A psychologist has been suspended for a year after falling in love with a patient and maintaining a sexual and inappropriate relationship with him.
Sydney psychologist Julie Ann Catt was found guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct and professional misconduct by a tribunal.
The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal found that Ms Catt ‘failed to maintain appropriate professional boundaries’ with a female patient between November 2012 and May 2015.
She argued in vain for the suppression of her identity.
It can now be revealed that Ms Catt is the sister-in-law of Australian actor Alex Dimitriades, best known for her starring role in the 1990s television series Heartbreak High.
The tribunal found that Ms Catt and her patient sent each other sexual emails, kissed in a psychology clinic exercise room and touched each other’s breasts at two Sydney nightclubs – ARQ and Della Hyde – although Ms Catt denies this.
Sydney psychologist Julie Ann Catt was found guilty by a tribunal of unsatisfactory professional conduct and professional misconduct
The psychologist had started treating the patient, who cannot be identified and is now in his 50s, in 2009, but the relationship turned flirtatious in late 2012.
The patient had ‘very complex psychological problems and was vulnerable’, the tribunal ruled.
In emails between the pair, Ms Catt had written to the patient in November 2012, saying ‘you baffle me’ and ‘I have all kinds of complicated feelings about flirting with you’.
“I know beggars can’t be picky people, but I’d rather have someone in charge, a lovely woman, if you don’t mind,” Ms Catt wrote to her patient in May 2013.
In January 2013, the patient expressed her feelings for Ms Catt and in April she asked to end their ‘therapeutic relationship’.
The patient again asked to stop the therapy sessions in October 2014.
‘Please help me, I will survive the rejection. But I won’t outlive you,’ she said.
‘Stop my therapy with you, because I just can’t do it. Refer me to someone you trust and who has confidence in me. I am not a risk to you. Ever.’
The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal found that Ms Catt, a Sydney psychologist, had ‘failed to maintain appropriate professional boundaries’ with a female patient between November 2012 and May 2015.
While Ms Catt stopped treating the patient in June 2015, their relationship lasted until 2017.
Ms Catt told the patient in December 2015 that she had fallen in love with her.
That same month, she sent an email to the patient that said, “Movers here. Now you’ll never be able to bend me over that lounge again.’
The tribunal found that Ms Catt had allowed the patient into a practice room at the psychology clinic in 2016 or 2017, where they kissed. Mrs Catt denied this.
In January 2016, Ms Catt sent an email to the patient saying: ‘Holy f**k, I can’t believe how much I want you. I also enjoy watching your mind work. I want to get in my car, drive to Sydney and spend the next 18 hours in bed with you. Great!’.
Ms Catt sent sexually explicit emails to the patient
Pictured is another email the couple shared in January 2016
The following month she sent another email.
‘Whats on my mind? What it feels like to kiss you. What it would be like to fuck you. To sleep with you (or have insomnia with you),” it said.
The tribunal found that Ms Catt’s behavior was ‘inappropriate in circumstances where the doctor had recently had a therapeutic relationship’ with the patient.
In December 2015, Ms Catt told the patient that under Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency rules, a therapeutic relationship between a psychologist and a patient must have ended for two years before a personal relationship can begin.
The tribunal heard the patient had also sent sexual emails to Ms Catt, once saying she wanted to ‘bend her over the sofa and fuck her from behind’.
The patient sent Ms Catt an email in March 2019, ending the relationship and asking her to stay away from her.
In a statement submitted to the tribunal, the patient said she had “no idea I was being traumatized rather than loved.”
She had unsuccessfully pleaded for her identity to be protected and it can now be revealed that Ms Catt is the sister-in-law of Australian actor Alex Dimitriades (pictured)
“In 2021, I felt like I was drowning in the responsibility of protecting Julie and began to feel overwhelming guilt for threatening to report her in 2019,” she said.
‘I felt just as guilty that I hadn’t reported her and that she could do this to someone else. I feel trapped and that the attachment I have to Julie is irreversible. I cannot form any romantic interest or emotional attachment to anyone else.
‘I often shy away from people’s sexual, physical or emotional advances. I’m squeamish about being hugged or touched by friends in a non-sexual way. I am cut off from intimacy and feel isolated from society.’
Ms Catt appeared to have shown ‘genuine remorse’ for her actions.
She has been suspended for twelve months from January 22. After her suspension she will have to practice under supervision.
In a statement, the psychologist said she respected the tribunal’s decision.
“I have made some questionable decisions and am fully responsible for them,” she said.
“I have worked very hard over the years to become a better person, and as a result, a better therapist.”
