A former NHS Tayside psychologist has been struck off after admitting a sexual relationship with a former patient.
Markus Themessl-Huber was working for NHS Tayside when he began his affair with the sex abuse survivor in 2015.
The clinical psychologist, who worked for Angus Adults Psychological Services, arranged for the woman to be discharged from his care so they could begin a sexual relationship.
The Health Care and Professions Tribunal Service (HCPTS) in London was told Mr Themessl-Huber falsified timesheets to conceal his relationship with the woman, named only as Patient A, from his bosses at the health board.
Panel chairman Andrew Gell said his actions has caused “significant harm” to the patient and his actions were “fundamentally incompatible” with remaining on the register.
The tribunal was told the sexual relationship lasted for more than three months but ended in March 2016 after the woman took an overdose when Mr Themessl-Huber attempted to “withdraw” from the relationship.
She told the Samaritans her affair with Mr Themessl-Huber had left her “heartbroken” and confused.
Mr Themessl-Huber self-referred himself to NHS Tayside following Patient A’s admission to hospital follower her overdose of medication in March last year.
He was dismissed by the health board a short time later.
Mr Themessl-Huber admitted to five charges including engaging in an inappropriate sexual relationship, sending emails of a sexual nature, sending gifts, and submitting five falsified timesheets.
He told the panel he had lost sight of his responsibilities and been “blinded” by his attraction to the woman.
The panel was told Mr Themessl-Huber had rubbed the woman’s arm and lower back during therapy sessions and had even allowed her to sit on his lap and hug him.
She then wrote to him expressing her feelings for him and he admitted his own attraction to her.
The pair had exchanged a number of explicit emails before she was discharged from Mr Themessl-Huber’s care and they consummated their relationship.
His representative Wendy Hewitt told the hearing: “The relationship at the start was of the very best of intentions, with the patient’s best interests at the heart of the treatment.
“The touch therapy, as unorthodox as it was, did not start with any sexual motivation.”
The panel concluded there was no option but to strike off Mr Themessl-Huber.
It said: “The tribunal finds that the registrant’s behaviour is fundamentally incompatible with continued registration. It takes account of the fact that the registrant’s actions exacerbated Patient A’s long-standing mistrust of men and has caused her additional and significant harm.
“It may well be that the registrant initially meant no harm to Patient A but, as an experienced practitioner, he would have known that by allowing the escalation of their therapeutic relationship into a sexual one was not only a dangerous violation of boundaries but was also, given Patient A’s particular vulnerability, likely to cause her additional and enduring harm.
“Notwithstanding the registrant’s remorse and developing insight into what he has done, the tribunal concludes that the properly informed and fair minded person on the street would consider the registrant’s misconduct to be most serious and any sanction less than a striking off roder would seriously undermine their confidence in the profession and in the regulatory process.”
