There is no connection between the Barefoot Doctor Stephen Russell and Patrick Holford unless you are playing a New Age version of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.[1]
However, looking into the Barefoot Doctor, who would have been well-advised to stick to games of footsie or standing on one leg while looking tranquil, Holfordwatch came across a series of associations that suggest the need for a version that should be entitled Six Degrees of Sleaze.
The Barefoot Doctor had never registered on the Holfordwatch radar of interest except for learning that (unlike Gillian McKeith) he is allowed to call himself a doctor in the barefoot tradition rather than the boring, labour-intensive Western Medicine tradition (if only McKeith hadn’t bothered with the PhD-lite and just gone for the claim that she, too, was in the chinese tradition of barefoot healers). Jeremy Carrette and Richard King offer a rare critical voice, protesting that Barefoot Russell commodifies other people’s culture, repackaging and selling it as “quick ‘holistic’ fixes”, bastardising the spiritual wisdom of classic texts to “a philosophy of worldly accommodationism”.[2]
Still, there was nothing more than the passing thought that one should nominate him as the Phone-A-Celebrity in a nightmare edition of WWTBAM in which the final question hinges on knowing your chi from your chakra. There was a natural repugnance when we learned of the revelations that the Barefoot Doctor admits to sexual relationships with women who are somewhere on the time continuum of being his clients. Witness alleged that some women clients complained that he is a sexual predator. Barefoot Russell made some colourful confessions and attempted to draw distinctions between active and former clients which do not seem to have been adjudicated upon as yet and are less than exculpatory.
The ‘Barefoot Doctor’…has been forced to issue an extraordinary statement admitting to having sex with ex-patients in the past.He also confessed to an encounter with a woman on Hampstead Heath during which he remarked on ‘sexual tensions’ between them. She had initially approached him for a private healing session. He admitted exchanging what he calls ‘salacious’ emails with women who approached him because they admired his work.
However, Barefoot, real name Stephen Russell, denies allegations made to the patient group Witness that he made sexual overtures to patients in treatment.
Russell was previously an Observer columnist, although the complaints came to light after he left the paper, and now says he no longer practises…
His statement was posted on a private section of his website after a number of women accusing him of sexually predatory behaviour posted on the site…
Jonathan Coe of Witness said his organisation had received five complaints about Russell relating to patients in treatment at the time of the alleged incident and ex-patients and warned such allegations could become more commonplace under the government’s planned expansion of so-called ‘talking therapies’ to replace anti-depressants for mental-health patients.
Barefoot Russell’s defence seems to be that sex with groupies or celebufreaks[3] is not unknown. This goes beyond the usual tiresome shenanigans of gurus who are carried away with their own publicity and believe themselves to be dispensers of priapic energy, humming, as it were with sexual healing (Marvin Gaye will forgive us).
All of these clients mentioned above were adult women but that does not abrogate the fact that most people would consider that Barefoot Russell had a duty of care which he violated. Egregiously. It is more than possible that a disproportionate number of his clients were vulnerable women with conditions such as depression or anxiety that might increase their vulnerability to a sympathetic listener or sexual manipulator. More so when that listener, teacher, therapist has some form of general approbation as a Celebrity Healer and is mentioned approvingly in lifestyle magazines. Some psychologists would probably argue that the therapeutic relationship in such cases involves a considerably skewed balance of power that would continue even after the ‘healing’ sessions stopped. If so, this potentises the miasma of sleaze that accompanies the admission of sex with former clients.
A sad and sleazy story. Distressingly, the lack of regulation means that Barefoot Russell’s behaviour can not fall under the heading of professional misconduct because he had no regulations to breach. It highlighted the concern by Witness and similar organisations that there is an urgent need for a stricter code of conduct for healthcare practitioners and workers, including those in the unregulated part of the healthcare industry.[4] Witness has particular concerns about the unlicensed Talk Therapists and the relationships that they might form with clients.
The Barefoot Russell declared that he is no longer practising albeit he is still getting a surprising amount of positive publicity.[5]. So, we were a little surprised and wary when we learned that Barefoot Russell is fronting for the Life’s 4 Living Trust. The Trust is dedicated to improving the lives of vulnerable children and their families. Noble aims but there was a feeling that perhaps the charity was not aware of Barefoot Russell’s recent unsavoury history with vulnerable women. After all, it is not unknown for there to be poverty and family tensions in families of terminally-ill children or those with disabilities. Such stressors can lead to spells of vulnerability even for the strongest personalities.
We don’t know. We have no idea whether there are further investigations in progress in relation to Witness‘ allegations. We just thought that the revelations of Barefoot Russell’s sexual misalliances were rather too recent for a charity to be content in placing a celebufreak-enabler (at best) or a ‘healer’ with the taint of exploiting the vulnerable in close juxtaposition with vulnerable young people and women.
Claire Sutton is a director of the Trust. Sutton has outlined plans for a 3-part documentary:
Creation Film & TV will create a powerful 3 part documentary called Life’s 4 Living. Accompanied by our Patron – Barefoot Doctor (AKA Stephen Russell) the film follows a group of five children (ages 5 – 12 years old) and five young adults (ages 16 – 24 years old) on a journey of healing and discovery – which will take them all the way to China where they will experience the ancient healing arts of World-Leading Masters.
We expect to see nothing short of ‘phenomenal results’ for all participants.
Reading that Barefoot Russell is going to be in such close and pressure-cooker proximity to vulnerable young people and possibly family members is a little uncomfortable but one has to draw solace from the fact that there will be other adults on the trip in whom one might repose one’s full confidence. They must be able to look after the welfare of young people and recognise a duty of care when they see one.
So, this is usually where the story would stop. The more salaciously-minded might advise the Trust to stick a broomstick through Barefoot Russell’s sleeves to prevent him from getting too close to anyone. The even more salacious might snicker that that wouldn’t work because it would necessitate him being able to ask for help when dressing or exercising bodily functions. We would decorously refrain from such observations but meekly suggest that the accompanying adults should look into the feasibility of bringing electric cattle-prods with them on the trip because China is one of the few countries where the liberal therapeutic application of electricity is not frowned upon as much as it might be elsewhere.
However, reading through Claire Sutton’s profile and consulting the Charity Commission’s entry for Life’s 4 Living triggered a memory. What with the Barefoot Russell connection, Holfordwatch had been reading the material as if the Trust was being rather naive and were themselves just another example of a hippy-dippy energy therapy that even if it didn’t help, where’s the harm?[6] But, it looks like some of the team behind Life’s 4 Living can cure cancer and Aids and attain even more remarkable goals like training initiates in the power of unassisted flight…
In Part 2 of this series, we shall discuss some of the seamier antecedents of Life’s 4 Living. The training school in New Zealand where people went to learn to be healthy but died of cancer. The Grand Master who claimed to be able to teach people to fly, the Master who can both diagnose and cure cancer, unembarrassed by modern diagnostic or curative techniques. You may also be surprised to learn just who some of the corporate clients are for the business wing of these people. Hint: when you are a large investment bank, entrusted with people’s pensions, or a large media company with a fine investigative tradition, you might want to learn to use Google.
Notes
[1] For those of you who really want to know, the web of connections is very short. Professors Patrick Holford and David Smith share common interests, they work together and are both associated with Food for the Brain and others. At one point, David Smith and Professor Kim Jobst worked on the same project, OPTIMA. Jobst is one of the Life’s 4 Living Angels as is the Barefoot Doctor Stephen Russell. Barefoot Russell > Jobst > Smith > Holford.
[2] Quotations are taken from pp. 89-90. JR Carrette, R King; 2004. Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion. Routledge, London.
[3] Celebufreak: a useful word for which Wordlustitude’s citation is:
“Dude, you’re a rancid freak. That’s just who you are. But with the right work ethic, a little sexual barter, and some surgical intervention, you could grow up to be the nastiest celebufreak of them all–if you believe in yourself like I believe in you. Now make your gran-gran proud.”
Quite.
[4] Witness links to Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence. They offer a document to download on sexual boundaries between healthcare professionals and patients (Word document).
Healthcare professionals should take care not to stray into unacceptable sexual behaviour with patients and professional regulators should offer clear guidance and support, the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence said today.
CHRE, the health professions’ watchdog, has published a set of three documents on clear sexual boundaries between healthcare professionals and patients. The work was commissioned by the Department of Health in response to a series of inquiries into serious breaches of sexual boundaries by healthcare professionals.
They only cover the nine regulators of healthcare professionals in the UK are: the General Chiropractic Council; the General Dental Council; the General Medical Council; the General Optical Council; the General Osteopathic Council; the Health Professions Council; the Nursing and Midwifery Council; the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland; and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain.
[5] E.g., the Guardian offers The Barefoot Doctor on Richard Dawkins’ The Enemies of Reason and calls him “an expert on holistic medicine” (however, see some interesting comments on this story at Richard Dawkins. Margaret McCartney interviews The Barefoot Doctor for the FT:
Why did he stop seeing people? “It drained me, it was too much.” I manage to stop myself from asking him why he didn’t use some of that “limitless power” he mentioned earlier.
So, nothing to do with the inadvisability of continuing in practice after you have admitted inappropriate sexual relationships with your clients.
[6] Skepdic briskly rebuts Where’s the harm? and Skeptico examines the argument: What’s The Harm?
Konig – not to put to fine a point on it, but Russell admitted having sex with ex-patients. And you worry that *blogging about this* is sleazy?
You say that we imply that families in poverty have a broken moral compass. What the post actually says is that “it is not unknown for there to be poverty and family tensions in families of terminally-ill children or those with disabilities. Such stressors can lead to spells of vulnerability even for the strongest personalities.”
One more thing – I don’t remember reading how old the women in question were. They were adult – but do you know that they were middle-aged? Not that the women being middle-aged would make sleeping with ex-patients more justifiable.
JohnW,
Konig says middle-class, not middle-aged! Nevertheless, I saw nothing in the papers that reported they were middle-class. I think it an assumption on Konig’s part.
Incidentally, I think Russell used the term ex-patient rather loosely. That he admitted to them being ex, is rather to conceal the facts which is that, the assaults took place within the session, but at the end when they were chatting.
I wonder also and dropped by to find out, whether Russell is still the patron of L4L., and whether they are still operating as a charity.
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yes, we should have known better. but considering that at least two of us were, as correctly stated, suffering anxiety and depression, unlikely that we’d be able to see exactly what was going on.it was one of the worst experiences of my life and i suffered a breakdown afterwards.