Case library / Sexual boundaries
He dosed two clients with MDMA and psilocybin, then slept with one
In short
License surrendered by stipulation after he had filed a notice of defense contesting the accusation. He may not petition
$14,486Both relationships began before there was a therapy relationship — one in a classroom where he was the teaching assistant.
It is the library’s clearest statement that the controlled-substance charge stands entirely on its own, independent of any finding about sex.
What happened
The respondent was licensed as an MFT in November 2019; most of the conduct occurred earlier, while he was a registered associate performing supervised therapy. He met the first client in the fall of 2017, when he was a teaching assistant in a graduate class she was taking. She disclosed in class that she had been raped. He told her he was an expert in treating victims of sexual abuse and encouraged her to begin seeing him for therapy.
He introduced her to what the accusation calls underground psychedelic therapy, and in the summer of 2018 they attended an ayahuasca retreat together with other students. That July he flew to visit her and stayed two nights at her house; she paid for his plane ticket and his lunch, and during the visit he administered MDMA to her. He administered psilocybin to her that September. Weekly therapy sessions ran from about October 2018 to April 2019. At a session at his home office in January 2019 he gave her psilocybin again, and while she was under its influence he lay in bed with her, laid her head on his lap, hugged her, stroked her side and stomach, and kissed her cheek. He told her that his clients try to have sex with him and asked her to “give into the erotic transference.” The session ran from morning until evening; afterward he drove her home. When she tried to end therapy in April 2019, he screamed and yelled at her. She feared retaliation at school if she reported him.
He met the second client in November 2016, while he was a trainee at a counseling center that served as a training site for his own graduate program; she was a graduate student there with a history of sexual assault, suicidality, and relationship concerns, and he held himself out as specializing in sexual issues. He treated her for three years. Over that period he administered MDMA to her on four occasions and psilocybin on four occasions, at times taking the same substances himself while doing so. He used touch during sessions — cradling her head in his lap, massaging her neck and shoulders, holding her hand, lying on the mattress with her and spooning her. Sessions sometimes ran from morning until evening; he regularly drove her home afterward and on one occasion shared dinner with her.
In November 2019 he told her he had romantic feelings for her, began calling her regularly and meeting her outside scheduled sessions, and told her they “had a spiritual connection and were meant to be together to teach each other something.” While she was under the influence of controlled substances he told her that he loved her. When she asked whether he was crossing a boundary as her therapist, he told her their “connection was bigger than the rules of the BBS.” Her last session was in December 2019; they went to dinner afterward, had sex twice that month at his home, and traveled together at the end of the year to stay in his parents’ home in another state.
When she asked for a break, he became psychologically and emotionally abusive, using material from therapy against her: he told her she was too traumatized by her past to accept his love, and that she had consented to their relationship in another lifetime. In January and February 2020 he called her on 50 separate occasions and texted many more times. She asked him to stop in March 2020; he contacted her again in April and in May. She moved away to get away from him. Her new therapist recorded that he had tried to use his authority to recast her wish to end the relationship as a form of psychopathology, and that she was left with elevated anxiety and considerable trauma.
What it was charged as
Using or administering controlled substances or alcohol in a way dangerous or injurious to oneself, a client, or the public. The subdivision ends with a mandate: the Board shall revoke the license of anyone who uses or offers to use drugs in the course of performing MFT services.
Any act of sexual abuse, misconduct, or relations with a client is unprofessional conduct and grounds for discipline.
Sexual relations with a client, or with a former client within two years of termination; soliciting sexual relations; sexual abuse or sexual misconduct with a client.
On any finding of fact that a licensee engaged in sexual contact with a patient, the Board shall revoke — and the revocation may not be stayed by the administrative law judge or by the Board.
Gross negligence in the performance of marriage and family therapy.
Intentionally or recklessly causing physical or emotional harm to a client.
Makes sexual contact between a psychotherapist and a patient a public offense, and supplies the definition of “sexual contact” used by the mandatory-revocation provision.
The outcome
License surrendered by stipulation after he had filed a notice of defense contesting the accusation. He may not petition for reinstatement and may reapply only after three years as a new applicant, with every charge deemed admitted against any future application.
OAH No. 2022070626
$14,486ordered in cost recovery under B&P §125.3What the rule actually says
Two independent rules run through this case. First, administering a controlled substance to a client is disciplinable on its own under §4982(c), and the subdivision does not stop at discretion: the Board shall revoke the license of anyone who uses or offers to use drugs in the course of performing therapy. The client’s consent, her enthusiasm, and the therapist’s belief in the benefit are not defenses, and no sexual finding is needed. Second, §4982.26 makes revocation mandatory and unstayable on any finding of sexual contact with a patient — neither the administrative law judge nor the Board has discretion to soften it. Underneath both sits the ordinary rule this case keeps illustrating: a therapy relationship that grows out of a teaching, training, or supervisory role carries that earlier authority into the room, and the client cannot leave it at the door.
Discussion
Analysis, not part of the decision
This is usually told as a psychedelics case, and the charging structure shows why that is only half right. The Board pleaded the drugs and the sexual conduct as separate causes, and the drug cause does not depend on the other. Section 4982(c) makes administering a controlled substance to a client unprofessional conduct, and closes with a mandatory revocation clause for anyone who uses or offers to use drugs in the course of performing therapy. Strip out every fact about touching and the license is still gone.
The most useful detail for an ordinary therapist is where each relationship started. One client met him when he was the teaching assistant in her class and disclosed a rape in that setting; the other met him when he was a trainee at a center attached to her own graduate program. Neither began as therapy. Everything that followed — the retreat, the visit she paid for, the sessions that ran from morning to evening, the drives home, the dinner — was continuous with a relationship formed in a role that already carried authority. Boundary cases rarely begin with a boundary being crossed; they begin with a role being blurred.
The language is worth teaching directly. Asking a client to “give into the erotic transference” while she is under psilocybin is not an interpretation of transference, it is an enactment of it dressed in clinical vocabulary. And telling a client that a “connection was bigger than the rules of the BBS” is a compact statement of exactly the reasoning those rules exist to defeat. The aftermath is part of the record too: therapy material used as leverage, 50 calls in two months, contact continuing after she asked him to stop, and a subsequent therapist documenting that he had tried to recast her wish to leave as pathology.
Had this gone to hearing and produced a finding of sexual contact, §4982.26 would have compelled revocation and forbidden any stay. A stipulated surrender avoids the finding but lands in much the same place: no reinstatement petition, reapplication only after three years as a new applicant, $14,486 payable first, and every charge deemed admitted against that application.
Where insurance reaches, and where it does not
Nothing in this case is insurable. Administering a Schedule I controlled substance is a criminal act, and criminal and intentional acts are excluded from every professional liability policy sold to California therapists; sexual misconduct is defense-only on all of them, never indemnified. That leaves the licensing-board defense benefit, which would have paid some of the cost of answering the accusation and negotiating a stipulation — but not the $14,486 in cost recovery, because cost recovery is not a defense cost and no sublimit reaches it. A therapist considering any form of psychedelic-assisted work should ask the carrier, in writing and before starting, whether the policy responds at all; the usual answer is that it does not.
What would have changed it
- Do not take on as a client anyone you already hold authority over as a teacher, teaching assistant, supervisor, or group leader; refer out, and document the referral and the reason.
- Keep sessions to a scheduled length and end them in the office — all-day sessions, rides home, and shared meals are the observable markers a Board looks for when reconstructing a boundary case.
- If a client asks whether something you are doing crosses a line, treat the question as the answer and take it to consultation that week.
Questions
For a law and ethics seminar, or for yourself
- Both relationships began in a teaching or trainee role rather than a clinical one. At what point does a role like teaching assistant, group facilitator, or peer supervisor become one from which you can never ethically accept a client, and what makes that line defensible?
- The respondent framed sexual contact as working with erotic transference. What distinguishes an interpretation of transference from an enactment of it, and what supervision or documentation would let a third party tell the difference after the fact?
- Section 4982(c) makes administering a controlled substance to a client grounds for discipline regardless of consent or perceived benefit. As legally sanctioned psychedelic-assisted therapy expands elsewhere, what conditions would have to exist before a California therapist could take part — and who should decide that a client is able to consent to it?
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 March 9, 2023, and match the case number in the Formal Disciplinary Actions section. Not legal advice.
