Reema, a twenty‑five‑year‑old, pulled into what she thought was a routine marriage session like a boat sailing into calm waters. She smiled at the clinic’s sign, clutched a mug, and assumed the therapist would steer conversation toward healing. Instead, an ordinary meeting slipped into a courtroom drama.
Her husband, holding onto a stubborn narrative, urged the counsellor to “diagnose” her with ADHD and bipolar disorder, insisting those disorders had existed before the marriage began. Reema felt the therapist’s shoulders tense as the discussion drifted from emotional support to legal strategy. It felt less like you‑to‑you therapy, more like building a case. A short pause finally forced the counsellor to cut his own words. “Stop this,” he told the husband. He bent the conversation back to its original purpose—helping someone feel seen, not a witness for a dispute.
Rohit, thirty, narrated a similar scene from the other side of the ring. His wife, a licensed psychologist, had a habit of labeling his struggle with ADHD, anxiety, and other conditions with little evidence. Over months, she slid psychedelic prescriptions into his life, a practice he later discovered she was not permitted to perform. After a suicide attempt that left him battling trauma and guilt, she dropped into the emergency room with an affidavit in her hand. The paper demanded a signature that would absolve her of responsibility for his actions.
That’s how mental health can morph into a tool, a weapon that allies with legal strings to bend truth. When a therapist’s role shifts from healer to investigator, the foundation of trust deteriorates. A weekend counselor brushstroke becomes a litigation brushstroke. The normally private space of therapy is turned into a courtroom.
Professions entrusted with psychological insight need fresh guards. If a therapist walks into a divorced couple’s living room, the stakes rise beyond self‑disclosure. Their duty of care gets tangled in the tangled web of personal claims. The profession must ask, “How do we preserve the sanctity of therapy when the law and emotions collide?”
The fallout? Whole families wander into a maze where diagnoses carry weight beyond personal health. Without clear, ethical boundaries, the legal system risks being undermined by half‑truths. If a therapist speaks for a divorce, the line between support and strategy blurs.
In a world where the mind is both a refuge and a battlefield, who keeps the line between these worlds safe?
