AITA for reporting my son's therapist for sharing private information with his stepdad?
A grieving boy, crushed by the loss of his beloved dog, found his voice silenced by sorrow and pain. His mother, desperate to help him heal, sought therapy—a place meant to offer solace and trust.
But instead of protection, the walls of that sacred space were shattered by betrayal. When the boy’s stepfather punished him unjustly, wielding the stolen bicycle as a weapon, the truth behind the act unveiled a darker wound.
The therapist, bound by confidentiality, had broken his sacred oath, exposing private confessions and turning a sanctuary into a battleground of mistrust and heartbreak.
My m36 son's (14) dog passed away recently. I signed him up with a therapist because his dog's death has literally left him unable to speak. He's been in therapy for 2 weeks now.
2 days ago, My son called crying saying his stepdad punished him by taking his bicycle and selling it for no reason. I was livid.
I went to have a word with his stepdad and he told me that there WAS a reason and that is the fact that my son "badmouthed" him to the therapist, and claimed that he treated the dog poorly. I was floored at this.
I had an argument with him an asked how the hell he knew and told him to prove that my son said all that. He showed me texts betwen him and my son's therapist. So basically...the therapist had been giving out private info about a bunch of stuff my son talked about in therapy.
I was even more floored. I went straight to that therapist and we had a huge argument. I told him I was going to report him after he defended himself saying the reason he gave my son's stepdad this info was because of concern as "a parent".
I said that I don't give a shit what the justification was, and went on with my report. He tried to talk about how he felt for my son's stepdad and his concerns as a "parent" so he didn't think he did anything wrong.
My son's mom called after she found out about the report and she she blew up at me on the phobe calling me a controlling asshole for what I did.
I ignored her calls after that but my own wife thought I made a hasty decision and that the real problem was with my son's stepdad not the therapist.
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REDDIT USERS WERE STUNNED – YOU WON’T BELIEVE SOME OF THESE REACTIONS.:
The internet jumped in fast, delivering everything from kind advice to cold truth. It’s a mix of empathy, outrage, and no-nonsense takes.
Mundane-Solution5657 - :- NTA. There's a reason those conversations are private. Not even the parents should know what is talked about. Your poor son is going to have a very difficult time trusting someone else.
AlvinOwlHirt - :- Nope. He had no right to contact the stepdad and, in fact, further harmed your son. That is a horrible therapist and he deserves to lose his license.
Regardless, he is now useless as a therapist to your son because he betrayed his trust--and good luck with getting him to open up to anyone else now.
Ducky818 - :- NTA. The therapist shouldn't be sharing information without the consent of your son. Medically, the age of consent is much younger than 18 in many, many states. Therefore, the therapist doesn't get to automatically talk with the parents.
The fact that the therapist doesn't think he did anything wrong is astounding. At the very least, your son will no longer trust him and has probably done some psychological damage to him. What an AH therapist.
tatersprout - :- NTA. If you live in the US, therapists are not allowed to discuss what happens in therapy unless the child is in danger. The therapist violated your son's rights. Pursue this to the end.
foodieboricua - :- NTA. That therapist should lose his job if he really thinks he has to tell a possibly abusive father what their patient is telling them.
baobab77 - :- NTA. Your son had stopped speaking, while trying to mourn the death of his dog. The only person that could get him to talk, was his therapist.
His therapist then engaged in a reportable offense, by sharing information from his sessions, with his stepfather. If there were no grounds for what you reported, none of them would be worried.
They'd think that you had gone off on a tangent, and that there wouldn't be any consequences for the breach of trust/information. You had no choice but to report his therapist.
Otherwise, you'd be part of the problem of teaching your son (at such a young age) that not even medical professionals are to be trusted.
Impossible-Pause3788 - :- Report the therapist to your local authority. It might be called an ethics board or a therapist's association or similar. They will determine if his actions were appropriate or not.
Regardless, I think [edit: the therapist talking to stepdad is] an AH move. Everyone needs a vent, including kids. Spilling secrets is how kids lose trust in therapy, and how they get set back, significantly, in their mental health care. NTA.
The original poster (OP) acted decisively to protect their son's privacy after discovering a therapist shared confidential details with the stepdad, leading to a punitive action against the son.
This action created a central conflict between the OP's belief in confidentiality and the mother's accusation that the OP was controlling and escalated the situation unnecessarily by reporting the therapist.
Given the breach of trust by the therapist and the severe emotional vulnerability of the son, was the OP's immediate decision to report the therapist the correct action to defend their child, or did this swift action unfairly bypass attempts to resolve the underlying issues with the stepdad and the mother?