After only a few sessions, Joseph Dalton DESTROYED my marriage.
Dalton effectively tossed a grenade into the room and walked away. After 'firing me' from counseling, my wife left me, took our daughter away, has moved into a home with her alcoholic brother very far from a hospital or amenities, and has emptied our ENTIRE bank account.
Firstly, Dalton has no education or certification to practice therapy in the state of Oregon. He hasn't been in practice for 11 years as he states on his website. Look up his business registry info and his WHOIS domain - he's an online ghost. He's a total FRAUD.
He practices a version of regression therapy (very dangerous...can lead to suicide - read about it if you please) - his techniques combine hypnotherapy, guided visualizations and two way dialoguing with "Jesus". RUN FAST if you want to save your marriage.
My wife and I sought marriage counseling this summer. We're familiar with good counseling: we had a great experience with a counselor in Southern California. But, now we live in Bend, OR, so my wife contacted Joseph Dalton at Navah in Bend for counseling. I believed Joseph to be a licensed psychologist based on his Jungian approach to therapy (false self, etc.) In summary, Dalton did an astonishing amount of damage to our marriage and to me personally, both emotionally and psychologically: After 4 meetings which cost $450 each meeting, Dalton 'fired us' as clients, citing that I'm unreachable and suggesting that all of the problems within my marriage are my fault. My wife then accused me of being a sociopath and 'crazy' based on Dalton's "evaluation" of my psychological state. I then contacted a licensed clinical psychologist for a proper psychological assessment. I passed the assessment.
THE SESSIONS:
Firstly, Dalton asked us to make lists of 'ways my spouse has hurt me'. After 3 sessions, I was frustrated that he hadn't engaged us to review the list of 'ways my spouse has hurt me' or any other assignments he gave us. Now began the rift between Dalton and us. I expressed that I'm in the doghouse with my wife for these unresolved issues, and that I would really like to understand when we will review the assignments. Then came a shift in Dalton's attitude toward me. He began to argue with me, and at one point, he said that I 'remind him of a lawyer' and that I'm 'lawyering him'. This alarmed me, because on 4 occasions the told us that his father was an attorney who had abused him his entire childhood emotionally, psychologically and physically. I suspect this was countertransference. I asked him if he feels that I remind him of his father and if that's bothering him. He reacted by tossing his pencil down, rolling his eyes and head, and with a chuckle, he asked, 'what...so now you're psychoanalyzing me?' It's clear that Dalton wanted to be regarded as the authority of psychoanalysis in our sessions together. For my own records, I recorded our sessions and journaled about them for personal growth, which is also why my account is so detailed.
At any point, if Dalton did not get 100% agreement and compliance from me, he would say, 'you're unreachable' and 'you're unteachable'. He wrote down many many lists of my and my wife's behavioral disorders and their symptoms. My wife would collect his notes about my character flaws for her records (she was adding to this list of 'ways my spouse has hurt me'). I'm attaching one of these lists which I have a copy of - my wife has the others. The list reads like a list of symptoms for any number of behavior disorders or mental illnesses. Googling these words online yielded search results for sociopathy, bordering personality disorder, narcissism and more - as you can imagine, I was crushed at the thought that I am struggling with one of these disorders. When Dalton presented us with the list, he told me, "This is who you are, Derek." I then replied, "I can definitely see how I react in some of these ways when I'm experiencing stress or danger." He replied, "No, you're lying to yourself; THIS is who you are and no one in your life is willing to admit it to you because they're afraid of how you're going to attack them for it." I replied and said, "No, that's not who I am - those are some behaviors I express as a reaction to stress, and I want to work on improving in those areas. He replied and said "You're lying to yourself". He continued to press in and said that I'm lying, a hypocrite, and not reachable.
Then, in a random shift of the conversation, he looked at me and said 'if you engage with her sexually, and you're not connected emotionally, then you're violating your wife...and if it's not happening in a way where you're emotionally connected, then stop having sex...it's a violation" Then, he asked me to speak to my wife and to repeat after him:
DALTON: "In the past when we've had sex, was that violating for you?"..."What did you do with all the pain?" And so on.
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