'A Citizen Above Suspicion'.

The article focuses on British psychiatrist Christopher Allison, who was accused of abusing women patients. Allison is also a psychoanalytically trained psychotherapist. Just before Christmas 2002, he became a prisoner of Her Majesty, with an eight-year sentence for two incidents of rape and ten of indecent assault of women patients from the Canterbury area in the 1980s and the Basingstoke area of Hampshire in the 1990s. More victims have come forward since the trial. He has denied it all, compelling his victims to revisit the whole distress of their experiences, this time in public. Allison moved to Basingstoke in Hampshire in central southern England, about 100 miles from Canterbury. He set up in private practice and proceeded to abuse women patients as before. Hampshire Police prosecuted him for criminal conduct in 2002. The article author concludes that systemic psychotherapy generally takes place live through observed collaborative work and so is transparent. It is a dangerous complacency, however, to assume the psychiatrists are better placed to behave more ethically. Systemic practitioners do also work individually, which with its strong cross-current of emotion and intimacy can take a relationship to an edge.