Abbie
1/5
Genuinely dangerous & unethical.
I have waited several years to give this review as I take giving negative reviews seriously and don't do it lightly.
I am severely disabled. I was in a situation where a person living with me who had great control over my life and safety wanted to force me into therapy with them. They were unhappy they could not make me agree with a choice they were making (marrying someone they met online and had known for a week). I told them I could not control their choices & respected their ability to choose whatever they wanted, but that therapy does not work by making people agree with or be happy about each others choices. We would have to agree to disagree.
She wanted me to see her therapist. I asked that at least, if she was going to force me into this, could we please see a new unbiased doctor? She refused. I asked to speak with Dr Perez alone first via zoom. I explained to him that it was not safe to engage in therapy with this person because based on past experience, if I were to be honest about my feelings in therapy, this person will physically punish me (isolation, food withholding, & other abusive tactics). I begged him to please find a way to dismiss us or refuse the counseling, because if refused to go, I would be punished, but if I went and participated, I would also be punished. If he gave me a way out I might be able to evade the abuse. I was scared and asking for help.
He didn't believe me! And not only did he seem to not really care or process how serious or dangerous this was for me, but he proceeded to act like he was giving us "family" counseling while still meeting with this family member without me present & advising her that I was essentially exaggerating my disability (I've been bedridden for years, have a team of doctors, have had 9 surgeries & am permanently disabled via government evaluation), and that I'd "get over it". He could have asked for any of my medical paperwork or to speak with any of my doctors and I would have been happy to arrange that. Instead he decided without ever once meeting me in person (this was while there was still COVID distancing so therapy was on zoom) that my illness couldn't possibly be as serious or disabling as it actually is.
I fully understand that my family member is manipulative, and maybe painted a very different picture for him before we met. Perhaps he acted based on false info given to him. But I was able to beg him to help me be safe, and he didn't. He made it much, much worse. He never evaluated me as an individual apart from the things she said about me to determine if I was telling the truth - that this person presents a very nice front publicly, but is violent to me behind closed doors. I was subjected to her abusive behavior in part because he forced me into the sessions with her.
Once he even said to me "You never know, maybe she'll give you $100,000 in the future!" As if one day, if she had money, that would compensate for the abuse & abandonment she was doling out at present. I was shocked. I have never heard a therapist say such a thing in my life and I cannot fathom where that came from. I never felt like he was actually listening to me or talking to me but instead talking through me and saying increasingly weird things, like "she'll give you money one day"
Dr Perez was warned that by having these sessions he would put me in serious danger and did it anyway. He was so flip about my situation, no matter how desperate I was. It became clear very quickly that I was not going to receive any help from Dr Perez. I never felt for a moment that he listened to me or believed that I was being abused by my caregiver. And the result was continued and more intense abuse, up until being completely abandoned. And a therapist who justified it. Perhaps due to an ableist belief that I could get up and feed myself "If I really wanted to".
I lost a fifth of my body weight during this period, mostly from being denied food.
Run as far away as you possibly can from this man. He is as dangerous as they come.
