Therapist’s License Revoked : Misconduct: James D. Lisle developed a sexual relationship with a former patient he met when he was a contract counselor at a Christian therapy program.

State officials have revoked the license of a self-described Christian therapist who said he was following “higher laws” than those of the state of California when he developed a sexual relationship with a former patient and impregnated her in 1993.

James D. Lisle, 67, who met the then-27-year-old schoolteacher while he worked as a contract counselor at a Christian therapy program run by New Life Treatment Centers in Buena Park, took advantage of a “vulnerable client suffering from severe depression” and “played upon her Christian faith,” a state administrative law judge ruled in a decision made public this week.

Lisle, who was convicted in February of violating a state law against therapist-patient sex and is serving a one-year sentence at an undisclosed location, “gives no reason to believe he will not repeat his misconduct if presented with the opportunity again. . . . As such, (he) represents a threat to the public welfare and interest,” Judge Vincent Nafarrete wrote in a 10-page decision adopted by the state Board of Behavioral Science Examiners.

In a separate sexual misconduct case, one involving a former New Life staff therapist, Behavioral Science Board officials disclosed this week that they did not investigate a young male patient’s allegations because they were never told about them.

Therapist John Lybarger paid the patient, whom he began treating at a New Life program in Anaheim in 1989, $115,000 in 1991 to settle a lawsuit accusing Lybarger of seducing the patient. The patient, now 26, said he had initially sought treatment because he wanted to be “cured” of homosexuality.

Lybarger has not been charged with a crime and has admitted no wrongdoing. Under state law, however, any malpractice settlement of more than $10,000 against a marriage, family and child counselor must be reported to state licensing authorities by the therapist’s insurance carrier.

Scott Syphax, acting executive officer of the state Behavioral Science Board, cautioned that the board does not know the details of why the settlement was not reported. But he said the insurance carrier’s apparent failure to make a report is probably “symptomatic of a larger problem” in the state system, which imposes no specific penalties on companies for failing to abide by the law.

The reporting requirement, which is one way the state monitors complaints against therapists, can trigger investigations that lead to disciplinary action.

A spokesman for the parent company of Lybarger’s insurance carrier--identified by the patient’s attorney as American Home Assurance Co. of New York--declined to comment until he can thoroughly investigate the matter. Lybarger, whose California license is in good standing and recently was renewed, has declined to comment on all aspects of the case.

Lybarger has moved to Colorado but is not listed as practicing therapy in that state, said Toni Yarber, a verification clerk with that state’s Mental Health Licensing Board.

The two former patients in the cases addressed by licensing officials this week are among six in the past five years to formally accuse care providers they met in two New Life programs based in Orange County hospitals with sexual misconduct or developing inappropriate, damaging relationships with them. The other four patients, each of whom filed civil lawsuits this year, all allege they were victimized by a third person, a hospital-employed mental health worker.

Representatives of Laguna Beach-based New Life, which has advertised the Buena Park program on Christian radio broadcasts as “Christians helping Christians” and “a safe place” for therapy, has denied that the organization bears any responsibility--or liability--in the cases.

New Life founder Stephen Arterburn has said the “inappropriate relationships” did not take place during patients’ stays at New Life and the organization could not have foreseen or prevented improper conduct that occurred outside the program.

Arterburn said he regrets that the patients met the therapists in the New Life program, but contended that New Life took every possible precaution to check the backgrounds of therapists and to protect patients. New Life merged in January with Minirth-Meier Clinics, which is not named in any of the lawsuits.

Lisle, the therapist whose license was revoked, was accused by the state of engaging in sex with the patient during outpatient therapy after her release from the New Life program. Lisle, who could not be reached for comment Friday, contended during his September disciplinary hearing that the sexual relationship was consensual and occurred after therapy had ended.

But Nafarrete ruled that “it was not established (during the hearing) that the psychotherapist-client relationship was terminated.” In any case, California law prohibits therapists from pursuing sexual relationships with clients for two years after therapy has ended.

In his decision, Nafarrete noted that Lisle had a history of sexual misconduct and mental illness. He was arrested in 1957 while working as a county welfare director and charged with adultery because he had sex with a welfare client who became pregnant, the judge wrote. About that time, Lisle was found to be a paranoid schizophrenic and, although the criminal charges against him were dismissed, he was committed to an Ohio state psychiatric hospital for about nine months.

In 1969, according to the judge’s decision, Lisle was asked to leave his job as a counselor in California after he became romantically involved with another client, whom he later married.

New Life spokeswoman Pamela McCann said Friday that the organization knew nothing of Lisle’s past troubles when it allowed him to treat clients in their program.

Nafarrete said Lisle continued the pattern with the schoolteacher he treated. The woman, who lives in the Long Beach area, became pregnant, carried the child to term and gave it up for adoption because she does not believe in abortion.

Lisle “does not recognize or accept the applicability of laws and regulations governing the practice of (counselors),” the judge wrote. “He believes that God’s will and authority, as interpreted by him, supersede and take precedence over the laws of this state.”

The former patient said Friday that she was relieved at the state’s decision and proud of herself for making it through a grueling and “embarrassing” process of testifying against Lisle in court and at his September disciplinary hearing. “It’s very healing to tell the truth,” she said, and even more healing to be believed.

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” she said.