Military Psychologist Arrested For Sexually Assaulting Rape Victims During Therapy

 Fairfield, California – A psychologist working at Travis Air Force Base near Sacremento  has been arrested for sexually assaulting his patents after multiple  patients accused him of misconduct and claimed that they are now “even more traumatized” because of the abuse they endured at the hands of the man who was supposed to help them. 

According to a report  from CBS Sacremento, Dr. Heath Sommer was working with rape victims who  were sexually assaulted while deployed in the military. But instead of  helping them, he added to the abuse.  

Sommer reportedly used “exposure therapy”  as an excuse to victimize his patients under the pretense of an  experimental treatment. Exposure therapy is a psychological treatment  where people are forced to confront their fears or traumas, and while  this technique has many great applications, sexual assault is obviously  not one of them. It was revealed that the abuse occurred between 2010 and 2016, but it  is not clear how many victims there actually were. Sommer now faces  charges of sexual battery, rape, and oral copulation, to which he pled  not guilty earlier this week. Sommer’s attorney, Thomas Maas said in court that the sex was consensual and was a part of his client’s “therapy work.”

 However, at least nine women have come forward to testify in the case  against Sommer, including Caitlyn Sampson, who recently spoke with KCRA about her experience. 

“I had a traumatic experience at my first base. I had some  residual and was diagnosed with PTSD. After that, every base that I went  to, I sought treatment at,” She explained. Sampson then detailed how Dr. Sommer would aggressively manipulate women during the sessions. “It was apparent that he had read over my entire medical history.  He was telling me everything about who I was and what I thought, what I  felt. I think he took a lot of information from those notes to tell me  who I was and how I felt to almost like gain credibility maybe. He was  telling me all kinds of other things about myself that were not true at  all. Saying that I didn’t love my husband… that I wanted to cheat on him  or that I had sexual desires,” Sampson said. 

“If I told him no, he would tell me I was lying. And he would ask  the question again and again until I gave him the right answer. Or once  in a while, he would move on to the next topic: (Very personal  questions like) ‘What’s your wildest sexual fantasy?’ or ‘What’s the  wildest thing you’ve ever done sexually.’ Anything I had to tell him  wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t wild enough. I was uncomfortable very  early on. Even before he started getting into the really personal  things, he was just telling me all about me and wasn’t giving me a  chance to express myself. And when he started telling me that I was  lying about my own perspective, I knew there was something wrong,” she added. 

Sampson said that Sommer’s tactics eventually caused her to panic and  shut down, which is a common response for victims of trauma who have  encounters like this, something that Sommer likely knew and took  advantage of at the time. 

“Throughout the whole appointment, I was pretty uncomfortable—but  I wasn’t really sure that what he was doing was malicious. By the end  of the appointment, he goes and says that I have feelings for him and  that I find him sexually attractive and that I want to be with  him sexually. When I realized that he wasn’t taking my answers and he  wanted his own answers—he was very determined on getting a specific  answer from me—I think I kind of just shut down,” she said. 

Sampson also explained how Sommer attempted to pass his behavior off as a therapeutic technique. 

“I wasn’t quite sure. Maybe he was just a provider that was using  some different tactics. You know, trying to make me feel uncomfortable  for like a therapeutic reason. That’s horrible. It’s a hard time. You’re  not thinking straight. If he says to you this is how you’re going to  get better. Exposure therapy works for getting people to slowly try the  things that scare them. So yes, if you’ve been sexually assaulted, sex  might scare you. And to say that the solution is to have sex with me—as  your provider, the person that you’re supposed to trust—it is like the  most serious abuse of power I’ve encountered,” Sampson said. 

A Spokesperson for Travis Air Force Base said that they do not  officially support exposure therapy for these types of cases. Sommer is  currently being held at the Stanton Correctional Facility in Fairfield,  with a bail of $750,000. 

The U.S. military is an extremely unsafe place for women, and many of  the threats that they face are from within. U.S. officials say reports  of sexual assaults across the military jumped by nearly 10 percent in 2017 with 6,769 reports of sexual assaults. 

Military Times reported  that defense officials actually praised the increase, because it is an  underreported crime, and they believe that an increase in reports “shows there is more confidence in the reporting system and greater comfort with the support for victims.” 

A report published in September 2017 also revealed that the suicide rate for female veterans is 250 percent higher than the suicide rate for female non-veteran civilians  

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY:

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My name is John Vibes and I am an author and researcher who organizes a number of large events including the Free Your Mind Conference. I write for numerous alternative media websites, including The Free Thought Project @tftproject and The Mind Unleashed. In addition to my first book, Alchemy of the Timeless Renaissance, I have also co-authored three books with Derrick Broze @dbroze : The Conscious Resistance: Reflections on Anarchy and Spirituality, Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion and Manifesto of the Free Humans

I just won a 3-year-long battle with cancer, and will be working to help others through my experience, if you wish to contribute to my medical bills, consider subscribing to my podcast on Patreon.