Therapist’s Treatment of Females Cut

In a decision that state authorities described as baffling, a judge restricted--but did not suspend--an Irvine counselor’s right to treat female patients in response to allegations he molested several patients in 10 years.

Stephen Guy Venanzi, 43, a marriage, family and child counselor accused by the state of engaging in “repeated incompetent practice,” and causing “reckless . . . harm” that culminated in one patient’s attempted suicide, cannot see any female patients alone, according to the Aug. 24 order by Administrative Law Judge Alan S. Meth.

Venanzi also was barred from taking on any new female clients, and from engaging in any exercises that involve touching any patients. Until Nov. 20, however, he may, continue seeing female patients who had received treatment from him before July 20, according to the order. Then, he must terminate treatment.

The judge’s decision was not explained in his written order, and he could not be reached late Thursday.

Venanzi’s attorney, Leslie Roe of San Diego, said Meth’s decision was based in part on a lengthy opposition document filed in her client’s behalf.

“No formal accusation has been filed” by the state, she said. “If there is a formal accusation, there will be a full hearing, and we believe that (Venanzi) will be fully vindicated.”

Louis Bonsignore, deputy director of public affairs for the state Department of Consumer Affairs, said, “We are absolutely baffled” by the judge’s decision not to suspend Venanzi’s license. That department oversees the Board of Behavioral Science Examiners, which sought interim suspension of Venanzi’s license while a formal accusation is prepared against him. “These are serious charges. Everybody deserves to be innocent until proven guilty, but there was obviously enough evidence to issue the (suspension) order,” Bonsignore said.

Venanzi is accused of lying under penalty of perjury to the behavioral science board’s investigator and trying to persuade patients to lie on his behalf, urging one client to “misremember” his kiss, according to the state’s petition for an interim suspension order. The therapist, described in the petition as a student at the Southern California Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis, misrepresented qualifications to a patient and an investigator, according to the state.

He is accused of having a patient lie on top of him during a February session, after turning out the lights and getting under a blanket with her. That patient tried to kill herself in April after terminating therapy with Venanzi but continued “to be psychologically entangled with him,” according to the petition.

Yet another patient became suicidal after Venanzi alternately encouraged sexual touching during therapy, then cut it off, the petition states.

A third patient drove her car in front of another car and had to be hospitalized for head injuries after a distressing session, according to the petition. Another suffered “fear and confusion” after Venanzi allegedly pinned her to the floor with his body for 10 minutes.

“Stephen Venanzi is not competent to practice psychotherapy, regardless of the type of therapy or the sex of the patient,” the petition argues. “He has recklessly caused harm to his patients. The flaws in his abilities . . . are too basic, going as they do to the heart of how to conduct effective and safe psychotherapy.”