/insight into the religion aspects of their lives. And perhaps that holds true for the OP here, Mortes, as well.

about why he was interested in learning more.

I think many therapists outside of Mordor can have a difficult time reconciling the trauma Mormonism appears to be inflicting on a patient's life with the squeaky clean, squared-away look of a few Mormon families they might know of in the community. To the unknowing, Mormonism appears to be another Christian church with good values, albeit somewhat quirky - but by and large harmless. I began to suspect this early on with my therapist and so brought it up and roughly proceeded as follows: I went to the go-to depiction that communicates enough to give a frame of reference but not so much that it starts sounding nuts. It goes some think like this.

1. The Mormon church did not allow me to attend my sons marriage ceremony because I was no longer a practicing Mormon. We forget just how far out there this practice is, plus it is an overt institutionalized form of public shaming. This practice communicates bundles. That usually gets the job done.

2. In my case, it seemed appropriate to add more on context so I showed them the whole name sign and penalty, complete with my demonstrating the death oaths. Now the whole cult like aspect now became more apparent.

3. Then for grins, I tossed in the fact that Mormons have a lay untrained clergy of middle aged men who,nas part of their duties, meet regularly with minors behind closed doors and ask them intimate questions about things like their mastabatory practices.

This helped my therapist help me, and I hope some others.

I think it was appropriate for the therapist to ask, just not appropriate to share anything to do with another patient.

Those are all good points. I think that it might also help to explain that Mormonism is a high-control religion similar to the JWs. Most nevermos are familiar with the JWs.

Good point on the familiarity of nevermos with JWs. A lot of similarities, with one noticable difference is that Mormon culture values higher education.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Those are all good points. I think that it might
> also help to explain that Mormonism is a
> high-control religion similar to the JWs. Most
> nevermos are familiar with the JWs.

Yes, there are some broad similarities.

It's interesting you say that nevermos are familiar with JWs. Of course, they're known as those strangers you don't want to talk to who knock on your door at inconvenient times (although not nearly so much since the Covid age). I see a strong similarity between the worlds of the JWs and the Mormons. However, in my experience, JWs are much more cloistered (so to speak) than are Mormons. One of their most stringent principles is to closely follow the Bible verse to "be not of the world" and they take that pretty literally. They are about as withdrawn as you can be while still being in general society.

I've said before that to me (being an alum of both groups) the Mormons I met seemed positively carefree and self-governing compared to the tight control JW leaders maintain over their flock. I jokingly referred to Mos as JW-lite - definitely there are similarities but JW leaders are heavy on effectively isolating themselves and their adherents from the world as much as possible. A very small tight little life. And still they wait for the end - with recurring catastrophic world events promising every generation of JWs that Armageddon is surely just around the next corner. Yet - here we still are.

Wow, being an alum of both JW and Mormonism. That sounds like a hard road, to say the least.

I can see how 'JW light' is a more useful comparison for Mormonism. I had forgotten the full extent of the control that JWs exercise over their congregants - right down to requiring people to break contact with anyone who leaves, right down to disowning family members. I think I have that correct.

Yes, the shunning. Mormons often do it as well, but it's not mandated or an organized part of the church as it is with the JWs.

Mannaz Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 1. The Mormon church did not allow me to attend my
> sons marriage ceremony because I was no longer a
> practicing Mormon.

This comment puzzled me at first but then I realized that, of course, it's because you couldn't go into the temple as an inactive Mormon. If outsiders hear details like this they are understandably appalled because it's very cruel. Mormon leaders could do a hybrid type ceremony - first in a location where all family members and friends are welcome - then, if they must, finish it off to their satisfaction by having a temple portion for the couple and any active mos they would like to invite.

That would be understandable, and palatable, rather than keeping close family (especially parents) standing outside while their loved ones are wed, an occasion which is a huge big deal in most families, it goes without saying.


> We forget just how far out
> there this practice is, plus it is an overt
> institutionalized form of public shaming.

Good points.


> 2. In my case, it seemed appropriate to add more
> on context so I showed them the whole name sign
> and penalty, complete with my demonstrating the
> death oaths. Now the whole cult like aspect now
> became more apparent.

Good move. It's definitely creepy. This alone could give a lot more insight into the inner Mormon workings for those outside who have never heard of it and just can't imagine it. And those who think it's all Donny and Marie, when for most members it's not.


> This helped my therapist help me, and I hope some
> others.

I'm glad that was helpful. And by extension, it will help any other exmos this therapist may have as clients in the future.


> I think it was appropriate for the therapist to
> ask, just not appropriate to share anything to do
> with another patient.

Yes. I agree absolutely. There is a way to do it so that all caution is still maintained and no unwanted repercussions result. Likely this therapist may have realized that afterwards and will be careful from now on. Hopefully he runs a practice where clients don't run into each other in the waiting room. What if you recognized the couple he was talking about? Likely a slim chance, but not impossible. It may seem like a small point but in reality the principle of absolute confidentiality is a major big deal, for obvious reasons.

As for the therapist learning more about Mormonism, thereby being able to better help his Mormon clients, I'm all for that.

Even as a "convert" I didn't know, beforehand or even completely after joining, about how Mormonism is all-consuming, about all the hoops a member family has to continually jump through, the financial pressures, the dark history of the church's beginnings and early leaders, the time commitments, the judgements, the pressures and the absolutely stultifyingly boring repetitious and banal eternal meetings and the utter weirdness of their holy temple that put that old song chorus on an eternal loop in my brain: "is that all there is?".

Because it's certainly a lot of sound and fury over .... what exactly?

Also, the degree of control they want to exercise over people is out of order. That is something outsiders would definitely not know and info that would also be very useful to the therapist in trying to assist his clients with their issues. In fact, if the therapist doesn't have some insight into the Mormon world s/he may very well be ill-equipped to help clients because a major piece of clarification would be missing. The Mormon aspect is like a third participant in a marriage, influencing and affecting both partners with often negative effects on the marriage. It could be as basic as one partner wanting to be more active than the other. There is going to be an obvious disconnect there. Etc.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/01/2024 02:06PM by Nightingale.

Several of my Nevermo friends were surprised when they found out I'd left Mormonism, given how big a part of my life it had been. I found relating how I was not able to attend my son's wedding was a helpful shorthand in this circumstance to communicate that Mormonism was pretty cult-like. Any adult can quickly relate to this.

I'm also a university professor, and in my field, there is a large contingent of Mormons (sometimes referred to as 'the Mormon Mafia' - several being actual TBM 'blue blood' like children of GAs and Apostles up and including serving as area 70s and patriarchs). A few of my non-Mormon colleagues, who are also trusted friends, wanted to understand what caused me to leave what they saw as a very productive and supportive community. They were genuinely curious and wanted to know more. For them, if having a lay ministry came up, I'd point out that most of the Mormon men they saw at our annual academy meeting, especially those who were well-established academics, likely were or had been in bishoprics given their age and how squared away they were. Then I would describe what that role was, including having to conduct regular one-on-one worthiness interviews with minors behind closed doors, interviews in which they had been instructed to ask intimate questions like did these young kids masturbate or not. Now, most of us university professors are very well acquainted with Title IX, are mandatory reporters on and off campus (in the states I have been in, this has been the case), and have helped students in crisis - like having been assaulted - find help, and so forth, and so on. Providing this picture of what that well-groomed colleague across the room had been expected to do and realizing that said person was OK with it is always a real eye-opener.

(note: While the church has eased up on the detailed law of chastity questioning requirements, it was the norm a decade ago when I was still in.)

You answering his questions has nothing to do with doctor patient privilege. Technically, he's supposed to be the one keeping secrets. If he doesn't give identifying information I wouldn't worry about it.

If you want your personal information to be spread all over the ward, a therapist is not the way. Go to your Bishop or SP for counseling instead.

A therapist is basically an hourly friend who is paid to not gossip.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/01/2024 12:29AM by bradley.

I think it's fine to share general information about Mormonism as well as how Mormonism can impact mixed-faith households. I remember when I first came here to RFM, it took me about three years to get fully up to speed as a nevermo. There can be a long learning curve for those not familiar with the faith, and it would help the therapist to know what he is dealing with. He might also appreciate having referrals to online forums and websites where he can freely explore on his own.

although he didn't tell me he was an exmo and he LOOKS mormon, more so when I first went to him. I asked him about 6 years in if he was mormon and he said he wasn't really affiliated with the mormons anymore. He told me about his journey out of the church. He was one of the missionaries in Australia whose MP told the sister missionaries they were to be his wives. All the sister missionaries except one set seemed to accept that idea. The other set of sisters told their parents and it got to the GAs and they brought the MP home.

We went over all the things I had issues with. I found it extremely comforting to know when I was struggling with some issue like the bishop a few bishops ago started e-mailing me his testimony. My daughter had gone back to church and she gave him my e-mail. I replied and told him NO and I told him he had no authority over me, but I became suicidal over the whole situation. I had had enough of leaders in the church. And my therapist was always able to zero in why I would feel that way. I had a lot to work through!

He told me the last time I was in back in October that he can't believe where I am now compared to when he first met me. He said he didn't think it could have a good outcome and he was impressed with the outcome. I usually go to see him more if I have an immediate thing I'm working through. He basically saved my life many times. Nothing quite like a good therapist! I went to several before that and I wasn't impressed.

I can see how a bishop invading your private email to share his testimony would be very triggering, cl2.

Wow cl2 - 6 years of visits before you knew he was a Mormon. It's wonderful that you found him and that he has been able to be so helpful, in no small part because he knew personally exactly where you were coming from. I'm so glad for you. I've come to feel kindly towards him after getting to "know" him through you on this board.

before. I mean I definitely needed HELP. I was a mess. I know I couldn't commit suicide, but I"m surprised I'm still walking around. He didn't talk any religion to me at all when I first went to him UNTIL I asked him where he was concerning religion. He really does act like a mormon and look like one. I feel really lucky to have found him. 26 years! But I needed someone.

My son said it is paying someone to be your friend and I have told him that isn't how it is. I'm the one who takes care of everyone in the family and my husband even after he left. Fight with the boyfriend and he would show up for me to save him. I needed someone to take care of me. He is different than any therapist I had been to. Oh he did tell me that if the members of my family (including the husband) would get help, I wouldn't need it. He said I was the identified patient in the family.

I could never have made it to this point without him.

During the time you are explaining the many dark sides of Mormonism to your therapist, is he billing you?

I hope not.

When I read your post I wasn't worried about the other Mormon client's confidentiality (you don't know who they are) but that your therapist asked if it was okay to ask you questions about the Mormon church AFTER your therapy session. If he is talking to you about something not related to your therapy after your session, it changes the therapist/patient dynamic. Instead of being the patient/client who is on the receiving end of therapy, you have to switch to being the one who is helping your therapist. The line is blurred.

There's plenty of information about the Mormon church on the internet. Your therapist doesn't need to use you as a Mormon information source outside the therapy sessions. Also, if his Mormon clients talk about things that seem "alien" to him, he should ask them questions. That's what a therapist does to better understand his patients/clients.

Maybe you should tell your therapist that it is best to ask his Mormon clients about Mormon stuff he isn't familiar with. Mormons love to talk about their religion and it's better to hear their interpretation of weird Mormon stuff than your interpretation since exmos and TBMs see things differently.

Another concern is that although you think your PTSD doesn't have anything to do with the Mormon church, perhaps it does. If you answer your therapists questions about the Mormon church AFTER your session just to help him with another client, you could leave your therapist triggered by uncomfortable Mormon church memories.

Knowing more about Mormonism did help my therapist consider that some of what I was going through had similarities to PTSD, and that ended up being quite helpful.

Just to recap the OP's concern. The OP was in therapy for PTSD unrelated to the Mormon church. During one of the sessions the OP talked about his time in the Mormon church. After the session the therapist told the OP about Mormon clients he was seeing and asked the OP if it would be okay to ask him questions about the Mormon church so that he could better understand his Mormon clients.

I don't think it's good practice to spend one client's session talking about another client. The person in therapy needs to feel that their therapist is 100% focused on them and not someone else. That's what they are paying for. And if the therapist keeps them AFTER a session to get their input about another client, it not only puts the client in an awkward situation but it blurs the line between client/therapist because the client is put in a position to give the therapist advise. With so much information about the Mormon church easily available on the internet there's no reason to put a client in that position

Therapists are supposed to ask questions during the session. How else will they understand and help their clients? They can't just pretend they understand and then go and ask another client for their input to better understand another client. Seems odd to me.

None of my therapists were Mormon. I had to explain a lot about my background as a Mormon during my therapy sessions. I didn't mind as it was helpful to my recovery to talk about it. I don't know if it would have been helpful to me if my therapist hadn't ask me questions when she was confused about something I said in therapy and instead asked another client about her Mormon experience, which could have been totally different from mine.

Thanks for the insight.
I’m pretty sure the Mormons he talked about don’t exist or it may be a small part of a much larger story.
I’ve seen some of “The Faithful” either walking into his office or walking out. Some of them recognize me others don’t.
Really once you’re out are you truly out? I myself still have Mormon friends, we don’t talk church but talk other shared interest.
When it comes down to it I think he’s trying to get a better understanding of what “these people” are talking about.

He hasn't given identifying information. "A couple" could be any couple he sees. He has not violated ethics or trust.

He has asked for your inside knowledge to help him understand issues his client is dealing with. There's nothing wrong with that. You can accept or decline.

I think it would be reasonable to accept, and likely very helpful.