Probe of Therapist Raises Disturbing Questions

In his psychological counseling clinic upstairs from City Hall and an Orange County sheriff’s substation, Andrew Casey listened to some of this community’s most intimate secrets--wrenching family tragedies about drug addiction, domestic abuse and dysfunctional homes.

And by his patients’ accounts, Casey provided the answers to their problems.

He mended marriages, helped to cure drug addicts and successfully counseled others to flee abusive relationships.

But authorities say Casey had his own dark secret.

Despite the diplomas, certificates and plaques on his office wall, state officials maintain that Casey did not have a license to practice psychology, something authorities say he kept hidden from the scores of clients he charged hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last decade.

Authorities recently raided Casey’s Psychoneurology Institute, carting away computers, records and files filled with confidential details of patients’ personal lives.

Casey is now under investigation for grand theft, insurance fraud and the unlicensed practice of psychology, according to court records.

An investigator for the state Board of Psychology said officials are trying to determine how Casey might have masqueraded as a psychologist for 10 years without being detected.

The San Clemente man had become so well established in the community that even local school officials referred troubled teens to him for treatment, authorities said.

Casey didn’t return repeated calls for comment. But according to patients who have met with Casey for their regular therapy sessions since the Nov. 13 raid on his office, he insisted that the allegations against him are untrue.

“Dr. Casey said the accusations against him were nonsense,” said Joan Wilson, a patient who operates a real estate office across the hall from the Psychoneurology Institute. Wilson said Casey assured patients that he had a psychologist’s license, a claim state officials say is blatantly false.

Wilson and other current patients have reacted with anger at the psychology board’s investigation, saying authorities are picking on a dedicated and selfless man. Even if the allegations against Casey turn out to be true, they say, he has nonetheless helped rescue many from despair.

“I don’t care if he doesn’t have a license,” said Wilson, who said Casey helped her solve problems involving her diet, smoking habit and personal relationships. “He has an absolute knack for understanding people and solving their deepest problems.”

Others say they would be devastated if it is shown that their trusted therapist was a charlatan. It would be the ultimate deceit, some patients say, to learn that Casey had been living a lie, because he constantly preached that “honesty and openness” were the keys to solving their problems.

According to court records, Casey has been under investigation since January of last year, when a Fallbrook couple, whose children and grandchildren Casey had been counseling, reported to the psychology board that their insurance company would not honor Casey’s bills, claiming he was not a licensed psychologist.

Seven months later, the board received a second complaint, this time from a man Casey had reportedly billed more than $150,000 for therapy sessions with him and his wife, their children and grandchildren. The man told investigators that his insurance company had similarly denied payment, according to the same court records.

Since then, the complaints have piled up on the desk of Steve Rhoten, an investigator for the state board.

One came from a couple from Laguna Hills. According to court records, the couple attended private therapy sessions at Casey’s Mission Viejo office and had sent their children to weekly group therapy sessions. Over a four-year period, the family wrote checks to Casey totaling about $32,000, according to court records.

The couple also reported that Casey had been advising other families to stop giving Ritalin to their children, even though doctors had prescribed the drug for their children’s attention deficit and hyperactivity disorders.

In another case, Casey reportedly counseled another patient, who subsequently spoke to investigators, that he should stop taking “all medication, because his problems communicating, listening and retaining information were psychological.”

The patient “has subsequently been diagnosed as having a chemical imbalance by a medical doctor,” Rhoten said in court papers. “He is now taking Ritalin and his condition has improved dramatically.”

In an attempt to snare Casey, two senior investigators for the psychology board posed as a husband and wife experiencing marital problems and visited the Psychoneurology Institute.

“Casey made suggestions to them regarding changes in behavior to assist their marriage,” Rhoten wrote.

When they referred to him as a “psychologist,” Casey did not correct them, Rhoten said.

The investigator said Casey used codes--reserved for licensed psychologists--to bill insurance companies. Some insurance companies paid Casey for “psychotherapy” services, while others didn’t, Rhoten said.

The portrait of Casey that emerges from the search warrant affidavit Rhoten filed in court differs greatly from the image that “Dr. Casey” sought to cultivate among his patients. The Casey they know is the author of several self-help books, a lecturer at colleges and seminars, and a scholar with degrees from a top English university, according to interviews with several patients.

Casey is a divorced father of two who drives a black Mercedes-Benz and lives in a $600,000 house near the San Clemente Municipal Pier, patients said. In individual and group sessions, he had told them the secret to happiness could be found in the “HOW” method, an acronym for honesty, openness and willingness.

To achieve happiness, patients said Casey told them, they had to “identify what [their] issues are,” “peel the layers like an onion” and “confront [their] abusers.”

Many clients said they had successfully used Casey’s advice to rescue themselves from broken lives.

Richard Geringer, a Laguna Niguel attorney, said Casey changed his life by helping him and his family overcome what he called some “addictive problems.”

“His method is very workable,” said Geringer, who said he paid Casey with cash and checks during the last six years. “He makes people open up and be honest before they start healing themselves.”

Mark Auerbach, a 54-year-old management recruiter from Mission Viejo, said he met Casey 10 years ago when a counselor at Trabuco Hills High School suggested that Casey could help Auerbach overcome a family problem.

“I cannot overemphasize the effect and value that this man has had on people who have sought him out and followed his advice,” Auerbach said. “Just because someone has a license on a wall doesn’t make [him] an effective professional. The proof of his value is in effective results that have made a difference is his patients’ lives.”

Even though his problems have been resolved, Auerbach said, he continues to attend weekly group sessions with Casey, because “I need to keep in touch with my emotional side.”

Both Geringer and Auerbach said they find the allegations against Casey difficult to believe. This is a man who was recently collecting money to establish a proposed Safe Haven Youth Treatment Center for abused children, possibly in San Juan Capistrano.

Marc Franz, another patient, said Casey invited him to serve on Safe Haven’s board of directors. The shelter has collected $5,000 to $10,000 so far but has suspended fund-raising until the allegations against the founder are resolved, Franz said.

Franz said patients recently quizzed Casey about his problems with the psychology board. He assured them that investigators were mistaken, that he had the proper credentials and that in the end everything will be cleared up, Franz said.

Franz, a 41-year-old computer salesman, said he wants to believe Casey is telling the truth, because he has helped him over the last five years to conquer problems involving alcohol abuse and low self-esteem.

Even if Casey is eventually convicted, Franz said, he and other patients will forever be grateful for his help.

“What he has told us has been 100% truthful,” Franz said. “His credentials have nothing to do with the fact that he has shown us the way to better lives.”

Franz said he and other patients question why the investigation against Casey has dragged on.

“It’s mind-boggling that . . . the state board let him [practice] as long as he has,’ Franz said. “Why have they waited so long?”

But Thomas O’Connor, the Sacramento-based executive director of the state Board of Psychology, said the board acted expeditiously when it received the first complaint against Casey.

Explaining how Casey might have practiced psychology for 10 years without a license, O’Connor said, “There are millions of people in this state, and if nobody files a complaint, we’re not going to be able to do anything about it.”

O’Connor said the fact that Casey had satisfied some patients would not be a factor in the board’s ultimate decision whether to ask the Orange County district attorney’s office to prosecute him.

“Just because he has satisfied clients doesn’t mean he’s not a danger to the community,” O’Connor said.

David Foy, a professor of psychology at Pepperdine University, said he was not surprised that Casey had helped to resolve many of his patients’ problems. In many rural communities, Foy said, people without professional psychological training--physicians and ministers--achieve the same results.

“A lot of therapeutic benefit comes from simply describing the problems in a comforting atmosphere with a nonjudgmental listener,” Foy said.

But Foy said he would be concerned if Casey had counseled patients to reject their doctors’ advice and refuse to take prescribed medication.

“That’s not only unethical, it’s dangerous,” Foy said.

Franz said he and other patients would be “angry, hurt and saddened” if the allegations against Casey are proved to be true.

“I would recommend to him that he should go through his own program and take his own advice, because he’s in denial of who he is,” Franz said.

“Many of his patients would find it difficult to confide in friends or professionals again if this is true. They would need professional help to deal with this. The trust factor would be zero. It would destroy their lives.”

Rhoten, the investigator, said he would have to sift through all the material seized from Casey’s Mission Viejo office before he decides to refer the case to the district attorney’s office.

Among the items is a self-help book authored by Casey.

The book is titled: “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Syndrome.”

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Seeking Justice

Few complaints involving unlicensed psychologists in California are ever referred for prosecution:

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Complaints Prosecutions 1993-94 43 4 1994-95 25 9 1995-96 28 6 1996-97 43 7

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Source: State Board of Psychology; Researched by DAVAN MAHARAJ / Los Angeles Times