Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Therapist Love Scam

Episode Date: February 23, 2025

Vanessa O'Connell, a patient seeking psychological support, was manipulated and groomed by her psychologist, Karen Prowse, leading to an unethical personal relationship and eventual marriage. Prowse fabricated an extraordinary life story to gain Vanessa's trust, which was later revealed to be entirely false.

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So this is wild. This woman's own therapist may have manipulated her to fall in love with her. Now the woman's name is Vanessa and she's from New South Wales in Australia and Vanessa has some problems in her life. And so she decides maybe it's time to get professional help. And one day in 1997 Vanessa starts seeing this psychologist, this woman who will just call therapist. So Vanessa sees her and she likes her. So she keeps going back and seeing her all the time. And over time, therapist learns a lot about Vanessa and Vanessa learns a lot about therapist. And at one point, therapist is like, oh, we have so much in common. And they do. They both

have two daughters. They're both married to their second husband. They both used to model when they were younger. Pretty cool. And so Vanessa continues seeing therapist for about two years. And over this period, she slowly starts to feel better. And eventually, she and therapist agree, she's all good now. and therapy is no longer necessary. And then they decide to part ways. But therapists suggest that they continue to be friends. And Vanessa's like, I. But despite that, Vanessa moves on with her life.

And she doesn't hear a ton from therapist, which is fine. People say they're going to be friends all the time and then they aren't. But whatever, Vanessa got the counseling she needed and now she's happy. Until. One day, out of nowhere, Vanessa gets a call from therapist. And therapist is all upset, and Vanessa's like, what's wrong? Then therapist drops a bomb on her. She tells her that her husband and kids were just in a car accident, and they all died.

Which is horrible news, and Vanessa feels so bad for her. Then she asked Vanessa to come over and stay with her, because she says if she doesn't have someone there watching over her, she's worried she might unalive herself. And Vanessa doesn't want that. So she tells her husband and daughters that she needs to go to go to. to her therapist's house to take care of her. Then she goes over to her therapist's place,

and she's spending time with her, making sure she's okay and stuff. But then therapist drops another bomb on her. Not only did her husband and kids just pass in a horrible car accident, but her ex-husband, the father of her children, was so devastated when he heard the news that he had started doing drugs

and now he's fallen off the face of the earth, like no one can find him. So now, this poor woman just lost everyone. and she has absolutely no one in her life. So, of course, Vanessa feels almost obligated to help her out. And so she starts going over to her place, visiting a couple of times a week to make sure that she's okay and that she doesn't try to hurt herself.

Meanwhile, back home, Vanessa's husband and daughters, they're watching all this go down and they're really supportive. They know that this is just the kind of nice person Vanessa is, always helping out someone in need. But then, that's when things start to take a turn. Because over time, Vanessa starts to notice, therapist, she's kind of foin. And therapists think she's foin.

And their relationship starts to get a little spicy. And soon enough, they get romantic, and then they start smashing. And yeah, this is a bad idea for all kinds of reasons. But despite that, this goes on for a while. And yes, Vanessa is still married. And so eventually she has to finally come clean to her husband and tell him that not only are she and she and the... therapist smashing, but that she has fallen in love with her and that she's going to leave

her husband for her. And that's what she does. She divorces her husband and moves in with therapist. And for what it's worth, she seems really happy there. She seems to believe that therapist is her soulmate and she devotes her life to loving and supporting her. And 16 years go by. And it's now 2018. And they're still together. And at this point, they've decided to get married. And so they start planning their wedding, and around the time they're planning their wedding, suddenly, therapist gets a new friend. And she starts hanging out with this new friend. And by some strange coincidence, this new friend also happens to be a former client of hers.

And of course, Vanessa is immediately jealous. But she's supportive, you know, she's a good person. And as far as she knows, nothing inappropriate is going on. And so she and therapist, they get married. Here's actually a photo of them getting married if you want to see. However, not long after they're married, therapist starts staying out late with her new friend, drinking and whatnot. Not only that, when she's not out, therapist is up in the middle of the night, like drinking and cooking and listening to loud music for some reason. So Vanessa can really start to feel this distance growing between them.

And eventually, it gets to her, and she starts feeling depressed, like really depressed. And around this time, therapist starts posting things on Facebook. like things about her past, like how she used to be a model and stuff. And that is when this woman notices. Her name's Imogen. And Imogen is Vanessa's daughter. Now specifically Imogen notices this Facebook post of therapist back when she used to be a model. So Imogen's looking at this photo and she's like, yeah, that's kind of weird.

And she sends it to a friend. And that friend looks at it and she's like, that's definitely not therapist. That's a different model. So Imogen puts this picture into a reverse image search. and it turns out that this modeling photo therapist claims as an old picture of her is actually an old picture of famous supermodel, L. McPherson. So Imogen is like, is this woman really lying about being a model back in the day? I wonder what else she's lying about.

So she starts screenshoting all these therapists posts and saving them. Meanwhile, around this time, Vanessa finally starts to acknowledge that her marriage is ending and her mental health keeps deteriorating little by little. And eventually, the depression becomes too much for her. And she, unfortunately, unalives herself. And of course, everyone is devastated. And pretty quickly, Imogen wants to look into therapist. Like, why does she seem to be lying in Facebook posts about being a former model?

And so she reaches out to one of her mother, Vanessa's friends. And friend hires a private investigator to look into all this. and private investigator starts looking into it, and they find that therapist is a big fucking liar. Like, remember how she said her husband and kids were just in a car accident and they all died? Total lie. She never had a husband or kids ever.

They don't exist at all. Or how she said her ex, the father of her kids, was so devastated by the news that he had started doing drugs and now he's fallen off the face of the earth? Also a lie. No one can find him because he also doesn't exist. So from the beginning, when therapist was like, we have so much in common, then they both have two daughters, they're both married to their second husband, they both used to model, all of it was bullshit. Therapist has never been married, never had any children, never a model.

She made it all up. And it seems like she made up the part about her husband and kids dying in a car crash so that Vanessa would come over and start taking care of her. Regardless, after learning all this, poor Imogen is horrified. And she's like, fuck this, and she goes and she files a formal complaint against therapist with the Health Care Complaints Commission. While at the same time, therapist has already moved on with her life. In fact, a month after Vanessa passed, therapist had already moved in with her new friend, the one Vanessa was jealous about. Anyway, so the Health Care Complaints Commission investigates, and they find that therapist violated a lot of rules and was likely taking advantage of Vanessa and grooming her during their therapy sessions

with the ultimate intention of seducing her. And of course, therapist denies she did anything wrong. She won't even admit that she lied about having a husband and kids. But whatever, at the end of it all, her registration to practice gets canceled, and she's no longer allowed to provide therapy to anyone. Good.