Patient-Psychotherapist Privilege: Acces to Clinical Records in the Tangled Web of Repressed Memory Litigation

The 1990s promise to be an era of mental health litigation whose outcomes that some predict will dwarf the settlements awarded recently in lawsuits over sexual improprieties between psychotherapists and their patients. One expert estimates that over 17,000 claims will be filed in the next decade, with litigation costs in excess of $250 million. These new cases emerged as therapy patients began to accuse fathers and mothers, uncles and grandfathers, former neighbors and teachers, psychotherapists and countless others of sexually abusing them years ago.