Diane Genco is a dangerous therapist and her AZ Center for Change should be shut down immediately. I beg all sexual trauma survivors to stay as far away from this place as possible.
My name is Leif E. Greenz (legal name omitted for obvious reasons) and I'm a mental health writer and YouTuber, as well as a lifelong C-PTSD survivor. As someone who has undergone trauma therapy for the past two decades, I can confidently say that Diane Genco is the most toxic therapist I have ever worked with. I met with her for an individual session and then attended her sexual trauma group afterwards. I'm sure she'll respond to this saying there's no proof that I attended this place, as she asserts in response to every other negative review she gets, but there is. I have the proof. I was at the AZ Center for Change on the evening of Friday, May 5, 2017 and it was the most retraumatizing therapeutic experience of my life.
Diane Genco is a wildly inappropriate woman, verging on abusive. She's either a narcissist or a puppet master who gets off on humiliating, controlling, and insulting her traumatized clients. During our one-on-one meeting, I told her I would probably cry during group as a result of my recent trauma and she verbatim told me she'd "be sure to humiliate me." I remember this clearly because I wrote it down. I wrote all of it down. I clenched my fists throughout our entire one-on-one, sweat dripping down my arms. This woman scared me. She was making fun of my trauma history as I uncovered it. She made light of everything I said. She was so condescending and cold, I wanted to sprint to my car and never look back. I knew I wasn't safe there, but because I am a vulnerable C-PTSD survivor, it was too difficult for me to find the courage to leave.
Let's talk about the group. There was a blind woman in the group who was supposed to give a presentation that day. While she struggled through what seemed to be a compulsory PowerPoint presentation about her horrific trauma history, Diane and her assistant openly mocked and laughed at the woman's best efforts. They belittled her. I wanted to vomit. There was another woman who talked about getting sexually abused and taken advantage of by her partner. Diane told her she was "sex obsessed." I spoke up when she said it and told her I found her statement deeply offensive. She was literally blaming the victim. Diane was taken aback by the confrontation. She obviously wasn't used to being challenged.
Diane's groups are utter chaos. There are no real rules around sharing, so I ended up being traumatized by stories of extreme incest, incestuous pregnancies, and explicit descriptions of genitalia/sexual abuse. I sobbed my eyes out for the last 20/30 minutes of group. At no point did Diane step in and say "that's enough" or "maybe we should tone it down" in regards to the long, detailed descriptions of sexual abuse. It took me days to recover from what I'd heard. It's taken me over a year to work up the strength to tell my story and finally report this sick woman and her associates.
I am well-versed in trauma recovery -- in fact, I've devoted my life to the topic. And as a patient with more mental health experience than Diane can ever hope to have, I can promise you that this place IS NOT NORMAL. Diane's approach to therapy is sick and DANGEROUS. I continued having a panic attack for hours after I left the group that night. My weekend was ruined. My motivation to find a new therapist was obliterated. A safe trauma group sets boundaries around how much information is revealed. As a survivor who speaks publicly about my experiences, I never give away explicit, unnecessary details without consent because I know how easily other survivors can be retraumatized. All of the other trauma groups I've been in have set these limitations. Diane's group, on the other hand, was a free-for-all. This is not how people heal. When traumatic accounts are tossed around willy nilly and the whole group gets traumatized and triggered, you can't make any progress! How are people supposed to focus enough to learn or heal when they're trying to process strangers' traumas on top of their own? It's simply not possible. Trauma groups should embrace skill sharing, gentle healing, and forward motion, not horror stories.
I sincerely hope this place is shut down forever. I know Diane is preying on court mandated patients who probably can't complain about her abusive, toxic services because they're stuck in the system against their will. But I can complain. And I will continue to complain until something changes; until Diane leaves young, sexually traumatized people alone for good. read more