This Buzzfeed story getting a lot of coverage and unfortunately, the right is using it as a distraction:
Hillary Clinton Let Him Stay. Women Say His Harassment Continued.
A woman who worked on Hillary Clinton’s campaign complained about touching, inappropriate comments, and an untenable work environment created by her boss, a faith and values adviser. He was punished, but not fired, by Clinton. Six years later, he landed the top job at a pro-Clinton super PAC, where staffers say his behavior wasn’t any different.
The psychology of the men who abuse and harass, and the women who tolerate it, sometimes look the other way when others are subjected to abuse, or actually condone it is complex. There needs to be a national discussion on this as part of the entire #MeToo movement.
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In my 40 year career as a psychotherapist, many of my clients were women in emotionally abusive relationships. I also treated numerous couples where the husband was unfaithful, with about a 50% rate of successful reconciliation because when the husband was willing to engage in therapy half the battle was won. (Rarely it was the wife who was unfaithful. I can recall only one client, but that was decades ago. I read it is more common now.)
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Here's what I would have done as the director of a mental health center if I was charged with helping the Clintons. I would have put together a treatment plan which also included both couples therapy and individual therapy for Hillary, Bill, in addition to family and individual sessions for Chelsea.
If Hillary had in-depth insight therapy which was successful in certain ways, I think there's a chance she might have fired Strider as soon as she investigated the allegations and found them to be true. This is very, very complex. No psychotherapy can resolve all a person’s conflicts. By forgiving Bill, which was beneficial, she might have been predisposed to forgive Strider.
I don't know what kind of marital therapy the Clintons got. I recall something about spiritual counseling. There are many excellent well-trained pastoral therapists with degrees and clinical psychology and clinical social work, so I don't want this to sound dismissive.
Of course, they did reconcile but that doesn't mean Hillary resolved all the deeper issues she might have if she stayed in therapy longer.
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I can imagine that this Strider matter was very troubling to her at the time, and that now that it is public she his dealing with a fair amount of guilt and personal introspection.
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Some of the comments on Buzzfeed are cruel and partisan, and I assume on other websites where comments will probably reflect a total lack of empathy for Hillary.
I believe everybody can benefit from psychotherapy. Having personal therapy is standard for anyone who endeavors to become an accomplished therapist themselves. Of course, not everybody needs therapy and the era when the dominant schools of insight-oriented therapy, psychoanalytic and humanistic, waned in the mid-1970’s with managed care and symptom oriented psychotherapy making therapy for self-knowledge prohibitively expensive for most people.
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I think anyone who wants to be president should have therapy whether they need it for symptomatology or not — but then look what happened Thomas Eagleton.
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When I began to work in community mental health we could see clients for years, even after their original symptoms abated. All of my elder therapist friends look back at those times as tremendously gratifying because we could, corny as it may sound, help people grow and be more than they ever thought they could be.
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I think public figures should have a trusted top-notch therapist they can turn to even after their primary course of therapy is completed. In fact, I’ve always been an advocate for therapists making it clear to clients who terminate successfully that they are always welcome to come to see me for a check-up, and most certainly if they face a life crisis.