Questions
1. What prompts Carole to re-examine her sexual relationships with past therapists?
2. Why does it take so long for her to recognize the sexual encounters as malpractice and abusive?
3. How do the responses Carole gets from Dr. Jansen and her former religious order cause her further harm?
4. Carole tells several people in the novel about the sexual abuse before she meets Dr. Schubachs. Why do you think they failed to dig deeper into Carole’s claim of sexual contact with previous therapists?
5. The need to protect institutions rather than the people they are supposed to serve is a reoccurring theme in this novel. Does this strategy really work?
6. What other examples of abuse of power surface in this novel?
7. How does this form of abuse harm a patient? the family? the profession? the congregation? society?
8. Do you think this kind of abuse continues to exist today?
9. Can you think of ways to prevent this kind of abuse?
10. What would you do if you knew a colleague was ‘sexually abusing’ a vulnerable person?