How to Prevent False Allegations in a #MeToo Era

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Horner's advice is good most of the time. The problem there is let's even assume 99% you don't get a false accusation.

Look at it this way. If only 1% falsely accuses you, that means out of 100 patients you will likely get 1 false accusation. Most doctors go through at least 10 a day. So that means after a few weeks you will likely get at least one.

So let's up the safety margin to 99.9%. Oh great that means about about 1-2 years you'll likely get one. That one could be enough to ruin your career.

And then there's the flipside. Okay you want to record every encounter over something that will likely not happen but you don't feel safe enough to have no protection over this? Again the ultimate WTF.

BTW I had a false accusation but the accusation was so apparently fake my employers laughed and told me not to worry. I'm heterosexual. The accuser, a man, accused me of trying to make a move on him after I refused to prescribe him a controlled substance. It was in a jail and the entire interview was witnessed by a correctional officer (this is mandatory in a jail) who backed me up and said I did nothing wrong. When I told my employer I welcomed an investigation cause I had nothing to hide they laughed "Doc we already know you're innocent. Don't worry one second over this."

Add to this the accuser didn't say anything at first and was egged on to report me by a psychologist in the same institution who was known to flagrantly be disrespectful to the partner psychiatrist. 5 prior psychiatrists left the same place cause this lady was so over-the-top whacko and would openly insult them.
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whopper said:
Horner's advice is good most of the time. The problem there is let's even assume 99% you don't get a false accusation.

Look at it this way. If only 1% falsely accuses you, that means out of 100 patients you will likely get 1 false accusation. Most doctors go through at least 10 a day. So that means after a few weeks you will likely get at least one.

So let's up the safety margin to 99.9%. Oh great that means about about 1-2 years you'll likely get one. That one could be enough to ruin your career.

And then there's the flipside. Okay you want to record every encounter over something that will likely not happen but you don't feel safe enough to have no protection over this? Again the ultimate WTF.

BTW I had a false accusation but the accusation was so apparently fake my employers laughed and told me not to worry. I'm heterosexual. The accuser, a man, accused me of trying to make a move on him after I refused to prescribe him a controlled substance. It was in a jail and the entire interview was witnessed by a correctional officer (this is mandatory in a jail) who backed me up and said I did nothing wrong. When I told my employer I welcomed an investigation cause I had nothing to hide they laughed "Doc we already know you're innocent. Don't worry one second over this."

Add to this the accuser didn't say anything at first and was egged on to report me by a psychologist in the same institution who was known to flagrantly be disrespectful to the partner psychiatrist. 5 prior psychiatrists left the same place cause this lady was so over-the-top whacko and would openly insult them.
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I'm glad that you got through safely. But unfortunately, there are cases where this hasn't happened.

For instance, because the interview was conducted in prison, you were being supervised by a guard who could vouche for you. But what if this wasn't the case? What if you had a business meeting at a restaurant? Or it was someone who was in line for a promotion along with you, and they decide to throw you under the bus with the false accusation?

In the united states the number of false accusations has been quantified to be anywhere from 2% all the way up to about 30% of all rape accusations. I'd like to take an average of the two - 16%- and actually round down to about 12%, because I don't think that most accusations are false. Even so, 12% of rape accusations being false is an ALARMINGLY high number. Rape is one of the crimes that one is most likely to be falsely accused of.

Furthermore, in countries like India, the false rape accusation amount is as high as 50%. So there are places in the world where there is much abuse in the system.

I'm truly happy that you were able to dodge the bullet and not have your reputation damaged. I cannot begin to imagine how difficult the situation must've been. But sadly, there are those who didn't have that chance. Brian Banks is an example.
 
On the whole, there have been many situations where there were layers of ambiguity. Someone makes a joke, but is unaware whether or not the other person understands the joke. They assume the other person is in on the joke, and think it'll go over well. The other individual feels uncomfortable, but doesn't say anything directly, but instead reports the person to HR. The company then decides that the hassle is not worth it, and just fires the guy who's been accused.

On the whole I think that empathy may be the solution. We need people to communicate better with each other and let each other know when they are feeling uncomfortable. There are many socially awkward individuals out there who genuinely don't mean any harm, but at the same time make people feel squeamish. Even if they're told harshly, it's better than potentially jeopardizing someone's career over an accident.
 
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Alakazam123 said:
In the united states the number of false accusations has been quantified to be anywhere from 2% all the way up to about 30% of all rape accusations. I'd like to take an average of the two - 16%- and actually round down to about 12%, because I don't think that most accusations are false. Even so, 12% of rape accusations being false is an ALARMINGLY high number. Rape is one of the crimes that one is most likely to be falsely accused of.
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I used to do a lot of work with sexual assault treatment and research in PTSD, I am curious where you are getting these numbers from. Unless things have changed recently, the vast majority of estimates have been in the low single digits. In fact, the number of unreported sexual assaults/rapes is exponentially more than the possible number of false accusations. While I agree that a false accusation of any kind is problematic, in many ways, there seems to be a misunderstanding of numbers here.
 
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WisNeuro said:
I used to do a lot of work with sexual assault treatment and research in PTSD, I am curious where you are getting these numbers from. Unless things have changed recently, the vast majority of estimates have been in the low single digits. In fact, the number of unreported sexual assaults/rapes is exponentially more than the possible number of false accusations. While I agree that a false accusation of any kind is problematic, in many ways, there seems to be a misunderstanding of numbers here.
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Yeah most of what I've seen seems to suggest between 2-8% with the majority being closer to 2 than 8.

The unreported part doesn't matter to this discussion. No one is denying that sexual assault/rapes happen with alarming frequency. The unreported ones don't affect the rate of false accusations.
 
VA Hopeful Dr said:
Yeah most of what I've seen seems to suggest between 2-8% with the majority being closer to 2 than 8.

The unreported part doesn't matter to this discussion. No one is denying that sexual assault/rapes happen with alarming frequency. The unreported ones don't affect the rate of false accusations.
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The roughly 2% seems to be closer to my recollection of the lit. The latter part was more for comparison sake, as there seems to be a random picking of numbers to fit a narrative. It's a complex issue, with social, political, health, etc., ramifications. But, it seems people like to boil things down to one pet issue and disregard the rest, or use randomly picked numbers to cast aspersions.
 
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Alakazam123 said:

False accusation of rape - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

The studies cited here on this Wikipedia page, show where I got my data from.
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Ah, you are basing it off the Rumney paper, I assumed so. If you are inclined to do so, I would strongly urge you to read some of the papers cited in that paper. How "false allegation" gets applied is....widely variable, and at times, very problematic.
 
This seems like an odd thing to worry about. Think of the absolute risk. What is the percentage of all people who get accused of assault in their lifetime (true or false)? It's a fairly small number, probably <<10% of the total population though exact number is up for debate. Whether the false accusations are 2% or 5% does not change your absolute risk that much (assuming that 10% of people are accused of rape which is much higher than the actual number) as you're either looking at 0.10*0.05 = 0.5% risk or 0.10*0.02 = 0.2% risk. If you assume that 5% of all people get accused of rape the numbers become 0.25% or 0.1%. Even if you're male and double these numbers bc most accusations are against men, the absolute numbers are still small. You're not talking about x% of all men in the world but x% of those accused of rape.

Things that are riskier:
Dying in a motor vehicle accident of by firearms 1.3% each (2.6% total)
Death from heart disease: 25%
Poisoned to death: 1.9%

Less risky:
Getting struck by lightening: 0.03% lifetime risk

Source: https://www.cars.com/articles/are-t...rashes-versus-other-fatalities-1420682154567/
www.nationalgeographic.com

Flash Facts About Lightning

Did lightning play a role in evolution? What are the odds of being struck by lightning? Find out these answers and more below.
www.nationalgeographic.com www.nationalgeographic.com
 
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Ironspy said:
This seems like an odd thing to worry about.
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People love to fear things that have little to no chance of happening to them. Like, I know someone personally that is terrified of dying in lava. We live in the Midwest. Even better if that fear advances a political narrative and plays well to a base.
 
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A woman doctor’s risk of being harassed is much higher than a male doctor’s risk of being falsely accused, but they are both greater than zero. Let’s be real here.
 
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sb247 said:
yeah, that guy had no win there. It was good the author eventually figured it out. society has gotten so stupid men can't make comments on some things regardless of how innocent or malice/coercion free
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I don't think society has gotten stupid. Has the pendulum swung too far the other way? Perhaps, but that's only acknowledged by good, decent people who wouldn't do these things to begin with. Unfortunately, this is the result of decades of ignoring these things and therefore decades of people putting up with the discomfort and hostility of a workplace in which sexual harassment is prominent.
 
Mass Effect said:
I don't think society has gotten stupid. Has the pendulum swung too far the other way? Perhaps, but that's only acknowledged by good, decent people who wouldn't do these things to begin with. Unfortunately, this is the result of decades of ignoring these things and therefore decades of people putting up with the discomfort and hostility of a workplace in which sexual harassment is prominent.
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Pendulum swinging too far is “stupid”.

Society shouldn’t over react just because they underreacted/ignored/defended in the past. The appropriate correction is to just start having appropriate reactions to bad behavior.

Both the past practice of allowing bad behavior to go uncorrected and the trend of currently scaring people into thinking they cannot make completely normal and appropriate comments are bad
 
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sb247 said:
Pendulum swinging too far is “stupid”.

Society shouldn’t over react just because they underreacted/ignored/defended in the past. The appropriate correction is to just start having appropriate reactions to bad behavior.

Both the past practice of allowing bad behavior to go uncorrected and the trend of currently scaring people into thinking they cannot make completely normal and appropriate comments are bad
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I don't know, as I was reading the article, I personally thought the author was the one being inappropriate. I mean, is it really appropriate to gush over a student's looks? Saying she looks gorgeous and leaving it there is fine, but then to recruit others and even come right out and tease when a male clerkship director doesn't say it is, IMO, inappropriate, with or without #metoo. If a student is all dolled up for graduation, great, tell her if you like, but there's no need to make it such a big deal to the extent of "what, you don't think she looks beautiful?" IMO, it was the author who made the whole thing uncomfortable, not #metoo.
 
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Mass Effect said:
I don't know, as I was reading the article, I personally thought the author was the one being inappropriate. I mean, is it really appropriate to gush over a student's looks? Saying she looks gorgeous and leaving it there is fine, but then to recruit others and even come right out and tease when a male clerkship director doesn't say it is, IMO, inappropriate, with or without #metoo. If a student is all dolled up for graduation, great, tell her if you like, but there's no need to make it such a big deal to the extent of "what, you don't think she looks beautiful?" IMO, it was the author who made the whole thing uncomfortable, not #metoo.
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Of course the author was inappropriate, I apologize if That didn’t come across earlier

But the male being accurately terrified to comment is because society went stupid (and again, knowing society has went stupid makes it more absurd for a female faculty to egg a male into saying something)

“What?! Don’t you see this dress? Wouldn’t you like to throw your career away for a phrase you were begged to utter against your will? Come on!”
 
sb247 said:
Of course the author was inappropriate, I apologize if That didn’t come across earlier

But the male being accurately terrified to comment is because society went stupid (and again, knowing society has went stupid makes it more absurd for a female faculty to egg a male into saying something)

“What?! Don’t you see this dress? Wouldn’t you like to throw your career away for a phrase you were begged to utter against your will? Come on!”
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And for 40 days and 40 nights, she tempted the male faculty member, with visions of the dress and all manner of ways the student might give a sweet smile in response to the lightest compliment.

‘ “Look how it fits here, and here,” I told my male colleague as I gave the student a spin. “What wouldn’t you give to just be a few decades younger? Come on, tell us what you’d do!!” As the male faculty member comically gulped, pulled on his collar and wiped away the sweat, I threw my head back and cackled, as I knew just how he felt, in these confusing times.’
 
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sb247 said:
Of course the author was inappropriate, I apologize if That didn’t come across earlier

But the male being accurately terrified to comment is because society went stupid (and again, knowing society has went stupid makes it more absurd for a female faculty to egg a male into saying something)

“What?! Don’t you see this dress? Wouldn’t you like to throw your career away for a phrase you were begged to utter against your will? Come on!”
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I guess my point is that even without #metoo, even if there was no threat against the male's career, I think it was inappropriate. Even if this had happened 10 years ago or 20 years ago, it still would have been inappropriate. In other words, the article was actually a pretty bad example of teaching in the #metoo era and answering the question "If faculty members' fear may be negatively impacting the development of our students, what would bravery look like?" which was the point.

There is no educational construct under which a male clerkship director not telling a med student she looks gorgeous will negatively impact her development. In fact, there's no evidence whatsoever that it would ever be appropriate to comment on a student's looks.
 
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Mass Effect said:
I guess my point is that even without #metoo, even if there was no threat against the male's career, I think it was inappropriate. Even if this had happened 10 years ago or 20 years ago, it still would have been inappropriate. In other words, the article was actually a pretty bad example of teaching in the #metoo era and answering the question "If faculty members' fear may be negatively impacting the development of our students, what would bravery look like?" which was the point.

There is no educational construct under which a male clerkship director not telling a med student she looks gorgeous will negatively impact her development. In fact, there's no evidence whatsoever that it would ever be appropriate to comment on a student's looks.
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I’m with you on it being inappropriate regardless of anything #metoo related
 
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Mass Effect said:
I guess my point is that even without #metoo, even if there was no threat against the male's career, I think it was inappropriate. Even if this had happened 10 years ago or 20 years ago, it still would have been inappropriate. In other words, the article was actually a pretty bad example of teaching in the #metoo era and answering the question "If faculty members' fear may be negatively impacting the development of our students, what would bravery look like?" which was the point.

There is no educational construct under which a male clerkship director not telling a med student she looks gorgeous will negatively impact her development. In fact, there's no evidence whatsoever that it would ever be appropriate to comment on a student's looks.
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it depends how old you are, if you’re in your late 20s/30s resident and the girl is the same age/a little younger, it’s appropriate to tell her she’s looking fine as hell as long as you have built the initial rapport and aren’t going to come across creepy
 
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Merely said:
it depends how old you are, if you’re in your late 20s/30s resident and the girl is the same age/a little younger, it’s appropriate to tell her she’s looking fine as hell as long as you have built the initial rapport and aren’t going to come across creepy
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That’s absurd even for trolling
 
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SourceOfDenial said:
Sometimes I wish this place used real names—it’s hard to believe some folks saying the things they say with their name behind it.
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lol..obviously no one would troll anymore if it wasn’t anonymous..that’s the entire point of the internet..if you want a serious formal nuanced discussion go talk to your colleagues at work..
 
It's kind of ironic that @Merely got banned / reprimanded for posting on a #MeToo thread about hitting on girls.

Anyways, I've personally adopted protocols in place to prevent this:

- I follow the Billy Graham rule / Mike Pence rule
- I will not mentor a female on a 1:1 basis
- if I interview female patients on a 1:1 basis, it will be in a video-recorded room (without the sound) if possible or it will be in an room with big windows exposed to the outside world

Although being #MeToo would be a Black Swan event, the consequences would be too very severe to throw caution into the wind.
 
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@ADO4, Amen to that. There are many who talk about how rare the occurrences are (though the risk does vary by location, career, etc.), but the fact is that when you're at the receiving end of the false accusation, your life is next to finished.

There was a guy at my college who was falsely accused of sexual assault. His friends/acquaintances stopped talking to him, he was nearly kicked out of the school, and worst of all his false accuser did not have to pay any consequences (no fine, no reprimand, etc.). It's kind of like being mugged. The likelihood of someone just dropping out of the sky to mug you is relatively low. In fact, crime has been on the decline for the past several decades.

However, it doesn't hurt to practice basic stranger danger. Because if someone does jump you, by that point it's too late to be contemplating alternatives and all.
 
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AD04 said:
It's kind of ironic that @Merely got banned / reprimanded for posting on a #MeToo thread about hitting on girls.

Anyways, I've personally adopted protocols in place to prevent this:

- I follow the Billy Graham rule / Mike Pence rule
- I will not mentor a female on a 1:1 basis
- if I interview female patients on a 1:1 basis, it will be in a video-recorded room (without the sound) if possible or it will be in an room with big windows exposed to the outside world

Although being #MeToo would be a Black Swan event, the consequences would be too very severe to throw caution into the wind.
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Hate to go here, but not sure how you think this is somehow gender specific. The incidence may be a bit higher if you're a man with females but these things you fear can absolutely happen with male students or patients. Seems to make a lot more sense to apply the same rules to everyone, kind of like the whole practice of medicine.
 
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AD04 said:
It's kind of ironic that @Merely got banned / reprimanded for posting on a #MeToo thread about hitting on girls.
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How do you know that this thread is the reason Merely was banned?
 
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Merovinge said:
Hate to go here, but not sure how you think this is somehow gender specific. The incidence may be a bit higher if you're a man with females but these things you fear can absolutely happen with male students or patients. Seems to make a lot more sense to apply the same rules to everyone, kind of like the whole practice of medicine.
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Likewise, I'd have to think that applying those rules in an uneven way actually opens you up to gender discrimination lawsuits. So, in the end the attempt to limit an extremely low base rate event, simply opens you up to a generally much more common litigious event.
 
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I understood the comment by merely to refer to a situation in which someone had already built a burgeoning romance. I am not a person who engages in romantic relationships, but I assume at some point someone will make some comment that is sexual to the other partner. Merely did refer to an already existent rapport. Without knowing further what was in their head, I can't say anything jumped out at me as bizarre. If it were a comment to a colleague with whom there was no existing romantic relationship, then yes, I'd understand it was inappropriate.

MeToo is about people not having cared about sexual harassment/assault. Because it's about people not having cared in the *past*, it's inherently difficult to prove/disprove the allegations. I think that is why people are reacting as if an allegation is probable to come out of the woodwork. But what you do now has no bearing on what someone could say happened in the past, which is what it seems like you all are worried about (false allegations). You can video record, be like Mike Pence (I find this particularly odious and harmful to working relationships), etc., but couldn't you assuage your fears by realizing that no matter what you do now, allegations from the past that are false could hurt you and you can't do anything about that.

I understand you could counter by arguing that it's nihilistic to not try to prevent future false allegations. To that I would first say I think they're very unlikely. The second is that I think you need to then treat each potential perpetrator of false accusations equally. If you video record, video record everyone. If you won't go to lunch with someone of the "opposite" sex, don't go to lunch with anyone. Or go to lunch with anyone and video record them. I'm not sure if you all have heard about how many allegations have been made against males in authority by other males, whether in college athletic programs, religious organizations, and some of the recent metoo celebrity cases.
 
Yeah, I think it’s unethical to discriminate against females; I don’t meet with any trainee alone in my office, male or female.
 
SeniorWrangler said:
Yeah, I think it’s unethical to discriminate against females; I don’t meet with any trainee alone in my office, male or female.
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Who do you have with you?

There comes a point when this hypervigilence is just silly and incompatible with career goals. If you don't want to get into education, great. But if you do, you have to treat trainees the same and IMO it's a weird policy to never meet with them alone.

Also what many I think are forgetting is that a patient can accuse you of inappropriate behavior just as easily as a trainee/med student and probably would have an easier time doing it. So do you record or have someone sit in on all your patient encounters?
 
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Just a reminder: women are generally not out to accuse men for money, attention, and/or sheer funsies. Sexual assault is under-reported. And, despite what you may think, the system is not set up to believe the woman over the man.
 
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cara susanna said:
Just a reminder: women are generally not out to accuse men for money, attention, and/or sheer funsies. Sexual assault is under-reported. And, despite what you may think, the system is not set up to believe the woman over the man.
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We still have (on paper in criminal courts at least) a presumption of innocence but colleges and employers (or congress for that matter) don’t all operate like that. There is legitimate concern with movements like “believe all women” which imply that proof shouldn’t be required to convict

I’m cool with executing a properly convicted rapist but all accusations of any crime should always be investigated with an appropriate demand for evidence
 
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[/QUOTE]
sb247 said:
We still have (on paper in criminal courts at least) a presumption of innocence but colleges and employers (or congress for that matter) don’t all operate like that. There is legitimate concern with movements like “believe all women” which imply that proof shouldn’t be required to convict

I’m cool with executing a properly convicted rapist but all accusations of any crime should always be investigated with an appropriate demand for evidence
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This is a vast misinterpretation of this "movement." Particularly in the historical context.
 
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WisNeuro said:
This is a vast misinterpretation of this "movement." Particularly in the historical context.
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There were posters, presumably educated, on this website saying that denying a guy a scotus seat shouldn’t require actual proof of an accusation so I’m not off on how some have represented that notion.

Maybe there is a true scotsman somewhere in a wide philosophical spectrum that use the phrase? But I’ve 100% had people here and in person try to wield that phrase the way I described
 
sb247 said:
There were posters, presumably educated, on this website saying that denying a guy a scotus seat shouldn’t require actual proof of an accusation so I’m not off on how some have represented that notion.

Maybe there is a true scotsman somewhere in a wide philosophical spectrum that use the phrase? But I’ve 100% had people here and in person try to wield that phrase the way I described
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So, those posters encompass the entirety of opinion on the matter? If one person espouses that view, it means that view is espoused by everyone? If that's the case, I sure hope we're ready to embrace extreme solipsism in every single argument ever to remain consistent.
 
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WisNeuro said:
So, those posters encompass the entirety of opinion on the matter? If one person espouses that view, it means that view is espoused by everyone? If that's the case, I sure hope we're ready to embrace extreme solipsism in every single argument ever to remain consistent.
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I am positing that isn’t actually an extreme position from within that crowd

But it might be easier for you to explain how the “majority” of that movement applies “believe all women” when it is weighed against notions like the presumption of innocence
 
sb247 said:
I am positing that isn’t actually an extreme position from within that crowd

But it might be easier for you to explain how the “majority” of that movement applies “believe all women” when it is weighed against notions like the presumption of innocence
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I used to work/publish in the PTSD/sexual assault realm, still have many colleagues and friends who I keep in contact with. None of them ascribe to the view that you say is the usual in that world.

Also, you are conflating legal proceedings with empathic reactions. The believe all women idea is that opposite of what society used to do (e.g., assume women were lying, find a reason that she "caused" the assault, etc), that we need to listen to women and let them tell their stories. The idea that we should convict people in a court of law based on unsubstantiated verbal allegations is merely a bogeyman that the right likes to trot out there to rile up their base.
 
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WisNeuro said:
I used to work/publish in the PTSD/sexual assault realm, still have many colleagues and friends who I keep in contact with. None of them ascribe to the view that you say is the usual in that world.

Also, you are conflating legal proceedings with empathic reactions. The believe all women idea is that opposite of what society used to do (e.g., assume women were lying, find a reason that she "caused" the assault, etc), that we need to listen to women and let them tell their stories. The idea that we should convict people in a court of law based on unsubstantiated verbal allegations is merely a bogeyman that the right likes to trot out there to rile up their base.
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That bogeyman manifested in a congressional judicial approval process so it’s not at all imaginary

I’m with you on a mental health therapy relationship but not with employment/crime/assigning name to an alleged attacker. All of that should require an expectation of evidence
 
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sb247 said:
That bogeyman manifested in a congressional judicial approval process so it’s not at all imaginary

I’m with you on a mental health therapy relationship but not with employment/crime/assigning name to an alleged attacker. All of that should require an expectation of evidence
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Good thing a congressional approval process is not a criminal court proceeding. Also, he's a supreme court justice now, sure looks like he was "convicted." As to the last point, anyone can report a sexual assault, regardless of if there is physical evidence. Considering the difficulty in there actually being physical evidence in many cases, it is absolutely absurd to say that no one should be able to even say that they were assaulted.
 
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WisNeuro said:
Good thing a congressional approval process is not a criminal court proceeding. Also, he's a supreme court justice now, sure looks like he was "convicted." As to the last point, anyone can report a sexual assault, regardless of if there is physical evidence. Considering the difficulty in there actually being physical evidence in many cases, it is absolutely absurd to say that no one should be able to even say that they were assaulted.
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That’s a strawman.

Never said people cannot report things. Only that in terms of believing an alleged person is a criminal, evidence should be expected. And there were A LOT of people who wanted to block a scotus off of an accusation with no evidence, thus the legitimate concern from some about the notion that all accusations be believed regardless of evidence (again, not speaking about the doctor/patient treatment relationship)
 
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To redirect the conversation a bit, you can avoid most accusations by following "the Rock" rule referenced in the WBUR article comments. If you wouldn't do or say it to the Rock, don't do or say it to a patient.

Outside of those parameters, I think it would take a truly personality disordered or psychotic person to make an accusation of sexual misconduct that has no basis whatsoever in fact (or how a reasonable person would view the facts). For instance, a person with cluster B pathology who is denied a medication they want. Or a person with delusions who misinterprets benign words or acts.

That said, we do in fact work with personality disordered and psychotic people. I don't know if there's a great way to protect yourself in those situations short of taping every session. But hopefully if something is in fact 100% false, the accuser's story will fall apart... not that that means the damage won't already be done.

This is an interesting practice issue, quite apart from #metoo.
 
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