Williams, Sue Death of A Doctor How The Medical Profession Turned On One of Their Own PDF

Death of a Doctor PAGES
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About the Author

Sue Williams is an award-winning journalist and columnist
whos written for all of Australias leading newspapers and magazines, as well as having her own opinion segment on a TV show.
Born in England, she has also worked in print and TV in the UK
and New Zealand and spent many years travelling extensively
around the world.
She has written two other biographies, Mean Streets, Kind
Heart: The Father Chris Riley Story, on the Catholic priest whos
dedicated his life to helping streetkids, and Peter Ryan: The Inside
Story, on the controversial former NSW Police Commissioner.
Sue lives in Sydney with her partner, Jimmy Thomson, and
their two cats.
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DEATH
of a
DOCTOR
How the Medical Profession
Turned on One of Their Own
SUE WILLIAMS
A Sue Hines Book

ALLEN & UNWIN
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First published in 2005

Copyright Sue Williams 2005
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording
or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in
writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows
a maximum of one chapter or 10% of this book, whichever is the greater, to be
photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided
that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a
remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
A Sue Hines Book
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Fax:
(61 2) 9906 2218
Email: info@allenandunwin.com
Web:
www.allenandunwin.com
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Williams, Sue, 1959 Apr. 2- .
Death of a doctor : how the medical profession turned on
one of their own.
Bibliography.
ISBN 1 74114 506 6.
1. Harrison, John, 1948- . 2. Physicians - Australia Biography. I. Title. (Series : A Sue Hines book).
610.92
Edited by Catherine Hammond
Text design by Nada Backovic
Typesetting by Midland Typesetters
Printed in Australia by Griffin Press
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A real doctor can only work when society allows both

exploration and care to work their healing miracles.
When these essential elements of health are replaced by drugs,
politicians and lawyers, the doctor within him dies.
John Harrison
Cancel your patients tomorrow.

Im going to come and sort you out, boy.
Message left on Dr John Harrisons
answering machine by
one of his patients, 15 October 1993
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CONTENTS
Prologue
Part One:
ix
Birth of a Doctor
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
10
11
Part Two:
The Business of Medicine

The Complaints Mechanism
Sex and the Therapist
The Physical and the Sexual
The Countdown
Karens Story
The Other Women
The Verdict
The Aftermath
137
146
161
179
188
206
221
233
245
Dream of a Doctor
21 Flight
22 Looking Back: The Women
23 Looking Back: John Harrison
Notes
3
8
20
32
45
54
69
80
90
106
116
Death of a Doctor
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Part Three:
A Family at War
Emotional Baggage
Birth of a Doctor
Searching Elsewhere
Food for Thought
The Mind, Emotions and Body
A Child, and a Book, Are Born
Love Your Disease
Making Miracles
Kindred Spirits
Karen Comes Calling
259
270
286
305
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PROLOGUE
Dr John Harrison was one of the most successful practitioners of
alternative therapies in Australia.
A brilliant medical doctor who was told early in his career
that he could pursue whichever branch of medicine he chose,
he instead turned away from conventional practice. He realised
that people in the West were growing sicker, despite all the
advances in diagnostics, drugs and surgery, and he wanted to
find out why.
So he studied alternative practices in Australia, in Europe,
in Britain and across the US to learn from the contemporary
masters of a host of different disciplines. He worked with the
Queens own homeopath, a Chinese authority in acupuncture
living in France, the worlds leading practitioners of bodywork,
and experts in every kind of psychoanalytical technique.
Discounting the most outlandish theories and distilling
the very best from others, he finally set up his own alternative
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practice back in Australia. In 1984, his ground-breaking book,

Love Your Disease: Its Keeping You Healthy, was published to
enormous acclaim. It sold more than 100 000 copies around the
world, and patients flew from the US, UK and Europe, as well as
from all over Australia, to be treated at his Sydney rooms.
A woman whod been classified as permanently and irretrievably blind by an ophthalmologist began to see again, and
the treatment was the subject of a TV documentary. A man
horrifically disfigured by severe eczema was curedwith his
dermatologist contacting John to express his amazement and
thanks. A woman whod failed to conceive from five IVF treatments suddenly fell pregnant. A woman crippled with arthritis
once again walked tall, and without pain. A cancer patient given
just four months to live continued for another ten years.
At the base of these apparent miracle cures was Johns
unshakeable conviction that people are capable of both creating
and curing their own illness. Damaged souls, poisoned minds and
a real lack of a healthy sense of self-worth all work to drag us
down physically and psychologically. By the same token, he
argued, given the right guidance, support and help, we are
all capable of healing ourselves. Conventional doctors, John
believed, use drugs mostly to suppress the symptoms of ill health.
He was searching for its cause, and helping patients to find their
own long-term cures.
Within the medical profession, it was an enormously controversial stand, but few could deny Johns results. His profile
rose steeply. He was a founding member of Australian televisions
first ever health program, had a show on ABC radio, and was
regularly quoted on health issues in newspapers and magazines
globally. At one stage, his clients faced a nine-month wait to
make an appointment.
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By 1993, when alternative therapies were becoming more

widely and warmly accepted than ever before, John was at the
very peak of his career. But everything came to a sudden and
shattering halt when a seriously disturbed patient accused him of
having assaulted her.
The woman, diagnosed as suffering Borderline Personality
Disorder, had, by her own estimate, already been seen by 50
psychiatrists. All had either been sacked by her, or had given up.
She claimed three of them had raped her.
She had also threatened to burn down the home of a
massage therapist who had been treating her, and had been
banned from the surgery of another doctor after saying she
would damage his rooms and report him to the authorities for
refusing to give her drugs. In the same year she was being
treated by John, she had seen no fewer than thirteen other
doctors.
Her complaint was made to the Complaints Unit of the
NSW Health Department, just as this unit was about to evolve
into the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission, and was
then taken to the NSW Medical Tribunal.
John never believed his client would be taken seriously. But
timing was everything.
Her complaint came at a critical point in the bitter struggle
between traditional, orthodox medicinefunded by both the
wealthy, powerful drug companies and the Stateand the new
alternative therapies that were winning over an increasing
number of Australians.
Nowhere was that battle illustrated more vividly than at
the Medical Tribunal set up to hear the womans complaint. Its
peer reviewers should have included at least one alternative
practitioner, but were instead all conventional doctors, with
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little idea or understanding ofand even less time forthe kind

of therapies in which John had become expert.
In addition, the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission had just been given a huge injection of funds and was
known to be looking for some well-known scalps to justify the
investment.
Dr John Harrison, a colourful, high-profile proponent of the
loathed alternative therapies, was an ideal target and the perfect
sacrifice for health professionals under siege.
The case against him was boosted by the inclusion of three
more of his ex-patients. One withdrew even before her grievance came to court, and the seconds complaint was dismissed.
The third complaint, however, came out of the blue, from a
patient on whom he hadnt laid eyes for over five years. Bizarrely,
shed even returned to him for treatment after the incident she
alleged had happened during a consultation. A victim of sexual
abuse by her father, she had been in therapy for many years,
admitted to the Tribunal that shed had romantic fantasies about
John, and simply couldnt remember critical details of the alleged
incident.
John was convinced the two surviving complaints against
him would be dismissed immediately. After all, one complainant
was known to be highly aggressive, obsessive and suffering a
serious mental disorder. And the other had made a complaint
nearly five years after the alleged incident, with judgment that
could well have been clouded by her own fantasies, difficult past
and poor memory.
But he was wrong. The NSW Medical Tribunal had no
hesitation in finding the charges proven. And they were quick,
too, to hand down a penalty that would serve as a warning shot
to anyone who dared challenge orthodox opinion and practice.
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That same day, a Sydney doctor at the centre of the worlds

first patient-to-patient AIDS transmission case, in whose surgery
four women had been fatally infected with the deadly HIV virus,
was found by the Medical Tribunal to be guilty of unsatisfactory
professional conduct. He was reprimanded.
In Johns case, the final act of the Medical Tribunal was a
scene with chilling echoes of medieval religious persecution.
During the hearing, he was asked if he would recant his core
beliefs about health and patient responsibility, and the whole
philosophy that hed studied, refined and practised so successfully for the last 21 years.
He refused, and on the day of judgement, Dr John Harrison
was struck off for life, the first doctor anyone could ever remember to have received such a severe penalty.
Death of a Doctor is his story. It is the story of how a strong
and compelling voice in the wilderness of an increasingly pharmaceutical drug-dependent culture was silenced. Its the story of
how a doctor working with radical theories and treatments
nowadays gaining acceptance in both traditional and alternative
medical fieldswas bankrupted and had his practice and reputation ruined. And its the story of how a man dedicated to doing
his best for his patients had his life, and that of his family,
completely destroyed.
As this book will reveal, Dr John Harrison may have been
neither miracle-worker nor saint but, had his path not crossed a
number of very sick, emotionally disturbed women, and a loose
network formed to encourage them to complain to a system
heavily weighted against doctors, he might still be in practice
today.
It was, truly, the death of a doctor. And this is the story of
how we are all the poorer, and sicker, for it.
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Pa r t O n e
B I RT H o f a D O C TO R
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A Fa m i ly a t Wa r
John Harrison grew up in post-war Australia questioning everything. It wasnt hard to understand why. Nothing in his world
was exactly as it seemed.
His entire family history was the story of a succession of
strong women marrying men who worked hard to hide the truth
from their wives: whether it be extra-marital affairs, a gambling
habit, or a taste for drink. Generations of women before his own
mother had suffered, and gradually Johns parents marriage
unravelled to reveal the next chapter in the same saga.
Even as a kid, obsessed with surfing and mucking around
with his mates on the beach, John was intensely aware of the
bitter undercurrents of friction at home.
Born on 5 April 1948, a year after his eldest sister, Robyn,
and two years before his younger sister, Vicki, John grew up a
tall, lean boy in the unprepossessing Adelaide seaside suburb of
Somerton Park. It was the kind of place where families set up
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new homes after the war, creating a neighbourhood where everyone knew each other, and where they were all battling to get by
on similar incomes, full of the same hopes and dreams for the
bright post-war future.
For the local kids, time outside school was spent racing their
bikes around a suburb filled with houses and sprinkled with the
first few light industrial factories. Theyd tear across the main
road that skirted the area and through the next few blocks
straight onto the sandy stretch of beach between Glenelg and
Brighton. John was usually first on and last off the beach every
day. He would have lived there if he could.
Every morning before school, he was on the sand with his
friends, and his pale skin was soon burnt and his hair bleached
white with the sun and the spray. Every afternoon hed dash back
from school to swim or play football or cricket before sunset.
Hed always be out playing on that beach, in the streets or at
friends houses. His parents, Jack and Maxime, never worried for
a moment where hed be. He grew up loving that kind of space,
that time for himself away from his mum and dad.
There was no TV until John was twelve, so for him it was a
childhood of relaxed outdoor activity away from the house on
Byre Avenue, of the easy equality of no-one having much money,
and of total freedom. To look at him, friends say, youd have
thought he didnt have a care in the world.
But he did. His parents marriage was steadily crumbling,
and the tension was growing simply unbearable. And while both
parents tried to pretend to the kids there was nothing wrong,
John sensed they werent telling the truth. It was the start of a
lifelong refusal to accept anything at face value, and a tireless
determination always to question, research and discover the
reality of any situation for himself.
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The core of the problem was Johns father, Jack. He had

returned to Australia a hero from war but, in peacetime, he
became the villain.
Tall, blonde and good-looking like his son, he was a country
boy from the South Australian town of Yankalilla on the Fleurieu
Peninsula, whod served as a fighter pilot in WWII. At the
welcome home party laid on for him at his former landladys
house in honour of his Distinguished Flying Crossfirst bar for
gallantry and bravery in the air in conflicthe met up again with
a former boarder, Maxime Carruthers.
Born in 1920, Jack was three and a half years older than
Maxime, whod been stationed in Townsville by the airforce
during the war as a tracker of aircraft coming into Australia. Less
than a year later, on 7 March 1946, ten months after the end of
the war, Maxime, 22, in a wedding gown borrowed from her
sister, married Jack, 25, before a 50-strong crowd of family and
friends. I was so happy on that day, says Maxime. We werent
rich, but we saved up hard, and it was such a lovely day.
We were so happy together. I thought it was going to last
forever. I thought I was going to be with Jack for the rest of
my life.
But Jack had been used to the excitement of flying Typhoons into enemy territory, of taking huge risks, of surviving
being shot downtwiceby the Germans. Hed even talked his
way out of being executed by the Americans when he parachuted
into their zone and, with his souvenired German pistol, blonde
hair and Australian accent, was mistaken for the enemy. Hed
grown up putting his life, and those of his mates, on the line,
and flying back to the kind of rowdy male camaraderie that made
it all worthwhile. The dull post-war Adelaide suburbia of the
1950s wasnt what he imagined hed be coming back to. At all.
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At first, he tried hard to adapt. Returning servicemen were

given special access to university even if they didnt have the
right qualifications, so Jack applied and was accepted for an
accountancy degree. His marks were so high at the end of his
course, the highest any of his tutors had ever seen, that he was
urged to stay on for further study, but he had a family to look
after. As a compromise, he went to work as a teacher at what
used to be called the School of the Mines, which became the
South Australian Institute of Technology, now the University of
South Australia. Gradually, he began to work his way up through
the staff of the college.
His wages werent spectacular, but his position in academia
conferred a certain respectability on his family. Yet it was his
family that Jack took so little notice of. While Maxime stayed at
home when the children were small, putting her energies into
being a good home-maker, tending the vegetables and fruit trees
in the garden and becoming a wonderful cook, Jacks real
passions in life soon emerged.
His first was bookmaking. This stirred a raw memory for
Maxime. When her grandmother was in hospital in labour with
Maximes mother, her grandfather had gambled their home away
and pitched a tent on the banks of the Murray River for the
family to live in instead. But Jack didnt appear at first to be a
chronic gambler; he just enjoyed working as a bookmaker for big
meets and at weekends. He never even had his own franchise.
He simply moonlighted for other, registered, bookies. During the
week he was at college until late, and then spent Wednesdays at
country race meetings, Friday nights at the trots in Adelaide,
every Saturday out at the races, and every Sunday shut away in
his study at home doing his books.
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To his kids, it just meant he was a person who never figured

largely in their lives, either physically or emotionally. John grew
up at first desperately trying to win some attention from him,
and then finally coming to terms with the futility of the task.
But for Maxime, he was a man who was steadily, and slowly,
breaking her heart.
For his other passion very quickly came to the fore, too:
women. Other women.
Jack had his first affair shortly after the couples wedding.
With one of Maximes bridesmaids.
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Emotional Baggage
The hardest thing about a secret war being fought behind closed
doors is that no-one is able to openly declare sides. As a result,
bystanders are alternately wooed and then rejected, without ever
really knowing whats going on.
And so it was for John Harrison. His mother enrolled all
three children in her corner against their father, but particularly
John, since he was the only other male in the household. As that
only boy, it sometimes felt that he was bearing the brunt of his
mothers anger towards men, the whole helpless, feckless lot of
them. Dont be like your father! was both a regular admonishment from Maxime and a feeling expressed non-verbally in a
perpetual undercurrent of hostility towards Jack.
She was a warm, caring mother but, with only sisters and
no other close male role models around, John grew up feeling
deeply ashamed of being male and, unusually for a young boy, a
strident feminist.
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Emotional Baggage
For Jack strayed widely and almost constantly. Every time

he was late home from college, Maxime suspected hed had a
tryst with a student or another member of staff. Some nights, he
barely came home at all. There were other times when he came
home and went to bed with Maxime, but shed wake in the
middle of the night to find him no longer there. Hed crept from
their room, dressed silently, pushed the car out onto the road so
as not to disturb anyone in the sleeping house, and gone off for
another secret rendezvous.
Much later, John was to presume that, with the enormous
transition from dashing air force pilot risking his life every day to
a father in mundane old-fashioned Adelaide, these extramarital
affairs were the only way Jack could effectively maintain the kind
of adrenalin rush to which hed become addicted.
But the real difficulty was that Jack and Maxime never actually argued in front of John and his sisters. The children knew
there was something wrong without really understanding what it
was. For John, a particularly sensitive kid, it was a house of icy
silences, of recriminations hanging heavy in the air, of frosty
words uttered behind closed doors. He became increasingly and
acutely attuned to the atmosphere every time he arrived home
from school, and adept at reading his parents body language to
ascertain the state of their minds, and their marriage, from day
to day. It was a skill he was to put to good use later in his life.
The experience left deep scars on them all, however. For
Maxime, it again brought back terrible memories of her own
father, Joe, also a hopeless womaniser and a man who beat up
her mother Rosie and her eldest brother Ken every Friday night
after drinking with friends. With the increasing ferocity of the
attacks, Rosie ended up leaving him when Maxime was just five
years old.
D E AT H
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D O C TO R
Maxime ended up inheriting both her mothers lack of luck

with men, and her fierce drive.
In addition, Jacks affairs, together with her anger and that
burden of family history, produced fertile ground for attitude in
the family about men, fidelity, sex and wrongdoing. It was a subtle
force, but one which left John with a lot of guilt for the crimes of
men generally, and of his father in particular. Being told not to
grow up like your father can be confusing for a young boy, and
being raised to adopt female attitudes and antagonisms to his own
gender and, of course, ultimately to himself, could be tough going.
Little wonder that John enjoyed spending so much time
away from home, on the beach, with his friends and playing
sport.
Back at home, however, he grew into a quiet, thoughtful,
caring boy. Once, as a seven year old, he found a little sparrow
with a broken wing. He insisted on bringing it home, binding its
wing and nursing it until it was well enough to fly off. Another
time, he spotted a small ginger rabbit lying exhausted by the side
of the road. He brought her home and built a little hutch in the
backyard shed. Unfortunately, she managed to burrow her way
out. The next morning, she appeared on the lawn with five even
tinier baby rabbits. Maxime joked that hed grow up to be a
doctor. He just laughed.
At first, John didnt like school. He ran away from his classroom at the small neighbourhood Paringa Park Primary back to
his house a couple of times, and Maxime had to deliver him
back. But as he grew older, and the emotional climate became
increasingly difficult at home, school became a welcome refuge.
At Brighton High, he threw himself into his studies.
Unlike his father, John never much liked maths, preferring
physics, biology and French. He never took any of it too
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Emotional Baggage
seriously, however, and the first signs of his rebellious spirit

came early.
The French mistress, a bonafide French woman, tried hard
to refine her unruly Australian charges, but never succeeded.
She preached to the boys, still hot and sweaty from a lunchtime
game of football, the value of underarm deodorant, but received
only sniggers for her trouble. Then she hit on the idea of mixing
the boys up with the girlssomething never done before in a
class. Traditionally, the boys all sat together, and the girls
huddled and studiously ignored them.
John, along with the rest of his mates, was absolutely
outraged, as suddenly their classroom antics were dramatically
curtailed. That night, at home, he studied his French homework
particularly diligently, and his teachers own over-the-top accent
with absolute concentration. The next French lesson, John went
into the class and read a text in a perfect imitation of her
pronunciation. As his teacher stared at him, wide-eyed with
astonishment and delight, the class erupted into chaos. At the
age of fourteen, it was his first experience of speaking up, and it
became something of a habit for him later in life, even when
it would have been far wiser to have sat tight and stayed silent.
John liked his physics teacher a great deal more, and discovered a natural aptitude for the subject. Yet his marks were always
among the highest, if not the highest, in nearly every subject he
chose to study. He was in a good class, too: his two fellow top
pupils ended up a professor of International Maritime Law at
Oxford University and a partner in an eminent law firm in
Adelaide. John was sharp, quick to catch on to any new idea,
and always had plenty of energy for study as an excuse for escaping his fraught home life. It was all reasonably effortless and he
was both a clever and popular kid. He knew it, too.
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He had a sharp way of examining things from all angles,

learned early from the deception going on at home. In later life,
people would talk about his formidable intellect, coupled with
an almost unerring faith in his own ability to reason through
every problem. If they didnt like him, theyd describe him as
intellectually arrogant. If they did like him, theyd say he
tempered it with a quite disarming charm and a rare generosity
of spirit.
The popularity came easily as well. Unlike most gifted
students, he was also very sporty, loving the exhilaration, fear
and triumph of riding the waves at the beach, and playing both
football and cricket for the school. A student a year older at
Brighton High, Peter Bruce, another keen Aussie Rules player
who was later to become a leading psychoanalyst and a close
friend, remembers him well. I didnt take much notice of the
younger boys at the time, he says. But John always stood out.
He was a good kick, a good mark and a gutsy player. He was
someone you always wanted on your side.
With such an interest in his studies, in sport and in his
mates against a background of suburban Australia, John grew up
a confident kid with a total faith in the institutions that
surrounded him. If you did what your mum said, youd be looked
after. If you did well at school, you won prizes. If you excelled at
sport, you could celebrate frequent victories. If you did the right
thing, youd be okay. John grew up pretty naive, says his elder
sister Robyn. He had total faith in the right things, in relationships, in the administration of justice. We were full of trust, we
had reason to trust. We had a great deal of faith in society. I dont
think that served him well later in life at all.
He was also still a very sensitive child. Because he was so
used to walking on eggshells at home with his parents, and had
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Emotional Baggage
learnt the necessity early on of being kind to his long-suffering

mother, he was always extremely perceptive of other kids having
problems. In later years, looking back, he sometimes felt hed
been brought up to care for those who couldnt always care for
themselves, to rescue the vulnerable, to rush to the aid of anyone
who asked. And it had all started with his mother.
In his final year of primary school, for instance, he and a
classmate, a friend, tied for top marks in the school. Only one
boy and girl in each class, however, was given a prize, so Johns
classmate was awarded it and went on stage with the top boy in
each of the other three classes for the presentation. Johns mum
complained that her boy had tied top in the school, but wasnt
receiving a prize, although eight were being given. Yet when
the headteacher came to him to see what could be done, John
insisted that he didnt want a prize. He didnt want to cause any
trouble, and he certainly didnt want to embarrass any of the
other kids.
His soft-heartedness was sometimes the source of enormous
frustration for his sisters. Often, theyd discover that after his
birthday, hed given some of his presents away. Hes always been
a very, very generous person, says Robyn. Hell give away a
birthday present to someone who has greater need of it, which
Ive found hard to accept at times! Hes a great giver, he wants
to share what youre on about and understand it and contribute
to it, and he listens to what youve got to say.
Growing up in a close relationship with his mother and
two sisters, and well aware of his grandmother and greatgrandmothers marital misfortunes and subsequent strength, John
also became a firm champion of women. His sisters, he believed,
just like himself, could do anything they set their minds to.
Indeed, their mother was also ambitious for them all. She
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encouraged Robyn and Vicki as much as John to do well at

school, and to follow their dreams, wherever they might lead.
The three children were great friends, all very bright, yet
rarely fighting and only ever really competitive when they played
cards together. Robyn had been born with the eye problem
coloboma, a congenital cleft in the iris which made her pupils
look longer and narrowed like a cats. As with any child who was
at all different, she was taunted by other kids and, having been
through that, she was always particularly protective towards
John. He was a slight kid, quiet and clever, but he wasnt a
fighter in any sense, and this one kid would pick on him and
sometimes belt him up a bit, says Robyn. So I would sometimes
lie in wait for this kid to come home from school, hide in the
bushes and thrash him to get even. I dont know if John was too
grateful; he probably thought I was interfering.
Maxime spent a lot of time with the children, especially
with John whenever he was home. Despite all the negative
emotion, there was still that special bond that exists between a
mother and an only son, although Maxime was always to deny
she favoured John over his sisters. The girls always said John
was my favourite, but he wasnt, she says. I can honestly say, if
God came down and said I have to take one of your children, I
wouldnt know which one it should be. I love them all evenly.
She and John often used to arm-wrestle after dinner, and
the three kids would play strenuous games of touch around the
house, and table tennis in the double garage, with the doors
open to keep them cool in the fierce Adelaide summers. Sometimes a neighbour would complain about the amount of noise
they made. On a couple of occasions, John and his mum had a
hose turned on them by a particularly irritated neighbour to
shut them up.
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Like any boy, John liked to play practical jokes, slipping a

banana skin into the washing-up water to make his mother
cringe, once quietly tying her leg to the table while she was
having dinner and another time telling Robyn hed put a slug
between her pet rabbits ears. She rushed out, only to discover
hed simply rested an air rifle slug on her bunnys head. He was
a real practical joker, says Maxime today. He used to make us
so mad!
The children got on well with their father when they saw
him, but he remained largely on the periphery of their lives. Just
as John grew up to be a rebel, however, Jack was very much his
own man: a highly decorated war hero who despised RSL
warmongers and always refused to march on Anzac Day; a
thinker who professed he had a great deal of time for the Arab
position in the Israeli conflicthighly unusual for the time
and a socialist with a real loathing for the church. Maxime, by
contrast, was always on the right politically and, having been
brought up a Catholic, sent the kids to church, although she
never went herself. Your father doesnt believe in God, you
know, she used to whisper in horror to the kids. And on the
money he earns he should be voting for the other side, not be a
socialist!
Jack went off to work as the children left for school, arrived
home when they were in bed and was either away or locked up
with his books most of the weekend. Often, the only time he was
actually at home was when he was asleep in bed on a Sunday
morning. But when he did wake up, he would immediately go
off and settle his books from the day before.
He played little part in family activities beyond the occasional game of table tennis and the odd time he might join the
kids in the street to play cricket. John accompanied his father a
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couple of times to Saturday race meetings to pencil for him, that

is, to record bets on the betting sheets, but they were never particularly enjoyable occasions. John was far too wrapped up in his own
sporting life to be with a man who had little enough time for him
anyway. On Saturday mornings, John wanted to be out surfing,
swimming and playing tennis and AFL football, rather than be
working for a man who felt very much like a strangerparticularly since his dad had only come twice to watch him at any of his
matches. The first time was because John couldnt get there by
any other means. On the second occasion, Jack spent most of the
match watching the races in a nearby betting shop.
Maxime could never understand it. Jack was a very good
sportsman himself, playing football for one of the Adelaide
league teams, and playing representative tennis. I would have
thought hed be keen to see his son play sport, she says. But he
was just never interested.
Jack had been hopelessly indulged by his parents after the
death of one older brother as a child and the disappearance into
the Navy of the other, and he grew into a self-absorbed adult,
who simply didnt see the need to make the effort.
That disinterest and all the resulting friction did have a
huge effect on young John. It was subtle, but pervasive. He was
doing extremely well academically and in his sporting activities,
but his father either didnt notice or had made a decision never
to comment on his achievements. As a result, John grew into a
teenager hungry for approval but, when he received it from
others, reluctant to accept it or fully to trust it. Sometimes hed
overcompensateand earn that arrogance tag again. At quiet
times on his own, he idly imagined himself as Superman doing
great and selfless deeds that brought him accolades from his fans
and love from his parents.
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Maxime was struggling, too. One time, when John was a

teenager, and she was working as a salesperson for an electrical
company, selling washing machines and fridges, Jack was offered
a job in a private accounting firm. Maxime was delighted; it
would mean his salary would treble and make life a great deal
easier for the family. As it was, she was having a hard enough
time managing on the ten pounds a week he gave her from his
wageshe would never tell her how much he was actually
paidand her own small earnings. But he turned it down.
Shocked, Maxime demanded to know why. Oh, I didnt want to
do it, he simply shrugged. On top of everything else, it was more
than Maxime could bear.
John was twelve years old when she asked Jack to leave. He
argued that hed never done anything wrong; the affairs were
figments of her imagination, and the job hed been offered had
been quite unsuitable. But finally, he agreed to go. He was away
for just one weekend. John spent the whole time in tears and
begged his mother to reconsider. Mum, you have to let Dad come
back home, he sobbed. Hes being really good. Maxime relented,
and Jack returned. But his behaviour continued as before.
The next time she asked him to leave, he refused pointblank. He still loved her and vowed that his philandering would
stop. Shed heard it all before and knew his promises never lasted
more than a few weeks at best. In desperation, she packed her
bags and walked out on Jack and her kids to go and live with
her mother, Rosie.
Both her husband and their children were devastated.
Robyn, John and Vicki would knock on Rosies door after school,
in tears, and beg their mother to return. She found it impossible
to look them in the eye. After a few days of their tears, she weakened and agreed to return home.
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When she arrived back, Jack was delighted. Ive never

loved anyone but you, he told her. None of the other women
have meant anything. You are the real love of my life.
The pair agreed to give their marriage another try. For a
fresh start, they moved to a new house, a bigger house, not far
from where they were. This house, on Rossall Road in Somerton
itself, was on the other side of that big main road, so it was much
nearer the beach. John, then fourteen, was delighted. He loved
being closer to the sand and surf and took heart from his parents
new cheerfulness that things might at last be all right between
them.
It wasnt long, however, before Jack picked up his affairs
exactly where hed left off.
He just couldnt help himself, Maxime says today. He was
always on with women. He couldnt resist them. But he still
expected us to live as husband and wife One day, she discovered a pile of letters hed been hoarding from various women
intimate letters that went into great detail about their sexual
activities. Another day, a couple of friends confided theyd seen
him in the sportsroom at college, making love to another friend
of Maximes. In his car, shed often find discarded items of
womens clothing. Regularly, she confronted Jack. Often, hed
deny any impropriety. They started living virtually separate lives.
They shared a home, the children and friends, but nothing else
at all.
Jack had started gambling, too, and that was also beginning
to become a problem. One weekend, when Maxime felt close to
breaking point in their relationship, she went to Sydney to stay
with a friend for a couple of days. When she returned, she was
devastated to discover that Jack had sold a block of land shed
bought at Victor Harbor 70 km south of Adelaide on Encounter
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Bay, planning for their retirement. One of his lawyer friends had
helped him to sell it, and hed forged her signature on the documents. Another time, she found that hed borrowed money
against their house without telling her, just as her grandfather
had done all those years ago.
It was the last straw. Jack refused to leave when she asked
him so, as soon as John reached seventeen and was, she judged,
old enough to fend for himself and look after his younger sister,
she again left home. This time it was for good. Shed been
working in a pharmacy in charge of buying from cosmetics
companies. Theyd been impressed, and one of the managers
from Elizabeth Arden asked her in for an interview. Still a
beautiful woman at the age of 42, shed been immediately offered
a job in Sydney as a cosmetics consultant. She took it. The year
was 1965, and shed just passed her twentieth wedding anniversary. Wed run out of fresh starts, she says. It was finally time to
break free.
She and Jack summoned the children to their bedroom to
tell them the news that their mother was leaving home. John
wasnt all that surprised. There was no wailing by anyone, no
great distress, he says today. I guess it had become inevitable by
then. He had no way of knowing it at the time, but the subtle
yet powerful dynamics of his parents relationship were preparing him well for his own career.
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Because John Harrison had grown up in a small neighbourhood
where everyone was more or less equal, medical school came as a
huge shock. Hed just assumed everyone would start pretty much
on the same footing, be dedicated, keen to learn as much as they
could, eager to question what they were being taught and to push
the boundaries of what was known.
But such an idealistic view of university, and both the
teaching and learning of medicine, was quickly crushed. For
while the coursestarting at South Australias new Flinders
University for the first year in 1966 and then continuing through
Adelaide Universitytaught him all about medicine, he also
took from it a lesson about how much it lacked, in both theory
and in practice.
He was young, hard-working and utterly naive. Graded
close to the top of the 85 students accepted for the course out of
the 600 who applied, he was astonished right from the very
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beginning by the attitudes and aptitude of many of his fellow

medical students.
Two-thirds of them, he found, came from private schools, a
quite disproportionate number compared to the general population. In addition, an extraordinarily high percentagebetween
25 and 30 per centhad fathers who were doctors. Most were
from Adelaides wealthiest families, too, and arrived at classes in
sports cars, wearing tweed coats and hiving off into clubby groups
of friends whod all obviously known each other for years. Many
of their qualifications for getting on the course, he was forced to
conclude, had been negotiated through the old boys network,
and had little to do with their own academic prowess, commitment or promise.
Of the five people in Johns group taking anatomy, for
instance, only one other seemed at all interested in medicine.
The other three came from wealthy Adelaide families and
seemed keen only on horseracing and card-playing. Since they
could only pass or fail as a group, John and his friend Neil
Worthley, who went on to practise in WA, were failed each time
because of the other three. Routinely the trio would turn up for
each exam, fresh from a lunchtime drinking session at the pub,
pull on their clinical coats and ask John what the exam that day
was going to be about.
In desperation, John at last came up with a system he hoped
would get them all through. All the exams were oral, so John
and Neil did everything they could to steer the questions to
themselves, so they could answer correctly before one of the
others could draw a breath. After a few weeks, all the examiners
knew full well what was happening.
Gradually, they pushed their way through all the exams: the
hand, the heart, the neck and every other body part. The final
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one was on the skeleton and, when John walked into the examination room, one of the examiners smiled at him. So what
would you like to talk about today, Harrison? he asked mildly.
Pick your subject.
Startled, John smiled back. Er maybe the humerus?
So, the humerus it is, said the examiner. John took a deep
breath and pointed to a bone. This humerus is a left bone
and
Stop! said the examiner. That will do. John was given
marks of 100 per cent for that 45 seconds of what was his final
professional anatomy exam, something that would normally take
over an hour.
Back at home, life was finally peaceful, with Johns mum,
and all the marital tensions, now gone. Robyn had moved over
to the US to work in medical research after completing her
bio-chemistry degree, leaving John and Vicki in the house in
Somerton alone with their father. Vicki had been deeply shocked
when their mother left home. You could have knocked me over
with a feather when Mum disappeared one day, she says. Id
been pretty oblivious to what had been going on. But life gradually settled into a routine.
Vicki often prepared dinner before she and John left for
medical school in the morning, where she was studying physiotherapy. She would set the timer on the automatic oven so their
meal would be ready for when they arrived home. They did the
shopping together on Saturdays. They each had their own
chores. Their father, Jack, appeared at home less and less often.
In the new peace and quiet of their home lives, John and Vicki
were able to throw themselves into their studies.
As John went further and further into the course, five years
of which were spent working in hospitals, he was still surprised
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by his fellow students. Some really werent suited to the job at

all, he says. Everyone spent months listening to heart murmurs,
but many of them admitted at the end that they still couldnt
hear them. It also felt as if theyd been peering into peoples ears
for years, but a number didnt seem to have a clue about what
they were looking at. Thats the funny thing you find out when
you study medicine, says John.
A good number of the people who graduate are incompetent.
Some of the doctors already working in hospitals arent much
better. You watch some of the surgeons and its frankly terrifying.
Id rather die than have some of them operate on me! When
youre doing anaesthetics and watching them, you see they cant
sew, they take no care closing up, theyre all thumbs when it
comes to joining a blood vessel. Its frightening. Then, of course,
some are brilliant.
One particular surgeon had done very little practical work

at all, but was far too arrogant ever to recognise his shortcomings. A patient of his with a broken wrist woke one day in the
hospital complaining that the plaster hed applied to her wrist
had fallen offsomething that had never been known to happen
before. The surgeon in charge was horrified, and ordered him to
re-plaster. Half an hour later, while wandering around the wards,
he told everyone, I think Ill see how Dr so-and-so is going with
the plastering. As all the juniors held their breath, he flung open
the door of the plastering room to see the patient sitting in a
chair with a huge grin on her face, and the surgeon with plaster
around the chair, round her torso, everywhere. The professor
looked on in amazement, then slammed the door in horror.
Another time, John had been assisting that same surgeon in
a routine hip replacement operation. Scalpel, the surgeon
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barked. It was passed to him. Just as he was about to make the

incision, however, John coughed politely. What is it, Harrison?
the surgeon demanded. Im awfully sorry, Sir, John replied, but
you cant make the incision there. When you come to the end of
the operation, youre going to have a large flap of skin and
muscle on that side, and just bone on the other side. You wont
be able to sew it up. The surgeon glared back at John, but the
anaesthetist chipped in. Harrisons right, he said.
The surgeons face grew red with rage. Dont you dare
question me! he growled. Im the surgeon here. He went ahead
and made his incision, did the operation in his usual bungling
manner and then came to the point everyone in the operating
theatre had been waiting for: he ended up with a big flap, and
absolutely nothing to sew it to. His face grew redder. Then he
threw the needle holder onto the table, peeled his gloves off,
threw them across the room to the bin, said crisply, You finish
up, Harrison, Ive done enough here, and walked out. John spent
hours fixing up his mess, while the anaesthetist, as soon as the
surgeon was out of the room, phoned the medical superintendent and told him how dangerous he was. Soon after that he was
removed from the hospital.
John proved pretty good at everything, although he was
far from perfect. After finishing in the top ten in the first year,
he made a conscious effort to work less hard and, while his
marks consequently slid, he still remained the only student to
go through those five years at Adelaide University and not
fail a single class. Hed also gone surfing during most of the
practical lessons when he was supposed to be in casualty
learning the ropes, so had the odd terrifying moment for
which he was completely unprepared. One of his worst was
his first night in casualty in a 2000-bed hospital. His lectures
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had finished at 6 p.m. that evening, and by 7 p.m. he was

starting a twelve-hour nightshift. When he arrived in the
casualty department and heard all the ambulances roaring
down North Terrace to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, he
became transfixed by fear.
The doors are flung open in this big hospital and you are
standing there, he says now. There are people being wheeled in
on trolleys, people are pounding on their chests, others have got
drips in. This is a major catastrophe and emergency, and then
they give it to youand youve got to know what to do. But I
didnt have a clue!
Luckily, as John soon discovered, casualty nursing staff are
always incredibly competent, tell doctors what to do and virtually run the department. Says John,
They do everything for you. They take you aside, tell you what
to do, show you how to sew something up, talk you through what
to do next. After a few months, you can handle anything. In
effect, doctors are trained by the nursing staff. Sometimes they
seem to be the only ones with any commonsense at all. Generally, Ive found, the more highly trained the medical practitioner,
the less practical sense they have.
It began a lasting faith in the value of down-to-earth

commonsense.
Another source of disquiet for John was the kind of intransigent conservatism he found within the medical establishment.
As, in part, a reaction to the secrecy that went on at home and,
in part, because of his healthy regard for his own abilities, he
could never resist speaking up when he thought something, or
someone, was wrong. He soon discovered, however, that it rarely
went down well.
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At one session, a lecturer presented the issue of semipermeable membranes as if it were fact, rather than a theoretical
concept. John leapt to his feet and asked, Surely you should be
distinguishing between fact and theory in this? Youre speaking
about this as fact! The room fell silent. No-one ever spoke up at
medical school, and everyone shifted uncomfortably to hear
John challenge a lecturer whose words they were merely meant
to be writing down as if they were gospel. He was eventually told
to shut up.
It was a lesson he was never, truly, to learn. In his final year,
1972, the students were given a three-hour session with family
counselling and therapy practitioners. One counsellor said that
statistics showed that people who lived together before they
married had a higher incidence of marital disharmony after the
wedding. From this, she surmised that couples shouldnt live
together before marriage. John was puzzled.
How can you conclude that? he stood up and asked, as his
friends pleaded with him to sit down and be quiet. Surely you
should be concluding that people shouldnt get married? The
person in charge immediately jumped to his feet, denounced
Johns contribution as unacceptable behaviour and terminated
the entire session. Not only was dissent not encouraged, it was
rarely tolerated. It was an early warning for John, but one he
failed to heed. His naivety in believing he could take on the
establishment and win was later to cost him dearly.
In those days, the stakes were a lot lower but still, time and
time again, he was startled to see how quickly both doctors
and the teaching staff leapt to the defence of their established
views in the face of any opposition. In one session on obstetrics,
an older Italian gynaecologist told the group that if a woman
were having trouble coming into labour, there was nothing like
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a hot Epsom Salts bath to hurry the process along. Two days later,
the professor of obstetrics and gynaecology flew into the lecture
theatre where the class was all sitting, his face red with rage.
I want you to tell me if anybody feeds you any of these old
wives tales again! he berated the students. Thats absolute
nonsense, theres no scientific evidence for that and if any of
those old wives tales are repeated in this school again, that
person will be instantly dismissed! The students all sat, dumbfounded. For the record, Epsom Salts are still routinely used
today, and recent research, moreover, has shown that injections
of Epsom Salts, or magnesium sulfate, into pregnant women
suffering complications can halve their risk of seizures and
actually save lives.
It is such a conservative profession, says John. And theres
really no reason why it should be. I remember when Australia
and the rest of the world were voting about whether to continue
the Vietnam War or to get out. Around 85 per cent of people
everywhere were voting to get out. The Adelaide Medical
Students Society voted 85 per cent to stay in.
The private school make-up and privileged backgrounds of
most medical students were only part of the reason. John believes
that its a profession where no-one ends up thinking much about
their own lives, because they are so focussed on fixing others.
The way medicine is taught in the scientific era is also a very
mechanical construct, with little room for dissent or questions.
Further, medical students generally have so much work to
do, they have little idea of the world outside their own faculty,
and in Adelaide that was even more acute since they lived in
the hospital rather than on campus with all the other students.
John was one of only a handful of medical students who took
part in the demonstrations for the great causes of the late 1960s
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and early 1970s: against the war in Vietnam, against apartheid

in South Africa, and for the freeing of ANC leader Nelson
Mandela.
Doubtless some of the other students would have seen John
as a rebel without much of a cause and whats more, a bit of a
soft touch into the bargain. His upbringing with a needy mother
and the habit it had engendered in him of looking out for those
in trouble meant that two or three times he went to the rescue
of fellow students having difficulties keeping up. It wasnt as if
he had plenty of money to help out with, and he sometimes went
well beyond what others might have even considered doing. If
he had any spare cash, hed often loan it to friends having a
tough time, telling them to pay him back whenand ifthey
were able.
His generosity was a source of surprise to Robyn. He helped
three of his friends get through university by financing them and
providing them with housing, she says. He has a very caring
nature, and had a real capacity to work outside the conventions.
Id never experienced anything like that before: providing a
home for someone, buying food, paying the rent and electricity
to help someone achieve something for themselves. And
he didnt do it just once. Vicki at first didnt approve of her
brothers munificence, privately considering him a bit gullible.
Later, though, when John hit hard times, she was warmed by the
way so many of his friends have, in turn, supported him.
It wasnt only money he helped friends out with either.
Someone he knew was on drugs and approached him for help to
get off them. As a result, John took him away for two weeks to a
house in the countryside. In coming off the drugs, this person
became extraordinarily violent, and even tried to kill John,
says Robyn.
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I remember him describing how he couldnt afford to fall asleep

because there were times when this person was off their head
and would have done anything to escape. Thats the level of his
commitment. Hes so determined to help other people along their
paths, thats a part of his personality and that is his approach to
health and medicine.
Late in his course, John opted to work in psychiatric hospitals for a while to add to his skills. Hed become more and more
absorbed by the theory and practice of medicine, so was looking
forward to stepping into the area of psychiatry. Again, still very
much an innocent, he was horrified by what he says he found
there: a massive reliance on drugs to keep patients under control,
and huge egos at play.
The psychiatric clinic meetings, for example, were an
education in themselves. The politics were phenomenal, he
says. Psychiatrists are so competitive, they have to out-diagnose
and out-intrigue each other all the time, and grandstand about
some little nuance that they think nobody else has thought of.
So often, the meetings rapidly deteriorated into an exercise
in what he saw as pure ego. A junior personwhod often be
Johnwould present a case and hazard a diagnosis. He might
suggest the patient had schizophrenia. The next person would
stand up and say, Oh well, yes, I can see how you might say that,
Dr Harrison, but my diagnosis is schizo-affective disorder. Then
the next person would get up and offer, Hmmm thats what
you would say after youve been working for three years, but if
you had the experience that I have, and the breadth of my knowledge, then you would say the diagnosis is actually And so it
went, on and on, the diagnosis each time becoming more and
more obscure.
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John was simply dumbfounded. By the end, youd have no

idea what was happening with the patient, so youd go to the
nursing staff again, those fabulous middle-aged women who
basically visit the houses of these people, and Id ask, Whats
going on here? And they would say, Oh, hes such-and-such.
Thats how Id do it, as they were the only ones whose feet were
on the ground. They were the only ones with any commonsense.
Another aspect which disturbed John was the number of
drugs routinely doled out for psychiatric patients. At times, it
seemed to him that very little psychiatry was actually ever practised; prescribing drugs was a far easier, quicker and stress-free
way of managing patients. He also came to believe the profession was rife with snake oil salesmen.
One Melbourne psychiatrists name kept coming up time
and time again as an excellent practitioner in his field. A
number of the psychiatric patients praised him, as well as staff at
Adelaides Glenside Psychiatric Hospital. John decided to check
him out, and discovered he wasnt actually a registered medical
practitioner at all; he was, in fact, a complete scammer. A few
days later, much to Johns amazement, he even turned up in the
hospital himself for treatment. The look on one particularly
admiring patients face when he encountered his psychiatrist in
the corridor was priceless.
Many of the practices at the old hospitals were also real
cause for concern. At Glenside, the infamous Z Ward was still
operating as the ward for the criminally insane. The patients
were routinely stripped bare, stood in a line and sprayed with
water from high-pressure hoses. That ward was eventually closed
down during Johns time there, although in the face of not insubstantial protest.
John found, more and more, he was part of the group of
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doctors trying to keep people out of such places, fearing theyd

often inflict more damage than theyd prevent. John says,
There are many really good psychiatrists who do fantastic work
and have made magnificent contributions to the understanding
of the human psyche. But there are also those who are witless,
pompous, out-of-touch drug-pushers. Some of them have so little
integrity, too. Globally, theyve had a terrible track record over
the years, being used to support so many obnoxious causes, agreeing to certify people to be locked up in the Russian gulags, and
writing so many bogus reports to support fascist regimes. Whenever a government agency wants to marginalise or destroy a
citizen, it calls in the psychiatrists. There are always a few who
oblige.
At the end of Johns time in psychiatry, he was asked to join

the discipline, with many of his teachers outlining what a valuable addition they felt hed be to their team. John was flattered,
but his experience as an intern there had put him off completely.
Instead, it started him thinking about alternative ways to
approach the psychiatric problems he saw all around him.
He witnessed so much psychological and psychiatric illness
in the community, but realised there was never the resources to
effectively treat all the sufferers. A ten-minute consultation and
a prescription for drugs could never be adequate to tackle the
root causes of problems, he felt. Most patients, in truth, needed
at least an hour and a half with a practitioner but psychiatrists
often didnt have the time or expertise, and patients could rarely
afford it.
John started wondering whether the solution might lie more
in giving people the tools to start helping themselves instead. It
was an idea that was to seduce him and, ultimately, to ruin him.
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The day their mother returned home, John Harrison, his sister
Vicki and their dad were all out. When Vicki finally arrived back
from medical school that afternoon, she stopped dead in her
tracks. The house had been stripped bare of furniture. She immediately phoned her brother in a panic, and he drove straight
home. Their mother had come in and taken everything.
It was a shock at the time, but I think she was desperate,
says Vicki today, now practising as a lawyer. She did the right
thing. She left that house, Dad gave her nothing and although
she would have got something when it sold, she was never going
to get a fair deal. I daresay she knew that, so she decided to come
and take something. After all, possession is nine-tenths of the
law! And she did say sorry afterwards. She said she couldnt tell
us and put us under the pressure of knowing when it was going
to happen.
When their father eventually turned up he was outraged,
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shouting and then slamming out of the house, threatening to kill

himselfor worse.
His absences had been growing longer all the time, anyway.
Since Maxime had left him in the house with his children, he
often didnt even bother to come home. Both John and Vicki
had felt a little guilty about staying in the house with him. At
various times in the past, Maxime had asked whether, if she left
Jack, theyd come and live with her. Vicki recalls, I remember
she asked me when I was ten, If I ever leave your father, will
you come and live with me? I said, Yes, of course Ill come and
live with you, of course! But then I didnt, of course. All I
wanted was to stay at home in my house with my brother. I didnt
want to be traipsing off to some unknown town with her. John
and I had always got on wonderfully well, but Mum took twenty
years to get over the fact that I didnt go with her.
With Robyn still away, and Vicki and her brother sitting in
that empty house, a number of things were clarified that day for
them both. John had been awarded his medical degree, his
MB BS, in 1972 and had completed two years of internships in
general and psychiatric hospitals, and an additional three
months working in general practice locums. At that stage, he
had to admit to himself that he was disillusioned with the
medical system hed been working in, and badly in need of a
change. He decided it was the perfect time to go over to the
UK to work, to do a little travelling around Europe and to start
exploring some alternatives to the kind of conventional
approach to medicine and illness hed been studying. Vicki also
needed a change, so the house was sold, she moved into a flat,
and they said a fond farewell.
Immediately, Johns spirits soared. He was excited to be out
of the confines of Adelaide and launching into the wider world,
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actively seeking out answers to the gaps hed found in his

medical training. In 1974 in Britain and Europe, many people
were starting to explore alternatives in healthcare. Homeopathy,
particularly, had a long tradition in England, with most of
the practising homeopaths also trained doctors, and even the
Queena pillar of the most conservative institution in the
landhad her own advisor. In France and Germany, practices
like acupuncture, exported there in the late 1800s from China,
were beginning to be widely accepted and adopted by qualified
conventional GPs.
It was all in stark contrast to the situation of alternative
medicine back home. Although the first osteopaths had actually
arrived in Australia in 1909 and the first chiropractor appeared
shortly after WWI, such people were effectively marginalised by
the mainstream system. There was, of course, a tradition of
healing in the indigenous community, but this was almost
completely ignored by those in positions of power and influence
in the field of health. John saw it as a peculiar problem of a
comparatively wealthy new country like Australia, which adopts
the latest technology without question and ignores all else.
In the Australia of the 1950s and 1960s, the dominance of
the conventional medical profession, in terms of autonomy,
authority and sovereignty, had reached its height, according to
medical researcher Dr Adrienne Hallam, with no credence at all
given to other therapies. While orthodox doctors were similarly
powerful in other countries, the dominance of their kind of
thinking was never stronger than in Australia, says another
researcher.
This level of control had been established largely through
the fee-for-service financial system set up after the 1918 Royal
Commission, and then strengthened by post-WWII constitu-
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tional changes legislating for governments to reimburse chemists

for fulfilling doctors prescriptions. The long period of conservative government from Sir Robert Menzies in 1949 until Gough
Whitlam in 1972 only further entrenched the system.
Indeed, that very year John left, a committee had been
established by the Federal Government to look into the growing
alternative healthcare sector in Australia, not so much to evaluate its contribution but, more simply, to assess what kind of
threat it posed to orthodox practitioners. It was a reaction in
part to the growing numbers of ordinary Australians who, despite
conventional doctors warnings, were becoming increasingly
curious, and accepting, of alternative approaches.
By the time that committee issued the Webb Report into
Chiropractic, Osteopathy, Homeopathy and Naturopathy in
1977, 250 000 Australians were making use of alternative
therapies each year. That figure was a shock to many, and the
committee obligingly proposed ways of trying to counter
the inroads alternative practitioners had made into medicine.
It concluded that people were only visiting such healthcare
providers because of dissatisfaction with orthodox medicine
and, instead of managing chiropractors, homeopaths, and naturopaths as part of an alternative healthcare system, it chose to
propose a series of changes that could firm up orthodoxys hold
on patients.
The committee recommended setting up a system of chairs
of community medicine and proposed that medical schools
should incorporate more nutrition teaching in their courses.
Thus, people wouldnt have to attend naturopaths to learn about
diet. It also argued against giving any form of recognition to
naturopaths because it considered them unscientific and at best
of marginal efficiency, and potentially hazardous.
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Overseas, John found the atmosphere quite different.

Regular doctors were increasingly embracing alternative
approaches and including them in their own practices, happy to
study new ways of caring for patients. There was little of the
them and us holy-war antagonism that existed in Australia. It
was an environment John loved right from the very start.
After a stint travelling in Morocco and then doing some
preliminary research in the UK, he found a clinic in Kenilworth,
an unremarkable town in Warwickshire just south-east of Birmingham, where acupuncture was taught. He enrolled there for a
course two days a week and, to earn enough money to keep going,
he applied for work at the nearby Warwick Hospital. With only
three months to go before Christmas, when he planned to quit
and do some travelling in Europe, he wasnt all that confident
when he walked into an interview for a two-year position for a
senior house officer in accident and emergency. There were seven
other applicants for the post but, even though John was up-front
about his travel plans, he got the job.
Working within the orthodoxy, this time in the British
National Health System (NHS), again threw up a fair share of
surprises. In contrast to Australia, he found the hospital and its
procedures straight out of the ark.
The first time a child came in suffering a severe asthma
attack, John yelled for the Ventolin tent. Everyone around him
looked blank.
You dont have any? he asked incredulously. So how do
you treat them?
The answer shocked him: with adrenaline injections. As
soon as the child was safe, John went straight to the phone and
called the drug company reps. He then organised a seminar to
show staff how best to treat asthma attacks.
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A few weeks later, he persuaded his bosses to allow him to

set up a little skin graft centre in the casualty department,
because it was an area that interested him so much. The hospital
administration happily bought all the necessary equipment.
He was in his element as an exotic blow-in from an overseas system that, technologically, seemed light years ahead of the
UK. Yet he still felt strongly that many doctors working within
the system left much to be desired. One day, an elderly woman
picking blackberries by the side of the road was hit by a car and
brought in by ambulance in very poor shape. The doctors in
charge took one look and decided nothing could be done for her.
John, however, railed against their verdict and, with a friend in
the ward, managed to patch her up the best he could. A month
later, she was able to walk out of the hospital herself. It was a
salutory lesson: these days if a specialist ordered someone to go
untreated, John believes doctors who disobeyed would be risking
their livelihoods.
But those same medical specialists were often limited too,
he felt. A couple of months into his term, he came down with a
severe bout of hepatitis, probably picked up from his time in
Morocco. It turned his skin bright yellow, gave him terrible
arthritis and forced him to admit himself into his own hospital.
A couple of days later, one of the doctors told him he was lucky.
Englands leading liver specialist was visiting the hospital, and
was prepared to take a look. When he arrived at Johns bedside,
he immediately prescribed a dose of a certain drug and went to
move on. John was alarmed.
Hang on a minute! he said. Doesnt that drug metabolise
in the liver? Ive read up about that drug. You cant possibly give
it to me!
The specialist stopped and thought a moment. Oh yes, he
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replied finally. You might have a point there okay, Im off

And off he went. An hour later, John checked himself out of
hospital and went to stay with his sister Robyn, who was by now
also working in the UK. Ive got to get out of here, he told her
on the phone. Its dangerous!
Robyn had just broken up with her husband and was living
in a small bedsit, so she and John tore the bed apart to give him
the mattress on the floor while she slept on the bare slats of the
bed frame. In between listening to Kenny Everett on the radio,
theyd talk about her bio-chemistry work and his alternative study.
I had no idea where he was going. He had done a traditional
degree in medicine and now here he was experimenting in this
fringe stuff, as far as I was concerned, says Robyn. But it seemed
to me that if he could draw the best out of both of those worlds,
then he probably would have a very good chance of providing
something that was a little bit special. I was encouraging.
After his period of convalescence with Robyn, John ended
up having to give up alcohol for five years, so damaged was his
liver. Later, when all his liver function tests were showing
normal, he was persuaded to have a glass of wine, even though
he felt sure in himself that his liver hadnt fully recovered. He
ended up back in bed for two weeks. It showed me how those
tests we totally rely on in medicine are very imprecise, he says
today. Theyre actually quite primitive. Usually, a patient gets to
know when their body isnt working properly, if theyre taught
how to listen to the body. Thats much more effective.
Johns capacity to think outside the square had more downto-earth benefits, too. When he arrived, doctors had four hours
on in the morning, four hours off in the afternoon, then four
hours on again at night. He called a staff meeting and proposed
an alternative system of twelve-hour shifts two days in a row,
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followed by two days off which, of course, suited his own study
plans. He next visited the nearby country club to check whether
hospital beepers worked at that range, then enrolled all the
doctors, en masse, in the health club. As a result, everyone hung
around the health club, swimming, playing squash and reading
when they were on call overnight, instead of sitting in the chilly
hospital.
There were difficulties, however. John bridled at some
English peoples show of contempt for anyone from anywhere
elseparticularly of Australian convict stockand many
English doctors didnt understand his accent. So he started speaking in a terribly cultured English way just to help them along. By
the same token, he sometimes had problems understanding his
patients. On the freezing winters night a Novocastrian walked
in, speaking in a thick Geordie accent, John was forced to phone
an English doctor friend to ask for a translation. Even though his
mate came straight over, in his dressing gown in the snow, he
couldnt decipher a word either. For an Australian, the idea of
two Englishmen born a mere 200 km apart not being able to
understand each other was staggering.
The acupuncture course was proving a major disappointment so, after hed finished at Warwick Hospital, John took time
out to go over to France to study acupuncture under a teacher
born in mainland China who had moved to Hong Kong as a
child and then continued her practice in France. Living in
Lorient, one of the countrys largest fishing ports in the south of
Brittany, Kar Fung Santaro-Wu was acknowledged as one of the
greatest acupuncture teachers outside China. Her husband had
been a foremost translator of ancient Chinese medical texts,
having been raised in the Steppes of Central Asia, and her practice had a deep theoretical and instinctive basis. John spent the
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whole of one summer living with her and her son, studying the
theory, watching her work, and practising under her supervision
every day.
Back in England, he decided to attend the Royal London
Homeopathic Hospital, the leading complementary health
provider in the UK, and Europes largest public sector hospital
for complementary and alternative medicine. Founded in 1849
by Dr Frederick Foster Hervey Quina doctor who had studied
with the originator of homeopathy himself, German physician
Samuel Hahnemannthe hospital has a long and venerable
history.
It had first started to garner a degree of acceptance when a
cholera epidemic broke out in the neighbourhood from an
infected water pump, and patients treated by the hospital
suffered a mortality rate of just sixteen per centcompared with
53 per cent at the nearest conventional hospital. It received its
first royal patronage from HRH the Duke of York, who became
President of the Hospital in 1924. In 1948 it became part of the
newly created NHS. Later, on her accession to the throne, the
current Queen herself became the Hospitals patron.
When John arrived, homoeopathy was still the backbone
of the hospital, but it also offered instruction in, and conducted
research into, many other therapies. He studied there for five
months and met the woman considered to be one of the most
brilliant teachers of homeopathy the world has ever seen.
Dr Margery Blackie combined a busy homeopathic general
practice with her hospital work, being Dean of the Faculty of
Homeopathy from 1965 to 1979, and served as physician to the
Queen for a number of years from 1968 on. Her books are considered seminal texts, including her collection of essays entitled
Classical Homeopathy and The Patient Not The Cure, stressing
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how the focus should be on the person rather than just the remedy.
Dr Blackie took an instant liking to John and invited him
along to her practice in Londons South Kensington to watch
her work, meet her patients and see her results. It was a fascinating apprenticeship. Her clientele ranged from royalty to a
woman living in a shop doorway, from the cream of British aristocracy to the store assistant down the street. To all of them she
dispensed the same warm, concerned care, always emphasising
the characteristics of the individual remedy. She was refreshingly
down-to-earth too, with a lively sense of fun, describing problem
patients as going off the deep end.
Everyone who knew her marvelled at her dedication. One
morning, in a hurry, she tripped over her visiting case, somersaulted down the eight front steps of her surgery and broke her
right arm. She merely applied Arnica, had a friend bind her up
and then continued seeing patients until she had time, the
following afternoon, to attend hospital for an X-ray. John
admired her hugely and spent many days in her surgery. At the
end of his time with her, which turned out to be just six years
before her death in 1981, she gave him her best wishes,
pronounced him an extremely promising student and ceremoniously handed over to him her beautiful antique leather medical
bag filled with tiny vials, as a parting gift. Today, its still among
his most prized possessions.
John had plenty to learn and was zealous in his enthusiasm.
Robyn had always taken a keen interest in his journey of discovery but, for the first time, she started feeling nervous for her kid
brother. His passion for alternative medicine was admirable, but
he could be so headstrong that she wondered if he were even
aware of how far out on a limb he might be putting himself.
She says:
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When I saw John again, he was studying acupuncture and homeopathy and I had some fears for him then. He was doing things
so differently, he was challenging things so much, he was seeking
answers in ways that were outside my experience. While I think
I am not an entirely conservative person, I think that theres
a good deal of conservatism in most of us. He was driven
somehow, in a gentle kind of way. He wasnt a maniac, he was
committed to it, very intense. I had never heard of acupuncture,
but there he was, saying, Ill cure that, give me your wrist, and
then hed stick needles into people. And the amazing thing was
that it would cure you! That was the thing that was so alarming:
he could do it!
Undeterred by Robyns apprehension, John decided next

that he wanted to know more about macrobiotics, the study of
food and the belief that it not only sustains life but can also be
the most critical single factor in health and happiness. At that
point, it was still an extremely controversial subject. Only eight
years before, the FBI in the US had raided a bookshop selling
texts on macrobiotics and ordered them to desist until their
content had been thoroughly reviewed. The books were judged
to contain illegal statements, such as that a poor diet can cause
cancer and that a good diet can help cure it.
The discipline was founded by a Japanese army doctor,
Sagen Ishizuka, who studied both Western and Eastern medicine
in an effort to find a treatment for his own skin and kidney
complaints. Bringing out two books concluding his lifetimes
study, Chemical Theory of Longevity in 1896 and Diet For Health
in 1898, he recommended the Japanese traditional dietwhole,
unrefined foods, with very little or no milk or animal foods
and is said to have cured so many sick people on brown rice and
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land and sea vegetables that he had to limit his practice to seeing
100 people a day.
In the mid 1970s, the leading practitioner of macrobiotics
was Michio Kushi, whod also become the pin-up boy of alternative medicine and the natural foods movement. The Smithsonian Institution recognised Kushi and his wife Aveline for
their profound influence on the course of the US alternative
health movement, and counted the acquisition of the Kushis
collected works as the first, and cornerstone, of their alternative
medicine collection in the Smithsonians Museum of American
History. His work inspired numerous studies into the connection
between diet and health, including pioneering work done by
researchers at the Harvard Medical School on the role of macrobiotics in reversing degenerative conditions.
Kushi frequently toured the world giving lectures on the
subject, and John was eager to learn under him. He went along
to the East West Centre in London and there took the course he
taught. Entranced, John found himself becoming more and more
interested in the subject of diet and its medicinal uses. Before
hed left Australia, hed made contact with Dr John Rudolfer,
one of the foremost experts on dietetics, a Czechoslovakian
doctor raised in Germany whod arrived in Adelaide in the late
1960s. He was an advanced practitioner not only of dietetics,
but also of homeopathy, naturopathy and acupuncture. Friends
of Johns had been attending his rooms, and he and John started
a regular, lengthy correspondence. Whenever John was ready to
return to Australia, the doctor wrote, hed be willing to start his
instruction, and for free, as he felt the young man had such a
good, fertile mind. Hed be waiting.
One morning in London towards the end of 1975, John
woke up and felt it was time to go home. He was hungry for more
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knowledge of alternative medicine and was itching to start practising everything hed learnt. And Australia was still very much
virgin territory. That it could be such hostile virgin territory was
something John, during his time away, had obviously forgotten.
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Fo o d fo r T h o u g h t
Junk food had always been a staple for Dr John Harrison while
hed struggled to survive on a small budget overseas with little
time left over from studying and working to think much about
his diet. But his time with Michio Kushi and all his reading had
convinced him that the type and combinations of food everyone
ate was critical for good health. He was beginning to suspect that
it was also closely bound up with peoples emotional health, too:
how they felt about themselves, their self-image and sense of selfworth. It was an area he was eager to explore.
Dr John Rudolfer was a fascinating man. His father had
been a bone-breaker; he would crack peoples bones when they
came to him with a fracture, re-set them and make sure they
healed straight and true. His childhood was spent in the forests
of Czechoslovakia, gathering herbs and berries, boiling them up
into poultices in the basement of their house and helping his
father apply them to his patients. He then went to college and
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studied medicine and all of the alternative therapies. Later, he

moved to Germany to continue his studies but, on the outbreak
of WWII, was forcibly signed up to fight for the Germans. Then
he came to Australia.
It was a mystery to everyone who knew him how this neat,
fastidious man with his wagonload of jars and instruments and
foul-smelling potions turned up in the comparative backwater of
Adelaide, but Rudolfer would just smile and nod his head when
anyone asked him the question. He never told anyone why, and
no-one ever found out.
On Johns arrival back in Australia, he began visiting
Rudolfer for three hours, twice a week, a routine that would last
for over three years. While an expert in acupuncture, naturopathy and homeopathy, Rudolfers principal passion was for
remedial dietetics: the detailed prescription of continually
changing diets designed to alter the bodys physiology immediately, to cure illness and promote good health. In this, he was
absolutely uncompromising.
A stomach ulcer, for example, could be treated by a diet
of boiled vegetables and boiled rainwater for a few days, and
thereafter by a carefully devised and controlled eating plan
that would keep the intestine exercised at a level to stimulate
recovery. A bad eater could be pushed to re-examine his life
choices, together with effective psychotherapy, on a diet of
raw vegetables, whole grains and lean white meat. Someone
proud of their perfect diet record could be energised by greasy
fish and chips, sugary soft drink and chocolate, which would
force them to relax more around food and lighten up about
life generally.
There were also certain foods to be consumed in particular
seasons at precise times, even if that meant setting the alarm
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clock for 2 a.m. to get up and eat. His dedication was absolutely
unbelieveable, says John today.
He would have patients phoning him at all times of the night and
hed give each of them these detailed instructions about what to
cook and how, so theyd also be up half the night following everything he said. He would only sleep a couple of hours a night. His
whole life was committed to understanding what worked and
what didnt, and hed always be coming up with new ideas and
theories. It was a privilege to be able to sit and listen to him.
Rudolfer was a strict taskmaster and demanded his student

obey him to the letter. But John was an eager pupil and happily
fell in with trying everything his teacher suggested. For several
years, for example, he ate only according to the strict Chinese
Five Elements theory, which divided the world into earth, water,
wood, metal and fire, and associated foodstuffs with each of those
different elements. According to this dictum, beans were associated with water, wheat with wood, millet with earth, glutinous
millet with fire, and rice with metal.
It was a rigorous regime, but a happy spin-off was that John
became an excellent Chinese cook. Friends would regularly drop
by his place with a basket full of ingredients for a dinner party,
and wash the dishes and clean up afterwards in gratitude. Other
relationships, at the same time, were put in jeopardy when John
successfully persuaded friends to join him.
One of his friends from this period, youth and welfare
worker Andrew Badenoch, says Johns infectious enthusiasm
about Rudolfer resulted in his becoming a client too, but almost
wrecked his marriage. His wife would welcome him home from
work with a splendid meal of roast beef. Sorry, Badenoch would
be forced to reply, on the chart Im only having carbohydrates
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this week. Then hed cut short their social life by going to bed
at 9 p.m., since Rudolfer had decreed that an hours sleep before
midnight was worth two afterwards. Bloody Rudolfer! Badenochs wife would routinely exclaim. Hes obsessed!
Indeed, when anyone came under his spell, Rudolfer
became involved in every aspect of their life, not only what they
ate and how much they slept, but also how many times a day
they urinated, the state of their bowels, how they felt, and when
they had sex. The whole process was psychologically extremely
invasive, forcing people to confront their view of themselves and
their life by this concentrated focus on everything they did. It
was often physically very painful, too. One treatment John
agreed to undergo involved particular acupuncture points that
Rudolfer believed should be stimulated non-stop for months.
This necessitated a piece of ginger being burnt with a soldering
iron onto one point on his body, an excruciating process. Other
experiments were carried out using some of the menacinglooking machines both Rudolfer and his father had invented
themselves.
Rudolfers house was in a poor part of town, although everyone suspected he was secretly quite wealthy. He told anyone who
asked that he liked to stay in one place because he became familiar there with how disease behaved according to the tides, the
phases of the moon, the exact latitude and longitude of the
planet earth and his position upon it. The house was, however,
kept as immaculate as its owner, who appeared for their sessions
each time in a suit and tie, and addressed his pupil always as
Dottore. Everything about him was meticulous and carefully
thought out, and he performed every task with a slow, deliberate formality. He made his acupuncture needles by hand himself
from silver and gold, and he would, in accordance with the old
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Chinese texts, polish and rotate them in line, 200 times to the
right, 200 times to the left.
At one of their training sessions, John ventured that the
psychology of the patient was as important as acupuncture and
that he was going to seek out a psychology teacher. He was
nervous his teacher might take offence. But Dr Rudolfer said
nothing. Instead, he got out of his chair and began to undress.
He carefully removed his suit jacket, hung it up on the back of
the door, removed his tie, shirt and trousers. Then, dressed only
in his underpants, he began dancing wildly around the room,
chanting loudly. Five minutes later, without a word said to John,
he slowly and meticulously dressed himself. John realised he was
gripping the desk as Dr Rudolfer leant towards him and said,
Now, Dottore, if you can find a psychologist who can do that,
go and learn from him. Nothing more was ever said about John
going off to find one.
When John finally had his best-selling book, Love Your
Disease: Its Keeping You Healthy, published, he dedicated it to
Rudolfer. When there were no words left, it reads on the title
page, I remember him dancing.
Yet John still believed that external factors like acupuncture and diet were only part of the answer. Even more important
was how you actually viewed yourself, your health and your
illness. In this, he was prepared to push himself to the very edge.
For he was becoming more and more convinced that although
many alternative treatments could prove valuable in helping
patients, the most important issue was the underlying imbalance
in people themselves, either an imbalance within their own
psyche or an imbalance in the relationship between the person
and their environment. The personality is a keyhole to these
imbalances, and the problems experienced by the person now in
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their lives could be effectively used to access and remedy the

underlying imbalance, says John. I realised I needed to vastly
improve my capacity to understand and quantify human suffering and human adaptations to life. This realisation led me to a
ten-year intensive study of the human condition, using the
modern psychotherapies.
In order to earn enough money to fund his studies, John
helped out at a couple of GPs practices, one Greek and one
Italian, which also allowed him to find out more about ethnic
remedies for ailments, like oil and garlic for infections of the
upper respiratory tract, which he eagerly added to his notes.
That work was strictly part-time, however, leaving John free
to concentrate on what was fast becoming his major interest: the
human psyche and its relation to health.
In that, he was ready to try anything and everything,
experiment with all manner of theory and sample each new
psychotherapy, in order to find out what worked. He started off
writing to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the controversial Indian
guru who taught philosophy at the University of Jabalpur for
nine years before leaving in 1966 to work full-time on his ashram
with his disciples, or sannyasins, as a spiritual teacher and guide.
Rajneesh saw his movement as a way to preserve the human race
via the practice of dynamic meditation and self-examination to
create a new enlightenment and humanity.
His ideas had caught the attention of many westerners, and
some 50 000 visited him to listen to him speak at his base in
Pune, south of Bombay. At the height of the movement, his
organisation had 200 000 members and 600 centres around the
world. Many of his followers were doctors, clinical psychologists
and psychiatrists, most involved in the exploration of every kind
of therapy on offer. There were encounter groups, which looked
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at everything from anger and violencesome people even

emerging with broken limbs when sessions got out of control
to sexual issues, with lots of massage and nudity.
The world media latched on to that aspect of Rajneesh,
labelling him as the free sex guru, but most of those inside
dismissed such tags as ludicrous. Only later did the press stumble
upon some of the downside: Rajneesh aides were charged with
crimes, the man himself had 27 Rolls Royces, and there were
immigration irregularities that saw him being sent back from his
new base in the US to Pune, where it had all started. Many
claimed he was the head of a brainwashing cult which aimed to
force devotees to cut all ties with their families and give his
organisation all their wealth. But in all the years I attended the
ashram, I was never once approached for money, says John.
Healing seemed to be at the centre of everything they did.
Rajneesh eventually died in 1990.
John did a number of workshops and groups with the
Rajneesh organisation, and found it offered him fascinating
insights into the human condition and new ways of working with
people. Many of his friends were also experimenting with the
ideas of the religious movement, since they had so many serious
therapists under their banner. Badenoch went along on Johns
recommendation to one of the practitioners.
John had done psychotherapy workshops with him, and he
was a very good therapist, says Badenoch, who later went on to
become a therapist himself.
Ive had lots of mentors whove taught me disciplines in terms of
intellectual, logical exploration and even to look at psychotherapeutic and psychodynamic models, but there had been very few
forums or settings that had given any of us the opportunity to
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challenge our own emotional honesty. They challenged things

about impulsive authenticity. We both learnt a lot from him.
For a couple of years, John also lived with a woman whod

become one of the Rajneeshs sannyasins, changing her name to
Bodhiafter the Bodhi tree under which Rajneesh was said to
have sat following his enlightenment at the age of 21. Stunningly beautiful, Bodhi caused ripples among many of Johns
friends and associates because she was at least ten years younger
than John, was extremely good-looking, and not least, loved to
swim without clothes. She had a seductive air of sensual innocence about her, was natural and was great fun. The pair made a
striking couple.
But in the world of ideas, John was still searching. Inspired
by his participation in Rajneesh encounter groups, he went on
to participate in a number of workshops and seminars beginning
to be set up around Adelaide. Out of the whole country, it was
strange that such an awakening happened in the sleepy capital
of South Australia, but it was probably simply the coincidental
emergence of a number of different therapists all keen to explore
new theories at the same time, and to take advantage of the
maelstrom happening in psychotherapy worldwide. It enabled
John, however, to embark on a training program into the psychological basis of physical disease that was the most detailed,
far-reaching and up-to-date available anywhere in Australia.
The first clinical training group he joined was a dynamic
gathering of young doctors, psychologists, social workers and
others in the field of humanistic psychology, presided over by
two pioneering clinical psychologists: Graham Andrewartha and
Susan McPhee. Andrewartha was a skilled psychologist whod
worked in London, Canada and all across Australia before
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setting up the consultancy with McPhee. Later, he went on to

lecture at universities around the country, present leadership
programs for the Royal Australian College of Surgeons, work as
a consultant for the World Bank and for projects in China,
Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore, as well as
continuing to run the business with his partner.
In the mid-1970s, the pair ran training groups and therapy
groups, and John became an enthusiastic member of both.
Andrewartha remembers him vividly. He was very bright and
was very atypical of the traditional model of a medical practitioner, he says now.
He was just magic in terms of his creativity and radical way of
looking at things, which was always charmingly delivered and
engagingly appealing. He was really happy to take risks in terms
of therapy, and look at himself and do all sorts of things that
would enable him to explore and grow as a person. Those groups
we had really encouraged self-learning.
While John was always keen to try new things, there was
an edge of egotism, however, that Andrewartha detected. There
was a bit of arrogance there which goes along with the risktaking and confidence in himself, says Andrewartha. He was
highly self-sufficient. It gave him the confidence to take huge
risks, but sometimes that could prove dangerous, too. Just how
dangerous would later shock them all.
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They were 30 of the most dangerous, disturbed inmates of Californian jails, and they were all given the same challenge: to
break down Dr John Harrison. They sat in chairs arranged in a
perfect circle, in absolute silence, glowering at him. From his
chair, the head psychiatrist pulled a red handkerchief out of his
top pocket, looked around at all the angry faces and then
dropped it on the ground in the pre-arranged signal to begin.
Immediately, a massive roar of rage swept through the room.
John tried to freeze the expression on his face as the prisoners,
mostly psychopaths and people suffering Borderline Personality
Disorders, verbally attacked him. He knew he was in no physical
dangerthe rules of The Game were that no-one was ever
allowed to leave their chairs or touch anyonebut the fury from
each person towards him was utterly overpowering.
Beforehand, and completely unbeknown to him, psychiatrists had leaked to the group information about vulnerable parts
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of Johns personality and past history from the therapy sessions

hed been attending, and now the prisoners shouted and
screamed at him with voices thick with venom and hate. They
were intent on tearing him apart. There was this massive energy
of destruction coming from the group, John says. The language
was unbelievable. They swarmed around me with their eyes,
looking at me, abusing me, struggling to work out how they
could use the information theyd been fed to kill me. It was a
life-and-death struggle.
John was on a two-week study visit to the famed Cathexis
Institute in Oakland, California, living with a group of psychiatrists and psychologists, along with the psychopaths and
schizophrenics who attended the clinic. Many of its methods
were extremely radical, but John wanted the chance to see them
and try them first-hand. He knew that very few qualified medical
practitioners would ever even consider studying such unconventional techniques, but he wanted to exclude nothing in his
search for meaning and health.
The object of the psychiatrists in setting up The Game with
the worst of the inmates from local jailsthey joked youd had
to murder or rape someone to qualify to playhad been to give
them a safe environment in which to get rid of their hostility
towards the outside world and everyone in it. If they didnt
release this pent-up anger, the therapists reasoned, theyd only
use it against other people, each other, and themselves. They
also needed to learn to survive in an extremely hostile environment, without resorting to physical violence. It was, therefore,
good for them to have fresh blood to practise on.
Earlier, theyd broken down another psychiatrist in his
forties who was gay, but had only revealed his sexuality to a
fellow therapist, who had then told the group. They raged about
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having a fucking faggot in their ranks and condemned him for

contaminating heterosexual solidarity. When it came to Johns
turn, it was his role both to receive this fury, and then to try to
steer it away from himself, by launching an attack on someone
else. He knew hed never forget the sight of 30 people screaming
at him at the top of their lungs, determined to break down his
defences and turn him into a victim, in order to keep the
violence of the pack from turning on them.
To see 30 absolutely insane, violent people, murderers
among them, going at someones throat, and then going for
yours, was terrifying, says John. They had to destroy us so they
could keep safe themselves. It was the most difficult thing I had
ever done. In the end, he acquitted himself well, and was
congratulated by the other therapists for coping. He played The
Game once more before he left, but that was enough. His nerves
wouldnt take another battering. Only later was he to wonder
about the wisdom of his participation. It had made him overconfident about his ability to handle severely disturbed patients,
like the one who was later to prove his ultimate downfall.
Another speciality of the Institute was re-parenting, the
practice of retraining patients so they could learn to trust both
themselves and life. A movement originated by therapist Jacqui
Schiff for the treatment of disturbed people, it involved adults
regressing in imagination to the age of children, and starting out
again, surrounded by positive messages of life from those around
them. It aimed to allow patients to come off huge doses of mindaltering drugs which, while often allowing them to live outside a
hospital, were also numbing their minds to such a degree that,
for some, life just wasnt worthwhile. Even back then, in the late
1970s, the long-term effects of massive doses of tranquillisers,
both major and minor, doled out by some psychiatrists, were just
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starting to surface, and John felt sure there must be alternatives

to the kind of solutions hed been taught in medical school and
psychiatric hospitals: drugs, electro-convulsive therapy, brain
surgery and incarceration. He wanted to explore every conceivable avenue.
One day at the Institute, John witnessed the re-birthing of
a female psychiatrist. Naked, she climbed into a large plastic bag
smeared on the inside with Vaseline, to recreate the womb.
Other therapists then sat on the bag to put pressure on her to
replicate the feeling of birth. Eventually, she was squeezed out of
the bag and was then tied by the wrist to another female psychiatrist, to represent the umbilical cord. The rope wasnt severed
for two weeks, during which time she did everything with the
other woman: showering, sleeping, going to the toilet yet
another confrontational practice that challenged every convention taught about personal space, intimacy, nudity and shame
about basic bodily functions. All the time, the subject was fed
positive messages about what a great person she was, how people
cared for her, and how much her presence was appreciated.
John says now:
Some of the time, these exercises worked, or appeared to work,
brilliantly accessing and remedying difficult problemsand at
other times not. But they seemed to get many of the people they
treated off most of their drugs, and they seemed to be thriving.
Those who lived in the community and attended the Institute
every day seemed to be leading peaceful lives outside, and those
they brought in from jails and detention centres appeared to be
coping with all the therapy they were receiving. But Ive since
concluded that hurrying matters towards resolution may not be
the best way to address them.
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These days, many therapists would regard such experiential

work with alarm, arguing that therapy ought to be at physical
and emotional arms length. Such experiences taught John,
however, that there is a real place for physical touch in therapy,
for sharing emotions and for helping some patients experience,
in a safe and controlled setting, the things of which theyre most
afraid.
Later, some of the therapies John studied at the Institute
fell into disrepute. He wasnt really surprised. Some of the things
they were doing were very controversial, and they hadnt
installed adequate safeguards, he says. A couple of people ended
up dying there, and there were suicides. The Institute then
attracted a lot of adverse publicity. But you have to bear in mind
that these were often very violent, troubled people and there
would have been deaths and suicides among them anyway.
John came to see psychotherapy as falling into three main
categories. The first group were the talkers, the therapists who
asked the patient about their problems, their background and
their childhood, and wanted to talk it all through. The second
were those who dealt with emotions, believing feelings and
emotional states were the most important component, and
encouraging their clients to relive experiences that made them
happy, sad or mad, and then deal with those sensations appropriately. The third group were the body-workers who say that
all the psychodynamics of a person are manifested in the physical, or the bodys muscle armoury, including problems like high
blood pressure or cancer.
Many therapists he studied loved the talking side, the
psychodynamics and investigative part of working out why
someone is having problems, and veered towards therapies such
as Transactional Analysis, with its theories about how different
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parts of a persons psychological make-up interacted. Fewer

embraced the emotional side, because it tended to be far more
challenging, involving leading the patient through a range of
emotions, the power of which could be, if you werent experienced, quite frightening. On this side were those practising Fritz
Perls Gestalt therapy, with its goal of moving people into
owning their experience as well as the uncomfortable thoughts,
sensations and emotions that go along with it. The bodyworkers
would be involved in therapies like Rolfing, the extremely deep
tissue massage, as well as Bio-Energetics and other body-centred
psychotherapies.
John wanted to become proficient in all three arms of
therapy, reasoning that the most successful therapists would quite
likely be those who understood and were able to practise all
three approaches, distilling the best from each.
In Transactional Analysis, he had some of the most experienced teachers in the world, now all household names in
psychotherapy circles. While he was in the US, he did a onemonth workshop with Bob and Mary Goulding at their Western
Institute for Group & Family Therapy in Watsonville, California. They belonged to the first generation of therapists whod
learnt directly from Canadian psychiatrist and author Eric Berne,
the originator of Transactional Analysis, or TA, a systematic
theory of personality and communication. Berne had first qualified as a Freudian psychoanalyst, and then called himself a social
psychiatrist, going on to outline his own theories in the
landmark book, Games People Play: the Psychology of Human
Relationships, which became a runaway bestseller in 1966.
With its focus on how people behaved and interacted with
each other, it had as its central premise the idea of the human
personality consisting of three ego statesthe parent you once
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had, the adult, and the child you once weredrawn as a stack of
three circles. The first two parts were rational, possessing the
day-to-day information someone needed to survive in life, whilst
the child was more emotional. What people exchanged when
interacting, Berne called transactions. Some of these transactions were positive; they built people up, contributed to living
and engendered healthy community. Some dragged people down
and led to unhealthy relations. The type of transactions people
had, usually observed in group therapy, depended on which part
of their ego they tended to use most regularly in different situations or with different people.
The short-term sequences of the way people interrelated,
Berne called games. The longer-term behaviour, he called
someones script. Everyone starts to shape their script in childhood and, if they are having problems later, this can often be
traced back to negative programming instilled in them as kids by
their parents. These theories, and the idea that parents behaviour is so important in helping shape their kids future, made a
huge impression on John.
TA also aimed to give people the power to change their
lives, or rewrite their scripts by affording them insight into their
instincts, behaviour and life patterns. Once they understood
their behaviour, they could change it and go on to achieve whatever they really wanted. The Gouldings were well-known
TA-redecision practitioners, using their therapy either individually or in groups. Over the years, theyve taught their techniques
to therapists from all over the world, writing books and conducting workshops both at home and extensively overseas.
This was the kind of study John was still involved with back
in Adelaide, too. A year after his return home from the UK, hed
started his own practice there. It wasnt as a GPby now hed
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decided he wasnt interested in ever setting up as a GP and doing

the kind of work they didbut in remedial dietetics, using all
the training he was receiving from Dr John Rudolfer. It began as
a part-time operation in a separate wing of the house he was
renting, but had soon become full-time. People heard about what
he was doing and immediately inundated him with requests for
help. Patients were eager to learn more about food, nutrition and
the way it could be used to help cure illness.
The rest of the time, John continued with the Adelaide
grouping of like-minded people all pushing back the boundaries
of conventional medicine and psychology. A friend from that
time, Candy Spender, now a very successful Melbourne jeweller,
says John really stood out from the rest of them:
He was quite a pioneer in those days. He was an Aries and a real
leader. I remember doing a group with him once. We were put
into this psychodrama and the teacher put John in a pretty high
role because he had such a good overview. I admired him a lot
because he was so brilliant, yet he went about his work very
quietly, never blowing his own trumpet. We always had this
feeling that he was going somewhere.
John was active within that group at hunting down anyone

overseas who was doing different and exciting work, or at the
forefront of any new movement, and inviting them over to
Australia to hold workshops on what they were doing. Everyone
spent practically all the money they earned on either chipping
in to contribute to the visitors fares and accommodation costs
while they were in Adelaide or flying overseas to see them, and
writing papers to bring back on what theyd learnt.
That way, the group was able to meet and study with some
of the best practitioners of the era. John worked closely with
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other leaders in the TA field, like Kristyn Huige and suicide therapist George Thomson, and also studied Family Therapy with
Harry and Laura Boyd, Psychological Level Communication
with Steve and Carol Lankton, and Ericksonian Hypnosis with
Jeffrey Zeig. Zeig was the founder, director and president of the
Milton H Erickson Foundation in Phoenix, Arizona, having
spent more than six years in intermittent study with Erickson
himself, the man generally acknowledged to have been the
worlds leading practitioner of medical hypnosis. In Zeigs downtime in Australia, John did what any other Australian in a
similar position would have done: he took him to the football.
John also studied Encounter Therapy, various Breath
therapies, Dance Therapy, Vipassana meditation and Reichian
Therapy, founded by the Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich,
who held that psychological and emotional distress were the
result of someone blocking their experience and their expression
of emotions like sadness, joy, anger, fear and grief. This
emotional side of therapy, as well as its more modern interpretations like RADIX, Bioenergetics, and Core Energetics, struck a
particular chord with John. He saw many modern psychotherapists steering well clear of the emotional side, being unwilling,
or unable, to confront their own feelings, let alone someone
elses. Sometimes it was far easier, he recognised, to simply rely
on the talking. John, however, decided to embrace the emotional
side, and learnt about working with feelings such as fear, pain,
anger and longing.
The sessions were difficult, physically as well as emotionally, with much crying and yelling. Usually, when he was doing
his own personal therapy, hed take out a bucket before a session
began, because, as he ran through the gamut of all his emotions,
hed experience fear so acutely, hed invariably throw up.
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Bodywork therapies, like the deep-tissue massage of Rolfing,

Reichian bodywork, and touch and stroking therapies were also
extremely valuable, in Johns view. The idea was that someones
emotions are reflected in the tension of their body, from the man
with hunched shoulders whos weighed down by worry, to the
woman whos so stressed, she has no looseness or flexibility in
her body at all. The aim is then to break through the physical
armoury surrounding the emotions.
Rolfing, highly invasive and often painful, required a
completely different kind of energy. Most therapists avoided
it, finding it too challenging and difficult. John, naturally,
embraced it. In the end, he went through the entire twelve
sessions of the advanced course. I never learnt a therapy without
having it done on myself first, he says. You had to know what
effect it would have on you, how it would feel, and what could
happen. And while it can be very powerfulthat deep internal
massage is the only effective treatment known for some conditionsit was truly awful.
Johns sessions included having the practitioner force a
finger up his nose as high as it would go until a crack like a rifle
shot echoed around the room, having his mouth pressured from
inside until a 5 cm tear bled half a litre of blood, and having his
internal organs massaged.
Speech therapist Jan Baker joined the same training group
as John after a patient, with whom shed been exploring possible
physiological and psychological causes of the vocal problems she
was suffering, suggested she go along. She found herself both
appalled and admiring:
I admired his courage in exploring all these therapies. Rolfing in
particular can be disgusting: a very, very, very deep tissue massage
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that goes right to the fascia of the bone, right up your nostril and
right around the back of your mouth and loosens the tissue
against the fascia of the bone. But he did it all. He would never
do anything to someone that he hadnt had done to himself.
I might have done! I was never nearly as brave as him.
The group drew up a detailed training program for all its

members, intended to equip them for working with people,
rather than passing exams. This involved massive amounts of
reading, presenting papers, holding monthly weekend groups and
sometimes week-long workshops.
With John one of the leaders in the groups, Baker remembers well her first meeting with him, and feeling intimidated by
his presence. I was pretty naive, and absolutely terrified of John!
she says today.
I felt he was very sharp, very smart. He would often listen to what
you were saying, then take an opposite view, not to be contrary,
but because hes actually thought beyond the square. Hes thought
beyond any construction that my little brain could do. So I found
him quite unsettling to be around. For that reason he was quite a
formidable personality in a group. He was ruthlessly honest with
himself about his own self and his mythology of his own issues,
and he would anticipate that you would be prepared to be the
same yourself. I dont mean he was cruel; its just that he could
put people off-balance. His insight was so astute and so offbeat
that he would unsettle people.
During the training, people were asked to team up, to

become co-therapists, and, much to Bakers surprise, John asked
her if shed like to run a medical problem-solving group with him
in the rooms of his practice, taking patients referred to them by
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Andrewartha and McPhee, under their supervision. It proved to

be a good combination. Baker, middle-class and conservative,
and John, radical and fearless in his experimentation, complemented each other well.
He was the epitome of everything radical and I was the
epitome of everything that was safe and stolid and respectable,
says Baker, who today works from Flinders University.
And I think thats why our group worked so well. People saw me
as safe and reputable and John as terribly avant-garde and a bit
off the beaten track. I had enormous respect for him. He was by
far the better therapist, probably. I felt he always knew much
more than I did, had much more insight, and was much more
comfortable with things like sexual differences, with people who
were homosexual or bisexual. He was very comfortable around
people.
John and Baker ended up with a group of people with very

difficult problems who were not responding to traditional
medical treatment. There were, for instance, people with progressive neurological disorders and, most memorably, a man with
a brain tumour so large it was protruding from his head.
Says Baker:
It was a huge challenge, but we worked with the belief that one
could actually turn these things around. The man with the brain
tumour did eventually die, but his quality of life improved enormously before his death. It became our experience that very often
people with medical problems, say, like asthma, skin complaints,
acne, genital herpesthings like thisthey did all improve. We
also had people with voice disorders, with stutters. They did very
well, too.
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The group was run along TA lines, and we also did body work
and hitting beanbags stuff and marital and sexual problems, as well
as talking. In TA, you would often hug people, touch their bodies,
massage others shoulders. If you did a piece of therapeutic work, I
might be the person lying on the ground and would put my hand
on their abdomen or such to get in touch with the diaphragm. We
were a psychotherapy/medical problem-solving group trying to
understand the meaning of the illness of a person and the way
their lives were focussing around their illness. We would actually
change the focus, which meant the illness would then usually
change, too. The thrust of a lot of TA was around the notion of
responsibility, that you are what you become yourself, and you are
responsible for what you are and where youre going.
It was such a powerful message, underlined over and over

again by the physical results achieved, that it was later to become
the central tenet of all Johns thinking.
The program the group adopted also necessitated members
undertaking their own therapy. This was similar to the practice
of psychoanalysts, who have to spend years looking at their own
make-up before they can ever take a patient, or Chinese medicine, where doctors train from five to twenty years before they
are allowed to practise. Johns self-analysis took him three years.
Afterwards, when he counted up all the hours hed spent in
TA training, he discovered hed actually done twice as many
hours in both classwork and clinical supervision than he needed
to qualify as a therapist. But while he was training for the exams,
he decided he really didnt believe in TA alone, and opted not
to take them.
In the meantime, groups of interested people and therapists
continued to try everything, and anything. In one training
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course, called encounter training, peoples problems were reconstructed using the group members, with each one playing a
different role, either as family members or friends. It enabled the
person at the centre to recreate some problem theyd had as a
child, and relive it as an adult, and hopefully resolve any distress
or feelings theyd had left over. Sometimes this developed in
quite unusual directions.
One woman remembered being caught by her mother as a
five year old, playing with the penis of her cousin, also five, in a
cupboard. It had left her unable, as an adult, to enjoy having sex
as she couldnt help associating the act with the shame,
embarassment and misery of being caught and punished as a kid.
The solution the group came up with was for the males to allow
her, innocently, to toy with their penises, whilst the women in
the group encouraged her. When you take out the sexual aspect
of this piece of therapy, it looks pretty innocuous, similar to deconditioning or behaviour therapy, says John. But for some
people the sexuality would make this exercise outrageous and
unacceptable, however effectively it solved her problems and
allowed her to go on and lead a very happy, healthy and sexually
fulfilled life. John was to describe this therapy to hundreds
of his own patients over the years to make the point that
confronting fears in a completely non-sexual way can be tremendously powerful.
Searching for what was the most effective way for people
to take the sort of responsibility for themselves which seemed to
result in healing, I underwent training in many different disciplines which today might result in lawsuits, he says now. Thats
a pity. Some of them were very helpful, before lawyers and the
culture of complaint took over.
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While John had made a conscious decision to omit the

most daring of therapies from any of his future work with clients,
he was to completely underestimate the extent to which even
the more moderate treatments still looked radical to a country
steeped in the tradition of ultraconservative medicine.
He knew he was already out of step with mainstream
Australia, but he had yet to discover how far, and the danger in
which he was placing himself.
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The day a long-term girlfriend told Dr John Harrison she was
pregnant, he was shocked. Hed always wanted a child, but
hadnt planned one with her. Shed been an on-again, off-again
girlfriend, someone whod also studied at Adelaide University
and with whom hed had an intermittent relationship over a
number of years.
Hed always been popular with women but had never found
one with whom he wanted to settle down. He was too engrossed
in his study of alternative therapies and too excited by his
discoveries about their power to heal to pay much attention to
his relationships. Some might have seen that as being selfabsorbed, others saw him as simply a young man at the start of
his career, playing the field both professionally and personally.
But even though he had a number of relationships, and sometimes a few at the same time, he was always scrupulously honest
with everyone, sometimes painfully so.
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Deborah Sharp, whod been working as an artist at the time

she met him through a mutual friend, says:
He was always very popular because he was fun to be around,
smart and upbeat and very honest. He was always doing more
groundwork in alternative therapies, going away at weekends and
spending days tied by a rope to another person. I was very cynical
about some of those things, I wasnt into them at all, but I think
thats one of the reasons we got on so well: I was someone to talk
to who had a completely different point of view. Sexuality in
those days was all pre-AIDS and it was all much more fluid than
today.
Close friend Andrew Badenoch admired John for his willingness not to play by the rules. John has the capacity to play
and to explore almost impulsive things about beauty and love,
he says. But it wasnt just hedonistic. Hes also extraordinarily
serious and passionate about everything in that world. As well as
his relationships, John had a lot of very good friendships with all
kinds of people.
A number of his friends were gay, and Jan Baker saw his
openness to everyone work very well in their joint therapy practice, too. He was equally at home with clients of every sexuality
and each gender, and she sometimes marvelled at his ability to
relate. John was extremely competent and comfortable with
issues around sexuality, she says. Sometimes people pay lip
service to that, but John really was. I think he even comes across
as gay to some people, in his mannerisms and speech patterns,
but I think thats a sign of how comfortable he is with himself.
When Ann came to John with news of her pregnancy, it
was a major landmark in his life. She had wanted a child, he
knew, for a long time. I did want a child, but I was unsure about
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having it with Ann, he says. In the end, we didnt continue

with our relationship much beyond the birth of our son, but I
was delighted to have a child. Ann was a great mother.
Their son, David, was born on 15 August 1981, with John
by Anns side. Anns pregnancy still had a couple of weeks to go
when John had been called to Sydney. Hed spoken with her
twice during the day to check that she was okay, and shed
reported that nothing had changed. But hed detected a change
in her voice. When, at 8 p.m. he stepped into the street after a
meal with friends at a Bondi restaurant, he noticed there was a
full moon. Ann always menstruates on a full moon, he told his
friends. Without hesitating, he ran into the street and hailed a
cab. On the way to the airport he asked the cabbie to radio the
airport and book him a flight to Adelaide. The last flight was
about to leave, but they held it until he arrived. A friend picked
him up from the airport in Adelaide and rushed him home. Ann
gave birth to David at 11 p.m. It taught me to always trust my
judgement, he laughs.
Good friend John Emery remembers being amazed at the
time by the way John anticipated the birth. Emery, an author and
screenwriter whod just finished work on the movie Backroads
with director Phillip Noyce and was about to start production on
Freedom with director Scott Hicks, is today co-head of the screenwriting department at the Australian Film, Television and Radio
School in Sydney. It was so strange, he says, but [John] was such
an instinctive health practitioner, he even knew when Ann had
come into labour. Hed been looking at the phases of the moon
and it had started raining. He said suddenly, Ive got to go. Anns
come into labour early. And he was right!
It looked instinctive, but maybe it was analytical as well,
he says. He was just constantly analysing data. It drove so many
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of us mad. Wed go out to have a game of football, and all the

time hed be analysing how we could kick more perfectly. Under
him, it would always turn into a football clinic rather than a
kick-around.
Work-wise, that combination of instincthoned as a child
by all the second-guessing of his parentsand his analytical
ability, having studied so many different therapies, served him
well. His clinic in group therapy with Baker was proving
extremely successful. In their four years, they saw up to around
100 clients, eight to ten at a time, and most seemed very happy
with their experience. Even today, more than twenty years later,
some of those Adelaide clients have been back to visit Baker.
They say to me, Those days, when you and John were in the
group, they were just absolutely incredible, says Baker. Theyll
say theyre coming back to me because John was no longer there,
or that theyve got some further issues to work on.
At the same time, Johns own private clinic in dietetics was
being overwhelmed by demand. At that point, there was
precious little information around about nutrition, beyond the
desirability of cutting down on fats, sugars and salt. Using diet
specifically to cure certain ailments was quite new and revolutionary. John was asked to lecture at Flinders University on the
subject, which he did for two years, and then lectured at the
nurses federation for postgraduate students. At the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Adelaides second largest teaching hospital, he
was invited to talk at the professorial clinic, with about twelve
professors, including the Professor of Medicine and the Professor
of Surgery in attendance. That didnt go quite as smoothly. They
were outraged by much of what he said, seeing it as a direct
attack on their own disciplines.
Many other doctors, however, were intrigued by Johns
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approach. Often, one would call him up and ask to sit with him
in his clinic, or come along to his training groups.
There really wasnt anybody else who was practising remedial
dietetics as a therapeutic modality. But I was using Dr Rudolfers
prescription diets, and making changes to accommodate different
factors, and then prescribing them in great detail to change the
physiology. For instance, if you limited peoples carbohydrate
intake, it would change their system radically, and almost immediately.
In those days, his work was denounced by many medical

specialists as pure hokum. Today, its been gradually accepted
by many in the medical profession and has been willingly
embraced by the millions of people around the world who use
diet either to improve their health or to change their body
shapes. The late Dr Robert Atkins, who recommended a lowcarbohydrate, high-protein diet, made his fortune out of it in
his last few years.
Now, when you look at things like the Sandra Cabot Diet
and the different diets that so many people have made so much
money out of, it makes me angry to think how much money John
didnt make! says Jan Baker, who also learnt about all the fundamentals of diet and how a purification of the diet would make a
difference to the metabolic system from John. He was passionate about it. He would say, If you want to get better, you will
NOT eat red meat, you will eat lentils, yams etc. He was obsessional about the way you mix foods. Some doctors were very
distrustful of him, but some learnt from him. They had enormous
respect for him.
He gradually incorporated alternative philosophies into his
practice, too, including acupuncture and a range of different
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therapies. Increasingly, he was asked to talk about them to

university classes, clinics, and various groupings of doctors. He
also ran workshops at Adelaide University, and courses at the
Workers Educational Association. All were taped so others could
learn from them. Many orthodox practitioners were suspicious
of what he was doing; others were fascinated.
One day, when Johns friend Deborah Sharp went to her
own doctor for some medication, he asked her if she knew John.
You know, hes just seen a patient of mine, said the doctor. And
do you know what he told her to do? Eat more spinach and
masturbate more! He laughed and then fell silent. You know,
I think thats bloody good advice for her!
John stood out from the rest of the doctors in Adelaide in
other ways, too. John Emery remembers him as a flamboyant
figure at the time, with an outgoing personality, and an earring
in one ear. At that time, all doctors wore a suit and tie, but John
wore open-necked shirts and sports jackets, and quite effectively
teased the medical establishment, which was very old school
and by the book. He was quite different, he was really up
against it.
Word was spreading among patients about the effectiveness
of his diagnoses and treatment, and a waiting list to see him soon
built up. He talked to them all about both diet and the state of
their psyche, as well as offering some elementary bodywork. He
became convinced that what was going on in the mind of the
patient was also being played out in their body. Time and time
again, he discovered that people coming to him with bad
migraines, skin diseases, or pain of most kinds had suffered some
kind of deprivation as a child, which had led to problems as an
adult. They might not be coping well with life and had seemed
to develop illness as a result.
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Sometimes, he offered them intensive psychotherapy, as

well as dietary and lifestyle advice. Sometimes, he combined
psychotherapy with acupuncture or bodywork. More and more
he started believing in the value of touch in the healing process.
With the skin the largest and most sensitive sensory organ of the
body, the sense of touch is always the first sensation to develop
in any mammal, he says. Even conventional doctors today
believe babies and children must have nurturing massage and
cuddles. A lack of touch in those early years often coincides with
delayed development; the child turns out to be anti-social or
feels alienated from their parents and society.
At that time, there was a great deal of research going on
about the power and value of touch for adults, too. American
anatomist, physiologist, psychologist and anthropologist Dr
Ashley Montagu, whod taught at Harvard, New York University, the University of California and Princeton, had brought out
his groundbreaking book Touching: The Human Significance of the
Skin. Famed American therapist Ron Kurtz had been developing
his Hakomi Method of body-centred psychotherapy throughout
the mid-1970s. Pioneering verbal psychotherapist Malcolm
Brown had become dissatisfied with the results hed been
achieving with his treatments and had re-trained as a body
psychotherapist. He says:
It seemed to me that a more direct and essentially non-verbal
interaction with the patients organism was necessary before any
substantial positive changes in the personality structure could
unfold. I could dimly sense that the rigidities in the psyche were
embedded in and sustained by rigidities in the body, and that the
stasis in both must be loosened before a healthy energy flow could
be established.
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His later book, The Healing Touch, became a seminal text in

the area.
The central premise of such work was that the unconscious
dimensions of the human psyche belong more in the body than
in the mind. Massage and the simple holding of a patient, the
non-sexual stroking of parts of their bodylike the trunk, arms
and backand the process of making them feel nurtured and
cared for, could be incredibly powerful when used together with
psychotherapeutic techniques. It would allow patients true feelings, thoughts and emotions to come to the surface, give them a
safe environment in which to express them and naturally assist
the healing process. Brown found touch therapy was particularly
powerful for patients who were severely disturbed. With acute
emotional and psychological problems, he found the persons
body was usually extremely tense, and the best way to unlock
the armouring and reach their mind was via the body.
Direct touch can be twice as effective as any kind of
do-it-yourself energy mobilisation technique, Brown wrote in
The Healing Touch, to rapidly reduce the chronically overloaded
cerebrospinal neural network.
John was later to see incredible results from the practice of
this kind of therapy. Often, he would hold patients as if they
were children to see what kind of feelings it would bring up, and
then hold them as adults. He would also, after asking permission, gently stroke their arms, their faces, their shoulders or
sometimes the abdomen, particularly if a patient associated
touch with pain or negative emotions. He really believed in
bodywork, says Jan Baker. He was also an extremely good practitioner in it.
Even then, however, it sparked suspicion in quarters hed
never imagined. He was questioned by the Health Insurance
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Commission at one point because he wrote so few prescriptions.

He was also investigated by the Australian Tax Office at the start
of his working life as he earned so little money, compared to
other doctors who were beginning to have quite healthy
incomes. Thats the thing about John, says his sister Robyn. All
his life, because of his ideas, hes always swum against the tide of
conservatism and prejudice. Hes always had to break through in
order to get heard.
At that time, Robyn was feeling more stirrings of unease
about the kind of work he was doing. I was fearing for him, and
I fear for him all the time, she says. I admired him tremendously,
and respected his capacity to see ahead. But he is so far ahead
sometimes that I think it is dangerous
Davids arrival, however, meant John was forced to take
some time out from his alternative health exploration and slow
down a little. He lived with Ann for a few months after the birth
but then left, knowing he didnt want her as a life partner. Some
of their friends were shocked by the coolness of his decision but,
while he found it extremely painful, he knew, first-hand, how
damaging a bad relationship can prove. His sister Vicki was still
surprised, however. There Ann was at three months with this
little baby, and I thought that was a pretty tough decision myself,
really. I dont know if she ever really forgave him for that.
But John did make a commitment to play a full role in
fathering his son, making an agreement with Ann to share
Davids parenting. Ann returned to Adelaide University to study
for her Masters degree in social anthropology, and John scaled
down his workload to ensure he had enough time for his son.
Although he and Ann put a lot of effort into making their
platonic relationship work for Davids sake, there was some
tension between them. Vicki couldnt help but notice it. They
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had very differing stories as to whether they were going to have

this baby, she says. Ann said he agreed [to her becoming pregnant], and he said he never agreed. So there was this disparate
story.
Then when David was born, they had a home birth, and
John was amazingly supportive. He was there, he was with Ann,
hed spend all day with them. But then he left. He didnt just
leave and walk out of the scenario, however. He still took an
enormous amount of care of David. He just said, Well, I never
agreed and I dont want to live with you, so Im not going to!
John had ten days on, ten days off, looking after the baby. It
was an unusual arrangement, but it seemed to work for all three.
Family responsibilities were weighing heavily in other
ways, too. In 1982, his father Jack died after being struck down
with lung cancer. His mother Maxime asked him if she could
visit him in hospital, but he refused. He didnt want her to see
him like that. She went alone to the funeral for the sake, she
says, of the children. She was also in the wars, however. In 1983,
she was diagnosed with an aneurism on the brain and had to
have a delicate operation. Her surgeon gave her a 50:50 chance
of pulling through. When a man shed been seeing, Harold
Grigg, asked her to marry him, she refused. But I might not
survive! she told him. She did, and married him in November
1983.
John, now forced to spend more time sitting and thinking
as he minded his son David, one day came up with the idea of
writing a book to present his philosophy on health, pulling
together everything hed learnt in order to explain it to others.
He had so many people coming to him for treatment, and noone else seemed to be doing the kind of things he was. In
addition, there just werent any books available on the sort of
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therapies he was practising. The more he considered it, the more

enthusiastic he became. When he ruptured his Achilles tendon
while playing sport one summer, and had to spend the next three
months in plaster, it gave him the final nudge he needed.
At first, he spent his time with his leg up, watching two
TVs stacked on top of each other, one showing cricket, the other
screening tennis. But quickly growing bored, he found someone
to teach him how to touchtype, and then sat typing out his first
two chapters and ideas. Even when his injury healed, he carried
on, getting up early each morning, putting on some coffee and
then sitting and writing from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. Then hed shower,
go to work and start again when he returned homeif it wasnt
his turn to look after David.
As his ideas all came together, and the words poured forth,
he found he was enjoying the process more and more. In the end,
hed completed his manuscript inside six months. He passed it
around a couple of publishers, and Angus & Robertson took it
on. They were enthusiastic. Even the editor with whom he
clashed constantly over words, phrases and ideas, later said she
loved itdespite the fact that, at his insistence, she was taken
off the project. When they met later, she told him reading the
manuscript had transformed her life. Shed given up editing
shortly afterwards and had trained to become a natural therapist.
It was an exceedingly promising sign.
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L ov e Yo u r D i s e a s e
The book Love Your Disease: Its Keeping You Healthy caused a
sensation from the moment it was published in March 1984,
simultaneously in Australia and the UK.
Some acclaimed it as the greatest step forward in healthcare that century; others deplored it as irresponsible, ridiculous
hokum. But no-one was indifferent, and it started selling from
the moment it hit the shelves.
Mike Walsh on his TV Midday Show ditched his normal
demeanour of genial bonhomie to attack Dr John Harrison on
air. ABC TV presenter Angela Pearman engaged him in a long
and thoughtful discussion. TV, radio, newspaper and magazine
journalists deluged him with requests for interviews as he travelled around the country, and then over to England, to promote
the book.
John was often taken aback by the reaction. There was
so much demand for publicity, and people were extremely
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interested in the ideas of the book, he says today. It seemed to

press a lot of buttons. Some people embraced it immediately,
others railed against it and said it was absolute rubbish. It was
quite an incredible reaction. I hadnt really told anyone I was
writing the book, so it took everyone by surprise.
The central tenet of Love Your Disease was deceptively
simple: that falling ill, rather than being a result of bad luck or
external influences, is actually peoples own choice. Its often not
deliberate, its usually subconscious, but people do have the
power both to make themselves sick and, in turn, to cure themselves. And underlying any decision is the very forgiving idea
that we all do the best we can in the circumstances, always. In
short, the mind or the psyche was always the key.
For people in the medical profession, the very idea was
anathema. For their patients, it was both an intriguing and
empowering concept.
At its heart was the notion that becoming sick wasnt
necessarily a bad thing; it was more a way of allowing a person
to take care of themselves better, or giving them permission to
be cared for, cherished and nurtured by others. In a society that
doesnt give people enough room to look after themselves properly or often allow them to ask for help without losing face, it is
an intelligent physical response to internal needs. In short, we
decide, usually subconsciously, to fall prey to illness for a reason.
And, in turn, if your life is going well and your psyche is sound,
then there will be no reason to become sick. If you have no need
of major illness, John wrote, you will have no major illness.
Genes play a role in illness, but are moderated by learned
styles of living, eating habits and certain personality traits that
have been encouraged in the past by our forebears. For instance,
there may be cancer in the family but if that notion is greeted
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with fatalism and resignation by someone, and combined with,

say, bad eating habits, then its more than likely that person will
develop cancer, too. If, on the other hand, a conscious decision
is made to change an unhealthy lifestyle and avoid cancer, with
all the work that might entail, then its far less likely to happen.
The main determinant of illness, John postulated, was our
experience in our early childhood, up to the age of six, the period
most important in shaping an individuals personality. An infant
is unsure whether it can survive, so it becomes adept at complying with an adults wishes. If the messages received by children
from their parents are positive and strong, if theyre told how
much theyre loved and theyre given the room and the support
to make their own decisions, then those children will usually
grow up psychologically and physically healthy. Such caring
parents will often touch their children more, hugging them,
cuddling them and stroking them, which all act as stimulants for
their life force.
But if the messages are negative, and parents are distant or
push children too hard to be perfect, then those offspring may
grow up always fearing the loss of parental love if they fail at
anything, and will often end up suppressing their feelings, rarely
expressing their needs and, as a consequence, suffering serious
illness.
Anybody prepared to make fearless decisions in their best
interests, John wrote, will avoid all major illness and most
minor ones as well. By the same token, people nervous about
making the best decisions for themselves will often choose the
easier, less traumatic pathmaking themselves ill so they end
up with more sympathy and an excuse to pamper themselves
instead. That way, they can choose to continue to suppress whatever it is thats making them ill. Thus the psyche, whether
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healthy or sick, is always the main determinant of sickness.

Being ill or well is a mirror of the soul, he wrote.
Such a premise represented a major shift in thinking about
sickness, moving the responsibility and power to the patient and
away from doctors and their bags of pharmaceuticals. It thus gave
little scope for a doctor in the role of creating and maintaining
health. But John wasnt content merely to sideline doctors. He
went further, claiming that doctors often actalthough usually
unknowinglycontrary to the true interests of their patients.
They prescribe powerful drugs that remove the symptoms of the
illness, but which inhibit the natural power of the body to cure
itself, and end up actually prolonging the sickness. He said
patients should instead be taking their health into their own
hands, searching inside themselves for the cause of their
sickness, looking at how their personality and past may be
contributing to the problem, and realising how their reluctance
to explore their illness may be maintaining the situation.
Thus, even potentially valuable alternative treatments like
homeopathy and diet that work with the body instead of orthodox treatments that work against it, will be of no more than
passing value when practised in isolation from the patients
psychology.
Doctors, then, actually work against the true interests of
health. The contract that those members of the public who
dont wish to take responsibility for themselves make with the
medical profession goes something like this: I have consulted
you to have my need recognised, my suffering validated, my pain
removed and my disease retained, wrote John. In return, I will
support you financially and give you status commensurate with
the powers I ask you to exercise.
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Each part of the contract is necessary to the whole. In order that

the expertise and validating power of the doctor may be legitimately sought, people need a disease. This validation is officially
recognised by giving doctors far-reaching powers in all manner of
things, many of them having little or nothing to do with medical
practice. Doctors, for example, may witness signatures for passports and other legal documents, are invariably invited to be
members of committees and boards within communities and are
offered credit cards and other facilities with no questions asked.
All these things are intended to keep doctors on a pedestal as its
an essential part of healing and the validation of suffering that
they be seen to be powerful. And, of course, this prominence also
serves to make the doctor more vulnerable to attack.
These were fateful words, although at the time John could

have no idea how prescient they were. Instead, he continued his
offensive, talking about how medicine abounds with scientific
hypotheses that are valid one year and dispensed with the next,
or theories that merely suited the practitioner of the time. While
patients longed to hear what theyd imagine was the truth of
their diagnosis and cause of their ill health, instead they would
just be getting a subjective, biased interpretation of unverifiable,
fluctuating data.
He also accused doctors of actually having financial and
status-related interests in ensuring that ill-health continued. The
whole system was in on it, from the drug companies determined
to peddle their wares to a bigger and bigger market, to the
specialists with their demands for more sophisticated technology, from the insurance funds to the government. To retain the
illusion of potency, they surrounded themselves with mystique,
which today means technology in terms of advanced machines
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to detect and treat illness, surgery and more and more powerful
drugs, and further away from those invaluable basics: commonsense and good doctoring.
Modern general practitioners are little acquainted with the causes
of illness and indeed it would be financially disastrous for them
to regard disease as self-created and self-cured. In addition, their
mechanistic and technically oriented training leaves them threatened by the mention of psychological causes of physical illness.
In this climate of mutual support for each others fear, doctor and
patient may contract to ignore the patients contribution to the
illness, remove the symptoms and watch helplessly as acute goes
to chronic and the disease worsens.
Love Your Disease outlined in detail, by contrast, what

patients could expect if they came to John for treatment. He
always believed in a very personal relationship with a client from
the very beginning, so he eschewed the need for staff. He took
all his phone calls himself, so he could judge from a patients
voice and words what their attitude might be right from the first
moment they called to make an appointment. Similarly, when
they arrived, he was able to greet patients himself, and ascertain
so much about them at the first meeting, with clues contained
in everything from their clothes to their stance, from their facial
expressions to their body shape, from which chair they chose to
the words they used. I avoid patients who want to fight if I see
that my chances of winning are slight, he wrote, a cardinal rule
he would have done well to have always obeyed.
John would never see a patient for less than an hour. He
reasoned that no doctor could possibly understand enough about
another person in the five to ten minutes routinely reserved for
patients. It would only ever give them enough time to look up a
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drug that might help, and write a prescription. John saw himself
as being a great deal more thorough. He would at first ask
patients what they thought was wrong with them, because of his
belief that, deep down, we all really know the root causes of any
illness. Their answers also gave him an indication of how much
they might be prepared to examine their life in trying to heal
themselvesand how afraid they might be of the process.
He would then go through a long, detailed checklist about
their health, diet and lifestyle, followed by a complete physical
examination of all areas of the body. Hed also ask them what had
been happening recently in their lives. In so many cases, he would
find that the occurrence of illnesses such as cancer were preceded
by a significant event, such as the death of a loved one eighteen
months before. A persons childhood invariably came into it,
however: either in the way they perhaps contributed to the trauma
of the event according to their own early conditioning, or in the
way they reacted to the news. All Johns psychotherapy was geared
to understanding the links and changing behaviour to create a
positive future. Taking responsibility for the future requires that
we take responsibility for the past, he wrote.
This, he explained, was an immensely powerful concept,
with an infinite number of applications. Sickness in the bowel
might reflect mental constipation, while obesity could be a result
of someone deciding they werent deserving of love and then
actually choosing a weight that was safe for them. Back pain
might be someones refusal to make a decision to back themselves, and a heart attack could be the outcome of parents
demanding perfection from the patient as a child; the adult that
child became is now too busy trying to win approval from others
ever to slow down. Instead, we all need to learn how to trust
ourselves, love ourselves and believe in ourselves.
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His ultimate aim was a person healthy in body, mind, spirit

and self-image, with a great appetite for life, a well-rounded
personality and a happy sex life. If a patient needed to talk about
sex, John would do so. If a woman shyly asked him how to
masturbate, he would talk her through the process. Providing a
climate in which people felt safe to express feelings was of the
utmost importance for him.
Love Your Disease was also extremely critical of the drug
culture that, at the time, was just beginning to take over the
health field. Even in 1984, John noted that around 55 per cent
of Australians in any two weeks took regular medication, half
prescribed by GPs and the rest from naturopaths, supermarkets
and health food stores. It came from the post-WWII belief that
health and longevity would be guaranteed by technology. But,
said John, we only had to look to ourselves for the power to heal,
rather than capitulating to the power and money of the big drug
companies.
Health is not an absence of disease, its a willingness to take
responsibility for any disease we choose to give ourselves. I
believe that in time self-responsibility implies a continuing
improvement in those things over which we have control. It does
not imply we have control over everything. If a client wont
accept that responsibility then, after a reasonable period, I stop
seeing him. It becomes too great an effort for me to continually
dodge the carefully laid traps intended to guarantee that I need
him to get better more than he does. In this case I have no leverage and will certainly fail, as well as probably end up feeling bad.
I choose not to do that.
Again, this was early advice that John later chose to ignore
at his peril.
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He was more upbeat, though, about the prospects for the

future. Increasingly, he believed, people were coming to see
disease less as the mechanical failing of a machine under duress,
and more as the physical manifestation of internal conflicts. The
change in the public view he saw as inevitable over time.
Disease will be regarded as a personal decision, he wrote. This
change is made more necessary by the financial strictures of the
technological revolution. Its simply impossible to continue
funding the old-style medicine. People have to take more
responsibility and therefore more care of themselves.
Before that happens, however, the relationship between the
patient and the doctor inevitably changes. Chillingly, John talks
in the book about how patients often purport to be grateful to
the doctor for advice and deify him as a result, but often, in order
later to avoid the responsibility for their own cure, theyll tear
the doctor down like a tall poppy when they fail to get better.
We encourage a prophet to promote his views, give him credence,
patronise his practice, spread the word of his wonderful cures and
lure him into believing hes infallible. We promote him to a position of power, often forgiving minor transgressions of his stated
aims along the way. He becomes a figurehead, and people look to
him for guidance. He cannot assume power over people, or over
their viewsthey must give it to him. Secretly people regard him
as a fool, though they take care until the time is right not to
publicise their view. And then he stumbles, often with the help
of someone apparently sympathetic but secretly aspiring to his
position, but mostly because he can no longer stand the solitude
and fear of being top dog. His fall from power is often dramatic,
aided by scandal of some sort. We strip him of his power exactly
as we gave it to him, musing in his passing at what possessed him
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to make the oldest mistake on earth. We have made him a fool.

The sorrow of the occasion is tempered by memories of the early
dream, when we hoped he would save us. Soon both sorrow and
memories are lost beneath the crushing inevitability of his
demise
No-one who reads that passage now can help but shudder
at the accuracy of the prophecy.
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Making Miracles
Tears streamed down the womans face as she looked at her son
for the very first time. Hes such a beautiful young man, she
whispered. Hes so handsome. I just cant describe what its like
to see him after all these years.
In her fourth month of pregnancy, the woman had suddenly
lost her sight. Twenty-two years later, shed finally regained it.
Seeing her son was something shed only ever been able to dream
about.
She just didnt know how to thank Dr John Harrison.
Theres a real sadness there because Ive missed so much of his
growing up, she said softly. I just had bits and pieces of things
he said and did, how sweet he smelled, how sticky he often got
as a young boy. But now I can see again its all so marvellous.
I cannot thank you enough.
John had to admit: he too was stunned by the womans
progress. She had come to his rooms the year before, after her
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sister told her about his work and shed listened to one of his
lectures. He asked her why she was there. She shrugged. Well,
you only live once, she replied, with a smile. Ive heard you on
the radio and I believe that I can do something about my blindness. If youre up for it, of course Harrison took her hand in
his. Lets get started, he said.
He didnt know if he would be able to help the woman, but
he was determined to give it a try. His work was proving
immensely powerful, with patients reporting great improvements
in their health after coming to see him. He knew 48-year-old
Lyn, whod been blind for more than two decades, would be an
enormous challenge. But with so much of his work still experimental, he had no idea of its limits. He was always ready to test
himself and the potency of his treatments.
Knowing the growing antagonism of conventional doctors
to his methods, John first insisted that Lyn visit an ophthalmologist to set the baseline. The eye specialist was disparaging.
There was nothing anyone could do for Lyn, he wrote to John
after seeing her. It was pointless to try.
But a few months following the first set of treatments by
John, Lyn excitedly reported she was beginning to be able to
detect light. He was less convinced. She was making progress,
sure enough, through intensive therapy and bodywork, reliving
her youth as the lastand unplannedchild of a large family
whose parents were struggling financially and health-wise. She
was slowly coming to terms with her feelings about having been
neglected. As a child, she remembered standing on the footpath
outside their house asking passers-by if theyd like to buy her
for sixpence. As a girl, shed felt under tremendous pressure
to be perfect and never show anger, to try to win her parents
attention and approval.
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As an adult, she was still suffering from the same denial.

Talking her feelings through, and allowing herself to experience
the emotions shed once felt, she was gradually coming to a position of believing that maybe, just maybe, shed made herself
blind to remain in the kind of helpless state that meant others
would have to pay attention to her, and take care of her. But John
was still dubious that her improvement could possibly be that
fast with a condition that had lasted so long.
Yet Lyn was insisting she could see more and more each
session. Lines wavered and it was hard to judge distances to
objects, and some days were better than others. But eventually,
after a year with John, she read to him aloud from a newspaper.
He could no longer deny how much progress she had made. He
sent her back to the same ophthalmologist, who dismissed it as
a fluke, saying he wasnt interested in the kind of treatment Lyn
had been receiving. He didnt want to know. Both Lyn and John,
however, were overjoyed.
Lyn talked about the thrill of going through hundreds of
photographs of her friends, family and herself, and having to
ask all the time which face belonged to whom, as she had
no voices to match them. She described how she was so eager to
read everything, including newspaper pages that were fluttering along the ground, that it was as much as she could do to
stop herself crouching over them on the pavement. At the
library she wanted to take out 100 books at once to make up
for lost time. She and her sister laughed about visiting a coffee
shop together, and she spending all the time gazing about her
at everything there was to see: the different bottles at the
counter, the kaleidoscope of colours on the walls, the harried
cafe owner trying to keep up with demand, the gaggle of girls
coming in from the nearby school. It was a shock when her
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sister handed her a menu, and told her she could order for
herself.
And then there were the nights when, despite being
exhausted every day from the maelstrom of emotions and experience, she was so afraid of closing her eyes in case, when she
opened them again, there would once more be blackness.
I wanted to line everything and everyone up. Then I remembered
myself. What did I look like? So I went to the mirror. I looked
funny. When you first go blind, you cant find your face. This
time, I hit my face in the effort to touch my features. I looked at
my mother. I wouldnt have known her. She is so tiny now. My
closest brother is so much older and greyer now. I feel so much
grief, sadness, excitement, joy, nervousness, all rolled into one.
And John he was marvellous.
Eventually a TV documentary was made for Channel 7

about Lyns recovery and Johns treatments.
Yet while Lyn was perhaps Johns most miraculous transformation, he had plenty of other triumphs, big and small, as well
as the inevitable failures. After the publication of Love Your
Disease: Its Keeping You Healthy, people had been phoning him
and writing to him from all over Australia and around the world,
asking to see him. Their problems ranged from major, lifethreatening illness to minor problems. He took on as many as he
was able.
The publicity over the book was attracting more and more
interest all the time. Love Your Disease had been launched by a
senior anaesthetist at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. We were all
wondering what John was going to do, he told the assembled
crowd. He could have done anything. He was always so talented
and bright. So its amazing to us at the hospital that hes doing
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this alternative medicine stuff! The audience laughed uneasily.

The guest of honour was an old friend, the former LieutenantGovernor of South Australia, Sir Walter Crocker, whod worked
with the League of Nations and the United Nations before
becoming a diplomat and Australian ambassador to a number of
countries, including India, Indonesia, Canada, Kenya, Ethiopia
and Uganda. He had also been a patient of Johns, and the pair
had developed a huge mutual respect and close friendship. Sir
Walter had brought the former South Australian Governor, Sir
Mark Oliphant, along to the launch as well.
John was sent on a tour of the country, doing publicity in
Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. On the Midday Show, Mike
Walsh, who usually gave guests an easy run, plainly thought his
book, with that premise of disease being self-created, was ludicrous. Are you saying this is the same for animals? he asked in
derision. How about sheep? By a remarkable coincidence, John
had just read research a couple of days before on sheep. He told
the audience about the finding that a group of sheep which had
been stressed in their pen caught more physical diseases than a
group that were left to graze peaceably on grass. Walsh looked
completely stumped.
John was then flown over to England, where the book had
also caused a huge stir. He appeared on TV and radio across the
country to talk about his findings. The book was reprinted twice
in its first year alone. It was also translated into German and
Danish.
Realising his practice was beginning to really take off, John
shifted from Adelaide to Sydney. It was closer to the centre of
the action, he reasoned. It was easier for people to consult with
him there. And working in Adelaide as an alternative practitioner, he had been feeling extremely isolated. Also, he no
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longer had the imperative to stay there to be close to his son

David. The year before, Ann had suddenly announced she was
off to Sri Lanka to do field research for her PHD, and was taking
David with her. She set up a base by the coconut palm-fringed
beaches of Weligama, a scruffy fishing village on the southernmost tip of the country, to study how Sri Lankan Muslims shared
their lives with Sinhalese Buddhist and Tamil Hindu communities. John travelled there regularly to visit his son for the two
years Ann stayed in the country.
Now living in Sydneys inner west suburb of Stanmore with
friends, he set up a practice around the corner in the Italian
quarter of Leichhardt and, as soon as he was settled, he bought a
house nearby, in Annandale. The continuing success of the book
ensured a steady stream of appointments at his rooms. At one
point, his waiting list was over nine months long, which made
life enormously difficult. Patients would wait so long to see him,
theyd forget their appointmentsor have recovered their
healthby the time they finally came around. John came up
with an innovative plan to cut the list: he raised his fee from
$100 for an hour and a half, with patients getting back $27 on
Medicare, to $250 an appointment.
It was an astonishing hike; even Australias top psychiatrists
were only charging $100 an hour, which patients could claim
back in total. But it had the desired effect. It slashed the waiting
time down to a week, which was absolutely perfect for John. In
addition, it cut out the patients who werent particularly interested in seeing him, or in putting in the effort to improve their
own health. At the same time, however, he was careful to make
sure he charged only the Medicare rate for students, pensioners
and the unemployed. He had a greater proportion of students
among his clientele than anyone else, since they seemed to be
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more open to his methods, so that decision ended up costing him

more than $1500 a week in lost income. He thought it was worth
it, though. I didnt want to cut them out because I would cut
out any learning I would gain from those people about what
creates physical and psychological disease, says John. As well,
of course, it would not be fair to those who might not be able to
afford my rates. That high fee did create some degree of resentment not only among traditional doctors but among alternative
practitioners, too. At one point, he was asked to join an alternative practice, but some of the directors voted against the idea as
his charges were so much higher than anyone elses there.
His level of patient popularity endured, however. Nearly
everyone who came to consult John had read the booksome,
three timeswhich meant they were completely prepared for
the kind of treatments he would propose, and they would understand how they might help them. His clientele tended to be
educated, intelligent and open-minded about trying new
methods.
One of his patients was David OBrien, the writer of novels,
movies and documentaries. Hed read Johns book and went to
see him about a problem hed had for a while. He was so different, says OBrien, who went on to write the 1993 film Shotgun
Wedding, starring Zoe Carides and Aden Young, and then the
international documentary special Down to Earth, with Sting.
Usually, these people just sit and listen and very, very rarely offer
any advice or insight. He listened to me, but then he would talk
and turn the problem on its ear. He would take it out of the
conventional way of seeing it so you could almost stand outside it
and see how its affecting you. He had such a lateral way of
looking at a problem, it completely bowled me over.
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Every patient, at the end of the appointment, was given a

tape of the session to take away so they could re-listen. John
never kept any of the tapes for himself, an oversight that would
later come back to haunt him. OBrien appreciated the chance
to listen to the tapes over and over again. Seeing him was
absolutely life-changing for me, he says. He was such a unique
individual with a fascinating mind and a complex psychological
philosophy which changed my thinking. It gave me a whole new
perspective. I made a lot of progress and looked forward to going
to see him.
Another man who will never forget him is former
Australian tennis pro Mark Cocks, who was once ranked eightieth in the world. As a 25 year old, his brilliant career ended
abruptly when he was put on dialysis for eighteen months. In
1978, he had a kidney transplant, endured a number of complications and had to face the fact that he would never play
professionally again. He sought out John for help. Today he says:
The shit had hit the fan. I even went blind for a while, I haemorrhaged, I was in a bad way. But John helped me enormously.
Everything he said rang true with me about my life and where I
was emotionally, spiritually and in every area. Most of all, what
John did for me was help me believe in myself. He gave me my
life. Theres no doubt of that in my mind. If I hadnt met him, I
dont know where I would have ended up. He turned my life
around completely.
These days, Cocks, who had another transplant, this time

from his sister Julie in 1991, is the CEO of Transplant Australia,
is the director of the Australian Transplant Gamesin which
he also plays a killer game of tennisand is happily married with
two small children. I believe fervently in Johns ability to help
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people, he says. With my experience and the business Im in, I

do know a hell of a lot of doctors and psychologists and psychiatrists and Johnno is one of a kind. He has wonderful insight,
great insight. In fact, hes a genius.
Thats a word speech therapist Jan Baker also uses when she
talks of John. One day they were going for a walk together after
not having seen each other for months. After 30 seconds, he
asked her about her problem with her back. Shed actually had a
bad back for a few weeks, but had told no-one, and no-one had
guessed. She was astounded.
His powers of observation are astute, and that can be quite
disarming, his capacity to see things. For that reason, he can be a
little frightening to some people. Like a lot of geniuses, I think
hes a little bit misunderstood. His demeanour can be a little
unusual; he can come across as incredibly fierce and stern and
even hard. And then hes like a puppy dog. You see it with his
little boy who drapes himself all over him. Hes as soft as butter.
Johns sister Robyn sent some of her friends to him for treatment and, fortunately, they all came back full of praise.
I had a friend with two children who were always in trouble with
asthma and allergies and they went to John and he took them off
dairy products and they improved dramatically. Its standard treatment now, but then it was unheard of. He was also so interested
in giving the children responsibility for their own health, making
them their own self-monitors when it came to eating ice cream
or butter. They were all such interesting ideas.
One day when Robyn was with John, a taxi arrived at his
house, the doorbell rang, and someone dressed as a bear, holding
a cloud of balloons, jumped out of the cab. The bear danced and
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sang John a song. He turned out to have been sent by a patient

whod been diagnosed with some deadly condition that had
already killed her brother. She lived in Melbourne and John told
her that she would have to come up to Sydney for treatment and
live there for at least three months if she was serious about
becoming a patient, says Robyn. She did, and over the next
three years she flew to Sydney for follow-up appointments. I
believe she was completely cured.
Her fears for her brother were gradually subsiding as he grew
more and more successful. He seemed to be handling the challenges well and making it all work for him, she felt. But still
always the rebel, he did seem to enjoy living life on the edge.
His younger sister Vicki was proud of how well he was doing.
Often shed give her name somewhere and immediately be asked,
Do you know John Harrison? But she too felt his rebelliousness
keenly. He talked about de-registering himself in a couple of
years time, she says. Hed been thinking about it, but he never
got round to doing it. I guess it might have been a hard thing for
him to do.
Colleagues within the alternative sphere had embraced the
book, which had heartened him immensely. Petrea King, who
was starting out with her Quest For Life Centre, called it a
groundbreaking work, and felt it was a long way ahead of its
time. Similarly, Ian Gawler, the man who beat cancer, and went
on to establish the Gawler Foundation for other people battling
illness and write twelve books about his techniques, saw it as a
seminal work.
I have no doubt that Love Your Disease was a major landmark in
mind-body medicine. I first met John Harrison in 1978 at a
CSIRO conference on nutrition. He spoke from the floor and
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what he had to say was far more interesting than everyone else
put together. Like everyone in the audience, he took my breath
away with his fiery passion, his free thinking and his forthrightness. When Love Your Disease came out, it was a really
innovative look at what is going on in illness. It was remarkable
that he was able to take such a fresh look, and put such important concepts into words that people could readily understand
and identify with. It has doubtless allowed many, many people
to look at whats going on in their lives and see its effect on
them in a very tangible way, and enabled them to unlock their
problems.
Indeed, John was often so wrapped up in the world hed

created for himself, he wasnt terribly aware of the way he had
grown so out of kilter with the rest of the medical establishment.
Perhaps his popularity had also given him a sense of being
untouchable. Good friend John Emery recalls him relishing
going to meetings where hed be the lone voice of dissent.
I remember him proudly telling me at one meeting that they were
discussing epidemiology and a doctor accusingly said to him,
Explain why so many people die in an epidemic, Dr Harrison.
Surely that destroys your theory about people controlling their
own health? But he was very proud of his ability to answer back.
Tell me, he replied, how some people survive?
He had the reputation for being the doctor. He had a great
intellect, enormous charisma and was very good-looking. He had
a real air to him. But he also had a dangerous edge. He worked
with junkies and street people and that kind of thing. He lived
life more dangerously than I did. He was prepared to take risks.
Thats all very well, but he was unable to see other people might
have political agendas. He didnt see that othersthe medical
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establishment, the drug companiesmight quite like to see him

go down.
There was certainly passion for what he was doing, but some
of his friends wondered uneasily if he might be trying to provoke
a fight. Sometimes he went just too far in his criticism of the
authorities. He had plenty of courage, sure enough, in challenging them, but occasionally he looked as if he were deliberately
trying to push them too far. Anyone who champions significant
change is undoubtedly a threat, but friends feared he was enjoying it a little too much.
Hes a provocative bastard and he loves a fight, says
Andrew Badenoch, the friend who trained in therapy with him.
We socialised as well as worked together professionally, and he
has always loved a fight, intellectually, emotionally and even to
the point of being incredibly competitive in sport. Cricket, football, anythinghe likes the contest.
I can remember a conversation where I said, You are going to
become the biggest target they are going to go for. And he said,
Well, thats good because it will add value to my business, it will
give prominence to what Im saying! What he didnt anticipate
I suspect, was the civil litigation and the pursuit of a publicly
funded body seeing him as a perpetrator of offences against
women. Anyone that knows John intimately would know that
just is not his nature.
In that period in Australia, alternative practices were beginning to proliferate, but many were conducted by people with no
real qualifications, experience or expertise. Psychoanalyst Peter
Bruce, whod returned to Australia from Europe in 1985, said it
was as if Californians arrived in ships on the East Coast of
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Australia, burned a few villages and taught a few people just a

sprinkling of theory. It was an appalling situation, sometimes
very dangerous, he says.
Alternative medical practice at that time in Australia was just
mad, and Sydney was the wild west. There was no critical capacity in many of the people practising it, and they were taking ideas
for gospel that were being treated merely as talking points elsewhere in the world. But John absolutely stood out. He was one of
the few people not part of the talismanic belief structure. He had
been involved in self-analysis, he was making a strong argument
for pathology being self-produced and he held his position
strongly. His position was extremely valid, as valid then as it is
now.
While usually such a strong champion of alternatives, John

too found he was often appalled by some of the philosophies and
practices on offer. He was regularly invited to speak at Mind,
Body and Spirit festivals around the world, but started to dread
the Sydney events. I found the whole thing so fraudulent, he
says. People were throwing dollars at solutions from charlatans
and snake oil salesmen. He and a friend were even hustled out
of one session run by a third eye speaker after laughing loudly
during her talk. He discovered another star guest handing out
leaflets with tracts copied out of Love Your Disease and realised
the man had once been a patient. Yet the man seemed
completely unmoved by his presence. Hello John! he greeted
him. Are you coming along to my session? Youll learn something, Im sure.
Even the officials sometimes seemed not to understand the
philosophy behind the kind of subjects being tackled. A compere
introducing John to a 100-strong crowd blanched when he saw
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the title of his talk, How What We Know Gets in the Way of
Healing. And now we have Dr Harrison, the compere eventually said after a pause. Hell be speaking on the topic of, The
More We Know, the More We Can Heal Ourselves. A number
of people in the audience smiled, knowing exactly what had
happened.
Back in the quiet of his rooms, the illnesses patients came
forward with were many and varied. One man in his early thirties came to see John with a letter from a dermatologist stating
that his eczema was the worst case hed ever encountered. Daniel
had not been long out of hospital, with regular relapses and
admissions being the usual course of his disease. He turned up
with tissue paper inserted into all the crevices of his body to stop
the oozing of fluids and blood from his skin.
He had suffered severe bouts of eczema from the age of
fifteen and was using large doses of drugs to try to control it,
usually with little success. With him, John used a combination
of psychotherapy and touch, often holding him in his arms as
the patient regressed to childhood. It was tough going at times;
the eczema was unsightly, the patient was self-conscious about
how it looked, and John would have to completely clean up his
rooms, and often himself, after each visit. But gradually, slowly,
Daniels skin started to heal.
After about a year, when Daniel turned up for an appointment, he stripped his clothes off to stand naked before John.
I hope you dont mind, he said, but I want to show you something. His body was totally smooth, with no scarring and no sign
at all of eczema. His dermatologist was amazed, and wrote to tell
John so.
A couple of other cancer patients, with prognoses of just
months to live, passed their due-by dates and kept on going.
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Women having trouble conceivingone even after five unsuccessful IVF treatmentsfell pregnant. A woman bent double
with the pain of arthritis started walking straight once again, and
reported no more pain. Parents took troublesome children off
Ritalin. Adults stopped their medications of all descriptions.
And so many people made either modest or spectacular changes
in their lives and their diseases. Of course, there were always
setbacks along the way, too, and people who failed to make the
progress they hoped for. But if they had the courage to attend,
they were almost always better for it, says John.
Most of his patients were treated with a combination of
psychotherapy and touch therapy, to get rid of their anger, face
up to their past and free their emotions. There was the 60-yearold millionaire businessman dressed only in his underpants
beating a mattress. There were the men dying of AIDS whom
John held in his arms as they cried for their lost lives. There were
the elderly women he cradled as they mourned the loss of a child.
There were teenagers stressed to the point of suicide by difficult
family circumstances. He hugged them and talked to them until
they managed to deal with their frustrations and despair.
I protected young men from harming themselves whilst
they writhed in fury, acting out a temper tantrum of a two year
old, says John.
I encouraged women to honour those parts of their bodies which
they condemn, cuddled lesbians distressed by their sexual
orientation, confined between bean bags people wanting to
re-experience incarceration, cried whilst I stroked parts of mens
bodies disfigured by torturers, and did everything I could to
further a persons experience of himself as lovable and deserving
to live a happy and healthy life.
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No two people are remotely alike and every therapy needs to

be different and sometimes daring, if a cure is to be attempted.
All of this Ive accomplished imperfectly, but all of it with the
intention of doing the best I could for the person attending me.
And Ive seen it as an honour to do it.
Many of the people John saw were at the end of the line.
Theyd spent years in therapy, usually psychiatry, with little
result and were ready to try new methods to find peace. Sometimes, he even had psychopaths make appointments to see him.
Usually, however, they were unwilling to change their lives in
order to help themselves.
One such was a 25-year-old psychopath, referred to John
by another therapist whod changed her phone number after
hed threatened her family. In shades of the TV hit drama The
Sopranos, he leant across the desk towards John one afternoon
and growled in a fake London East End standover-man accent,
You know JohnI can call you John, cant I?Ive killed a
couple of people in my life. It didnt bother me at all. I went
inside for one of them. Youre my last hope with this, know what
I mean? Yet he showed no interest in putting any effort into
helping heal himself, and John asked him to leave. The man
raved at him for ten minutes, threatened to kill him, kicked over
a couple of chairs and then slammed out.
That night, as he had so often before, John slept in the back
room of his house, expecting bricks through the front bedroom
windows.
When the really dangerous missiles came, however, it was
by a far less dramatic route. And he was totally unprepared.
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10
Kindred Spirits
Tracey Jones was in a Sydney bookshop in 1985 when she first
came across Dr John Harrison. As she walked past a shelf, she
accidentally knocked down a book, which fell at her feet. It was
Love Your Disease: Its Keeping You Healthy.
She picked it up, stared at the cover, then flicked through
the book. All the time, she had the strangest of feelings. I just
had a premonition that Id meet the author and get to know
him, says Tracey today. I ended up buying the book and back at
college, everyone seemed to be talking about it. And it was great
to start reading it and see a medical practitioner talking about
alternative therapies.
Tracey, then aged 26, was in her last year of studying osteopathy. Like all non-conventional treatments in the early- to mid1980s, it was the subject of a great deal of turmoil, and halfway
through Traceys five-year course, the entire osteopathy faculty
at the NSW College of Natural Therapies split from the college
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and set up elsewhere. So to read a book from a qualified medical

doctor praising non-orthodox therapies felt like a huge boost at
the time.
Shed entered the profession via a circuitous route. Born in
Sydney as the third child of six, she had inherited her parents
love of water polo. Her father Bill was president of Water Polo
Australia, and Tracey played water polo for Australia. She didnt,
as a result, give her career much thought and when she left
school, she was talked into working as a secretary in a medical
laboratory. She soon moved over into the lab as she found that
far more interesting. A friend then moved to Arnhem Land in
the Northern Territory to work as a teacher on remote Elco
Island, so Tracey agreed to join her. It was one of the most formative experiences of her life. There was a naturalness and ease
about being amongst Aboriginal people there which gave me a
very strong sense of community, she says. I think it brought out
my humanistic side, and a desire to help and relate to people.
When she returned to Sydney four months later, she went
to work with an osteopath in Gymea, who used massage therapies as a large part of her practice. Tracey discovered she had real
passion and a flair for the therapy, and from there had gone to
college to qualify. She registered as an osteopath in 1986 and
went straight into her own practice in Miranda, in Sydneys
south. Two years later, she at last met John through mutual
friends.
It wasnt an instant attraction. The way she tells it, she
found John very interesting and approachable, but thought him
arrogant. He was quite different from the loud, larrikin bronzed
surfie type she normally chose. But after they met for coffee a
few times and went surfing togethershe, blonde and tanned a
deep honey, relentlessly making fun of John for his pale skin and
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constant need to cover upshe revised her impression. When I

got to know him a bit better, I didnt find him arrogant at all,
she says. He was someone who had strong opinions but who
really respects others, and his willingness to be open struck me.
We had a lot in common. We had similar interests and got on
extremely well.
John, doing so well with his practice, with his profile
growing all the time and always out there pushing the envelope,
found Tracey very different from himself. She was soft, gentle
and extremely easy company, and he warmed to her immediately.
While he was outspoken and argumentative, with strong
opinions on health, society and government, relished a good
intellectual row and rarely backed down, Tracey just grew quiet
when she didnt agree with something. She simply didnt feel it
necessary to have an opinion on everything. At times, like many
women, she tended to be a little lacking in confidence and was
self-deprecating too, evenand perhaps especiallywhen she
had no need to be. It was in stark contrast with John who was
never afraid to say exactly what he thought, even when he didnt
know as much as she did about a particular subject, and was full
of criticism, both good and bad. Yet Tracey, eleven years younger,
had a certain presence, a peaceful spirituality, a grounded
strength. They made an exceedingly good match.
I felt really proud of him, she says. He was someone I
wanted to welcome into my family. He enjoyed meeting them,
and that was important to me. But I did find it a bit tricky
meeting Johns mum Maxime. My first impressions were that I
didnt measure up to her boy. But that changed later.
The two were muddling along nicely in their relationship
when a phone call for John came completely out of the blue. Hi
there, said the voice on the other end. My names Louise Hay.
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I wanted to tell you, I love your book. Do you realise, Im taking

them into the US and selling 2000 a month?
John took a deep breath. Hay had become the matriarch of
the self-help industry with her book You Can Heal Your Life,
which was released at the same time as his. It had ended up
selling three million copies in 30 countries, and had become the
most successful self-help book in history, spawning a whole
empire.
John had glanced at the book on the shop shelves but
hadnt been overly impressed. While Haywith her tragic
history of a mother trying to foster her out, rape at five years old,
ten years of sexual abuse and a cancer diagnosishad turned her
life around spectacularly, John saw her book as promoting the
value of affirmations, something which in practice he believed
just didnt work.
I had little time for them. Affirmations might give you a temporary high, but it inevitably stops because you cant keep doing it,
and it does nothing about the underlying belief that youre not
good enough. It doesnt really matter if thoughts are positive or
negative. As long as we continue to give them credence, we
remain invested in them and they can harm us. There was just
no substance to the idea that we could just swap bad thoughts for
good thoughts.
But when Hay phoned, he felt they could well be able to

work together. She asked him if he held the rights to the book,
and then suggested she buy them and publish it in the US. John
did his sums. If she alone was selling 2000 a month, then the
potential market for a book on sale in the shops could be enormous. Excitedly, he agreed immediately.
It came at a perfect time for him. In Australia, his profile
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was now higher than hed ever dared hope. He had a radio show
on the ABC with Peter Ross and Angela Pearman, which had
tripled its ratings over a three-month period, with his sessions
frequently sparking controversy and engendering even more
attention. For some listeners, it was compelling listening; for
others, it was simply outrageous. A number of letters to the
station praised it as some of the most interesting, daring radio
theyd ever heard. John seemed guileless, even brazen, in what
hed say, once even asking Pearman, live on air, if shed ever
been sexually abused by her fatherwho happened to be listening at the time. She hadnt, but her shocked pause before she
answered did upset her dad.
John had also helped to found the countrys first-ever TV
show dedicated to health, the ABC TVs Body Shop, later
renamed Bodyshow. TV presenter and producer Kay Stammers
had met John at a social event, read his book, become fascinated by his take on health and saw his potential for TV. He
was a natural talent, he was charismatic and had a nice, easygoing way in front of the camera, she says. I was really keen to
make him a star. We talked about doing a radio program
together, too, although he was already doing something on
radio, but I had plans for a show built around him. The only
difficulty was that the ABC was a bit scared of alternative
health in those days.
John was also working as a consultant to businesses and
leading figures in the corporate world. Often theyd heard what
he said on radio or TV and realised his methods could be just as
applicable to their work. There might be nothing physically
wrong with a particular business person, but theyd be having
problems in commerce or finding it difficult to surmount
hurdles. One man wanted help with the cultural barriers when
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expanding his business into Vietnam. Another executive was

number two in his company, and paid John $1000 a session to
find out what personal issues he needed to address to progress to
the top job. Two years later, he had it.
Johns seminars and lectures were still in demand all over
Australia. His mum Maxime went to one, and stood proudly at
the back of the hall, listening to her son. I couldnt believe how
many people were there! she exclaims. People were standing in
the aisles as there werent enough chairs. During a break, a
woman came up to her and asked if she knew where she could
get a decent cup of coffee. Maximes reply become family folklore. Well dear, I wouldnt know, she replied, breezily. Youll
have to ask somebody else. You see, she added, quite unnecessarily, Dr John Harrison is my son.
John also went regularly over to New Zealand, the UK and
US to speak. In Bali, he teamed up with a bodywork trainer,
the coincidentally similarly named John Harris, whod been a
therapist at the 1984 Olympics and was the founder of the first
full-time sports massage school in the US, to hold bodywork
conferences. The pair also organised two-week workshops in
Goa, in southern India.
Back in Sydney, hed become fed up with driving across
town from the inner west to the beach all the time to surf, so
had bought a house in Bronte, looking out over the ocean. With
the ground floor totally separate from the top, and separate
entrances for each, it was perfectly set up to use as both a home
and consulting rooms. Hed planned to buy it with a friend, but
when the latter dropped out, John managed to get a mortgage
for it alone. Tracey was a regular visitor until the next stage of
their relationship started with the Hay phone call. Hay suggested
that, as well as publishing Love Your Disease in the US, she
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should also send John on a thirteen-city tour of the country. He

asked Tracey if shed like to come along, and she happily agreed.
The night before they were due to leave John received a
call from Badenoch. Do not give Louise Hay your book, urged
Badenoch. John was confused. But why not? he asked. Because
she could be buying it, said Badenoch, just to take it out of
circulation and bury it. John laughed the suggestion off.
On John and Traceys arrival in the US, however, when he
first saw the American edition of his book, he was appalled. It
was littered with spelling errors, and it didnt look good. He tried
hard to swallow his disappointment. The tour, anyway, looked
incredibly well-planned, and hopefully the publicity would give
the book an enormous boost. But gradually it all began to
unravel. The problem was, there were simply no books in the
shops. So when he talked on radio or TV, there was nowhere
people could go to buy the book if hed piqued their interest.
Also, some of the interviews were so aggressive, he shuddered to
think about them afterwards.
In St Louis, Missouri, he was invited onto a daytime TV
show as the star guest. In the make-up room as the program
began, he worried that hed miss its start. When he was finally
led on, he realised just why it had been arranged that he
wouldnt be there until after the introductory segment. The
audience had all first been told their guest for the day believed
that fat people were only fat because they wanted to be, and
they were disgusting. Every single person in the audience was
grossly obese. As John was led in smiling, they all booed. As he
was led out, a number of people spat at him. In the end, he had
to have a group of bouncers escort him safely out of the building. Tracey took a week off to ski in Aspen.
The total lack of books on sale left the tour a disaster. The
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2000 books Hay said shed been selling a month suddenly

became reduced to none. Shortly afterwards, she took the book
out of her catalogue. It was a huge disappointment for John,
whod been hoping that the publication would mean a dynamic
entree into the big American market. Maybe the book, its tone
and its premise didnt appeal to Americans. Whatever the
reason, the book had become effectively warehoused, and Hays
book continued on its ascent alone.
On the positive side, the tour did draw John and Tracey
closer together. She moved into the house in Bronte with John,
and they started talking about having a family together. Both
loved kids, and were keen to have two or three of their own.
Tracey had always enjoyed children. Coming from a big
family herself, and with plenty of love to give, she longed for a
house full of childrens laughter. Shed found it a little difficult
at first to come to terms with John having seven-year-old David
to Ann, but shed spent a lot of time with the little boy and
theyd hit it off straight away. After two years in Sri Lanka, Ann
had moved with David to London for four years to complete her
PhD at University College London, and then gone on to work
as an assistant professor of anthropology at the Humboldt State
University in Arcata, California. David, however, had come
back regularly to Australia to stay with John, and John went over
often to the UK or US to see him. Tracey and David fell quickly
into an easy friendship, but she was always careful not to lavish
him with too much affection. Although Tracey and Ann got on
well, Ann had asked her, when shed first moved in with John,
not to displace her as Davids mother. It was a request she took
very seriously.
Because of Johns experience with David, his beliefs about
the importance of early childhood and probably with memories
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of his own difficult family still vivid, he was eager to provide the
best possible start in life he could for youngsters of his own. Since
Traceys family was Catholic, they agreed it would be politic if
they married first.
Interest rates had soared to sixteen and a half per cent,
forcing John to sell the Bronte house. For a few months, they
rented a flat together and went house-hunting for the home
theyd share as newlyweds. As soon as John set eyes on an old,
rundown two-storey freestanding house in Coogee, he knew it
would be ideal. With two street frontages, one at the front and
the other at the back, it again had completely separate entrances
for the different levels, and this time, something even better:
parking for six cars at the back.
Tracey, however, was less keen. I didnt have a good feeling
about that house, right from the very beginning, she says. I
didnt like it. But then I knew the place made sense in that we
could both work from there, as well as live there. I tried to forget
about the sense of unease I had about it. Having had her first
premonition about John proved right, perhaps she should have
paid more attention to this second portent. That house was,
indeed, where all their problems started.
The wedding on 10 May 1990 was a relaxed affair, with
around 100 family and friends in the gardens of the picturesque
harbourside mansion, Vaucluse House, in Sydneys eastern
suburbs. A good friend, a New Zealand Catholic priest, flew over
to provide the necessary Catholic element, but a civil celebrant,
who was also a friend, actually married the pair. Tracey looked
radiant in a cream dress, and David, now ten and dressed in a
new suit, stood on a chair and made the best speech of the day.
Six months later Tracey fell pregnant. She worked in her
clinic in Miranda until her eighth month, then rested at home.
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Matthews birth at 7 a.m. on 14 September 1991 at a womans

birth centre was one of the happiest days of their lives. Tracey
was home by noon. As they sat in the lounge room at home,
gazing fondly into Matthews face, they felt their lives were
complete. Ironically, it was just about then that their real
problems began.
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Karen Comes Calling

The phone had rung late in the evening. Dr John Harrison was
in the US visiting his son David, and Tracey had just assumed it
would be him. But then an unfamiliar female voice laughed
huskily on the other end on the line. Is that Mrs Harrison? it
asked. Yes, said Tracey, whos this?
Never mind, barked the voice. I suppose John is off
in California, fucking his ex-wife. Then there was silence. A
shiver ran down Traceys spine and she quickly put the phone
down.
The next day, she went to stay with a friend on Sydneys
northern beaches. She couldnt even explain to herself why, but
she suddenly felt too nervous to stay in the house alone with
baby Matthew.
My friend had a baby the same age as mine, says Tracey
today. But I knew she thought it a bit strange that I felt the need
to stay with her. I hadnt said anything to her about what had
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happened. I just knew I didnt want to be at home on my own

with Matt in the house, without John.
It was the beginning of the couples own private nightmare.
John had, at first, been intrigued by a new patient, Karen,
an obviously deeply disturbed 35-year-old woman who first
attended his rooms in January 1992. Her story was horrific. Her
mother, she said, loathed her and her two sisters, and frequently
tormented all three by starving them and then, in a classic
divide-and-rule technique, punishing the one who made the
most noise eating when they were eventually given food. Sometimes, shed prepare meals of crunchy raw or deep fried
vegetables that were absolutely impossible to eat silently. Then
Karen would invariably be the one singled out for further torture.
Karen described her father as little better. As a small kid,
he used to put his penis in her mouth to keep her quiet, she said.
Later, hed make her watch videos of him having sex with young
girls. At other times, the whole family used her as a punching
bag. With such a dysfunctional family, it was little surprise she
was suffering such severe mental problems.
Hated by her motherthe ultimate, and most damaging,
betrayal for any childand abused by her father, with no
constant, nurturing relationships in her life at all, Karen had
been unable to develop any cohesive sense of herself. As a result,
shed had a long history of psychiatric care going back to being
locked up in a psychiatric instituion for the first time as a fifteen
year old. She said shed been raped twice as a teenager in
Adelaide, once in a private clinic and the second time in a
public psychiatric hospital. She also said shed attended 50 different psychiatrists at various points, and been raped by three of
them. Medicare records indeed showed shed seen no fewer than
thirteen other doctors in the year that John was treating her, and
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eighteen the year before. Add to those the number of nonregistered therapists she was attending, and John estimated she
was consulting a new practitioner every few weeks.
Her life, in short, was a mess. She said her employer wanted
to sack her because she was a troublemaker but, because the
unions wouldnt stand for that, was instead trying to force her
out of her post by freezing her out, giving her no work, and
instructing her colleagues not to speak to her. She described her
love life as consisting of empty sex with a series of married men.
In revenge for her own misery, shed routinely try to destroy their
lives by playing tapes of their lovemaking back to their wives
down the phone in the middle of the night.
Each appointment, Karen would sit in the chair opposite
John, pushing a pin into her hand. Im a pain junkie, she
explained, I crave being hurt. She confessed she was afraid she
might one day kill somebody. She often found herself shouting
at young children, as well as adults, and had attacked an old lady
on the bus. Even to John, her anger could be quite terrifying.
Shed alternately rave about anyone and everyone, almost throw
up as she described her past life, scream, grow angry and threaten
John with physical violence, and finally grow quiet and apologetic again. Every visit was a frightening, gut-wrenching ride
through a maelstrom of emotions, menace, rage, despair and
self-loathing.
Karen was later diagnosed with Borderline Personality
Disorder, a serious mental illness in the same family as the
psychopath. Whereas the psychopath usually harms others with
no remorse, Borderlines mainly threaten to hurt people, and tend
to injure themselves instead, talking frequently of suicide. Typically eight to ten per cent of Borderline sufferers die by their own
hand. Yet they have been known to kill others. The female serial
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killer Aileen Wuornos, the prostitute who murdered seven men

in Florida and who was executed in 2002posthumously the
subject of the movie Monster with its star Charlize Theron
winning an Oscar for her performancehad been diagnosed as a
Borderline. Similarly, Glenn Closes bunny-boiling femme fatale
in Fatal Attraction is now described as exhibiting typical Borderline behaviour, as well as Jennifer Jason Leighs creepy copycat
character in Single White Female. Then there was Kathy Bates as
the menacing fan who tries to kill the novelist she adores in
Misery and the grotesque Hollywood mother in Mommie Dearest,
a film based on the autobiography of Joan Crawfords adopted
daughter Christina Crawford, who also wrote the introduction
in the well-regarded book, Understanding The Borderline Mother.
Helen Garners most recent book, Joe Cinques Consolation, is
about the tragedy of a young man killed with a drug overdose by
his girlfriend, also diagnosed as a Borderline.
The official medical diagnostical manual describes the symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder as self-destructiveness
and chronic feelings of deep emptiness and loneliness. Sufferers
also suffer hair-trigger violent mood swings, and live a pattern of
wildly unstable personal relationships characterised by overidealising someone close to them, then furiously denigrating
them. Research has found that Borderlines, as children, have
frequently been the victims of regular incest and other types of
sexual abuse. This trauma in early childhood is thought to
disrupt the building of a stable and integrated personality, and
Borderline patients account for twenty per cent of people in
psychiatric institutions.
Without warning, a person with Borderline may become
profoundly angry, aggressive, depressed, or anxious, and make
frantic efforts to avoid abandonment. In Fatal Attraction, for
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example, Alex is the absolute personification of the syndrome.

After a one-night stand with a married man, shes terrified of
being dumped, and stalks her lover and his family, making
manipulative suicide threats and attempts in her bid to keep
him. That terror at the prospect of an impending separation can
be extreme, with Borderlines even exhibiting severe mood
swings from panic to fury at the end of an appointment with
their therapist. For these clinicians, the dangers can be acute. At
first, Borderlines tend to be incredibly grateful for their help, but
can then switch within seconds to becoming excessively critical,
feeling the other person does not care enough. Consequently,
they can change in an instant from a needy supplicant to a righteous avenger of what they perceive to be past mistreatment.
Its for this reason that many therapists avoid treating
people with Borderline. In the beginning, their patient is happy,
excited by the prospect of successful treatment and full of praise
for their therapist. Soon after, they often grow resentful and
begin their attack, lashing out at their therapists in bouts of
uncontrolled anger, paranoia, suicide threats, physical menace
and even legal action.
Intimidation may be further reinforced by latent and
implicit or overt suicidal threats, writes Thomas Gutheil, a
leading American expert on the disorder and its dangers. This
particular form of vengeful hostility predominates in the group
of false accusations. In other words, Borderlines are prone to use
the law to exact revenge for imagined misdeeds, fabricating
whatever stories they need to do so.
One Sydney psychiatrist with a Borderline patient whod
lodged a successful complaint about him to the Complaints
Unitwhich he has consistently insisted was a complete fabricationsaid its almost inevitable that they will complain. They
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have such an intense need to be a victim and if they dont have

any objective circumstances to blame, they manufacture their
own victimhood, said this psychiatrist, who has asked to remain
anonymous for the sake of his wife and young children. As a
result, you can end up targeted as the danger. It always ruins you.
Even if your word is believed over that of a Borderlineand this
rarely happens because theyre simply so smart and cunning in
how they object and present themselvesthe mud still sticks.
Its virtually impossible to extricate yourself from them successfully.
Theres also the ever-present danger of transference problems with such patients; they start seeing their doctor as a parent,
and then projecting parents past behaviours onto the doctor. If
they previously suffered abuse at the hands of a parent in childhood, which is a common feature of Borderlines, this can be
particularly treacherous for the doctor. All this has been outlined
in a paper produced by a project on personality disorders, under
the aegis of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of
Psychiatrists. In regard to borderline personality disorder, the
task force concluded that regardless of treatment modality,
treatment is difficult, severe counter-transference problems
are common and outcome for these patients is variable, it
concludes.
Because of such difficulties in the treatment of Borderlines,
research has found that around 40 per cent of psychiatrists refuse
outright to accept them as patients and one in twenty wont even
refer them on, as they dont want the responsibility of harming
their colleagues or dont believe the patient will benefit from
treatment anyway.
Prominent psychiatrist Julian Hafner is always nervous
about Borderlines. Formerly a consultant psychiatrist at St
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Georges Hospital in London who migrated to Australia to

become associate professor of psychiatry at Flinders University,
and then run two psychiatric hospitals in Adelaide before entering private practice, Hafner says:
Theres a huge prejudice against people with Borderline Personality Disorder within the treating professions because they are so
difficult. They can be so manipulative. I do know from my own
experience that if one gets involved in treating people with
severe borderline personalitiesand I believe its a genuine
clinical entityit could be an absolutely horrendous situation,
especially for somebody who believes genuinely they can help.
Often the main task of somebody with Borderline is to turn
their therapists into failures, which kind of, in some way,
preserves their own sense of integrity and avoids a sense of
despair. I think if one is not clear about the dynamics, one can
have an absolutely horrendous time with people who have that
disorder. I have to confess that Ive always run a mile from Borderlines! Because of my various roles, Ive been able to avoid working
with people that I was frightened of or didnt think I could help.
I think, without any doubt, someone with a genuine severe
Borderline Personality Disorder is the absolute toughest you can
work with. And if that interacts with another disorder, such as
depression, it can be even more difficult.
In retrospect, the arrival of Karen into Johns life had all the
elements of a perfect storm. His methods were confronting and
open to misunderstanding at the best of times, and his stature was
already high, making him a potentially gratifying target for
anyone looking to make trouble for a therapist. But John believed
that his refusal to take responsibility for his patients and his
encouragement of them to take care of themselves protected him
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from the dangers of transference. I refused to take care of people,

he says, at the same time I cared for them deeply.
For, despite the obvious dangers, John was determined to
do his best by Karen. Ive never seen such a wretched human
being, he wrote in his notes. Ive certainly never heard such a
story of psychological abuse of a child by her mother. This could
be tough but Ive had a good run in life so far. Im a doctor, and
someones got to help her. Maybe its time to give a bit back. He
never knew, but Karen had actually spoken to him five years
before, as part of some research shed done herself. She never
even mentioned it.
Karens sessions were invariably exhausting. Because of her
anger, she could be absolutely terrifying to work with. She would
often lean across the desk and shout abuse at John, pick up a
glass of water and threaten to throw it or brandish a tennis
racquet hed given her to beat an old mattress in the hope of
releasing some of her aggression. Many times John would find
himself gripping the desk, white-knuckled with fear.
Youre terrified of me, arent you? Karen would mock him.
Youre all hopeless, you bastards. All those pathetic psychiatrists, not one of them ever got out of their comfort zone. I loathe
those fucking arseholes!
Well, Im sure as hell out of my comfort zone dealing with
you, John would reply, trying to match her demeanour.
But how the hell can you help me if youre scared shitless?
shed challenge.
Being frightened is a natural response, hed reply with a
sometimes quite absurd faith in the power of remaining rational.
It doesnt mean I cant help, but thats for you to decide.
Looking back later, John often wonders why he put himself through the torture of treating Karen. But ever since his
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childhood when he looked out for the emotional needs of his

mother, hed always felt drawn to helping people. Anyone in
trouble touched something deep inside him, and he felt unable
ever to refuse them. He also wonders if it was arrogance, that he
felt he could help someone when so many before him had
tried and failed. Hed had his experiences in the US working
with psychopaths in The Game that had also left him confidentperhaps overconfidentthat he could handle Karen, and
he had such passion for his methods and such a belief in his
philosophy of sickness and health that he no doubt relished a
challenge, too. Says John,
To me now, it seems alternately self-aggrandising, self-deluding,
an act of a saint, an act of incredible stupidity, selfless, heroic,
interfering I just dont know sometimes why I did it. Would
anyone in their right mind work with a patient who was clearly
going to be this difficult and dangerous?
But to me, it felt like a hungry child crying in the night. Every
time I went to help her she bit me. But I couldnt help it. Her
distress was so great I just couldnt roll over, ignore her cries and
go back to sleep.
Yet interspersed with Karens anger were moments when

doctor and patient communicated well with each other, and
John felt they were managing to make real progress. Every
session became a delicate balancing act between acting clinically, and trying to relate to Karen and allow her to relate to him.
As the expert AustralianNew Zealand project on personality
disorders had said the year before,
Empathy is central to the therapists engagement with these
patients as he or she seeks to become the atmosphere of the
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patients experience. The atmosphere functions as a containing

environment for the patient. The therapist acting in this way is
active and must make responses of an affective type which are
attuned to the patients reality.
Thus the therapist imaginatively immerses him or herself in
the patients experience so as to understand the processes that
are going on. This empathic attitude depends upon an identification of a particular kind in which the therapist is aware of
this experience and can describe it. It is not sufficient merely
to try and understand. One must portray something of this
understanding by affectively toned responses in recognition of
the feeling state that is at the core of the patients experience,
responses that validate that experience, though not necessarily
condoning it. This sense of being understood contributes
powerfully to the containing environment it is not so
much that empathy be present at all times but that the
constant attempt to re-establish it is necessary if therapy is to
proceed.
It was part of a constant guessing game for John to judge

Karens mood and her likely mood swing before trying to establish such empathy. A childhood spent second-guessing his
parents and the daily fluctuations in their relationship served
him well here. It often enabled him to take calculated risks in
the way he spoke to her. Sometimes he would mirror her own
language, casually repeating the same kind of profanities she
used, while at others he was calming and conciliatory. On one
occasion, when Karen was lying on the mattress John kept in his
office for floorwork, he thought he sensed she felt bad for just
lying there. He took a deep breath.
Youre lying like that because you want me to fuck you, he
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said. She looked over at him, shocked, and then laughed long
and loud.
Hmm, Im sure you wont, she finally replied, smiling.
That day was one on which they made some of their best
progress, and John congratulated himself on reading her mood
so well, and creating a comfortable atmosphere for them to work
in.
There were also sessions arranged with additional therapists
in attendance in order to assist Karen with letting go of some of
her anger in a safe environment for them all. Theyd cover the
room with bean bags and give her a tennis racquet to strike out
at them. Karen went berserk. One friend, therapist Ian Austen,
says today hed never seen anything like it. I couldnt believe
anyone could behave like that, he says. I thought it was melodrama, complete hysterics. At the time, I didnt understand it
was coming from a place of illness. I think I didnt want to
believe it was real in order to keep myself safe. I didnt think
human beings could be like that. I thought she must be acting.
John began a program of touch therapy, too, gently stroking
an arm, then moving on to holding, and massage. Frequently,
Karen complained of suffering acute abdominal pain and sometimes said it was so debilitating it was driving her to consider
suicide. Instinctively, John felt there was a real chance she might
act on her threat. Indeed, she often talked of the datein early
1993she planned to finish it all, and just smiled when John
tried to remonstrate with her.
Shed taken drugs at various times in the past to ease the
pain and had been previously referred to gastroenterologists and
gynaecologists to see if they could find a cure. At other times,
she attended different physiotherapists and various GPs, and
went into hospital for brief periods. John recommended certain
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dietary changes, began massaging her abdomen whenever the

pain grew too intense and showed her how to do it herself at
home. He felt strongly, however, that it was the result of so much
pent-up anger from her terrible childhood getting close to the
surface.
One time she arrived for her appointment, it was obvious she
was in particularly severe pain. She was doubled over, holding her
side. Usually, John massaged her as she lay on her back on the
examination table. This time, however, the pain was too acute for
her to endure him pushing down into the painful area. He remembered a diagram in one of the bodywork bibles, the book The
Healing Touch, which showed a person down on all fours with
another person placing a hand on their abdomen from behind,
and wondered if that position might make massage easier to bear.
In this position the abdominal organs would fall onto the massaging hand, rather than being squeezed between the hand and the
backbone. He suggested it to Karen, and she agreed to try it, and
got down on all fours in her underwear, letting her abdominal wall
fall to the floor. John knelt beside her and massaged her, then put
his arm between her legs to reach her pendulant abdomen from
there. Karens pain seemed to be easing markedly, he felt her physically relax and lean her weight on his forearm. After hed
finished, they both talked about how well it had worked.
When Karen had left that day, thrilled with the success of
the treatment, John went off to look for his wife, Tracey. Soon
after Matthews birth, shed sold her practice and decided, like
John, to work from home part-time, in between caring for their
son. He described the massage to her and the remarkable effect
on Karens excruciating pain. Much to his surprise, Tracey said
shed used similar techniques in osteopathy, too, with good
results. Neither of them thought any more about it.
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Working from home with their separate businesses was

panning out well for both John and Tracey. It meant neither
was ever far from Matthew and they could share the childcare
as well as avoiding having to travel into the city every day.
Yet suddenly a downside appeared. From the middle of 1992,
they started receiving anonymous phone calls, at first only a
few, with the caller immediately hanging up when it was
answered, but soon increasing in frequency. In the latter part
of the year, the calls started coming on the home line, too,
and sometimes as many as twelve calls in an evening, going
on through the night until 4 a.m. Sometimes, the caller would
hang up, at other times theyd play the radio down the line.
Occasionally, a voice would come. John soon recognised it as
Karens.
Tracey felt John should go to the police and complain about
harassment, but he was adamant: he had a duty to help Karen
and couldnt violate their doctorclient confidentiality. When
Tracey answered the phone to her and was routinely abused,
however, she was always shaken, particularly when John was
away. After going to stay at that friends house when John was in
the US, she started leaving the answering system to pick up some
of the calls.
Although John seemed to be coping with Karen, Tracey
started becoming increasingly anxious, and couldnt shake off the
sense of menace she felt. Sometimes, when both she and John
had appointments, shed take Matthew to a child minders house
in nearby Maroubra. Shed then sit outside in the car, crying.
I found I just couldnt leave him. I thought I was maybe being
irrationally anxious as a new mother, but I couldnt do it. I even
went and saw a counsellor a few times, thinking maybe I had
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some problem that Id never known about before, but nothing

came up. I felt really threatened about something happening to
my son, but couldnt really understand why.
After a while, Tracey took Matthew instead to a childcare

centre across the road, a place she could see clearly from the
house. That felt slightly more comfortable, but she was still
anxious. One day, she approached the woman running the centre
and pointed out that the fence running around the playground
seemed too low, and how easily an adult could reach over and
lift out a child. As a result of the conversation, the manager
agreed to erect a 1.5m high fence, move it a few metres back
from the footpath and install a security gate, to keep Matthew
and the rest of the children safe.
In the meantime, John changed their home phone number
and replaced it with a silent one to try to cut out the calls at
night, at least, and made sure the blinds were always drawn in
the evening. I would say, Bloody hell! Whats this about closing
off our life? recalls Tracey. And he would just say he didnt
want anyone from outside looking in on us. It was like we were
setting boundaries, but I kept having this feeling of menace all
around us.
Karen seemed to resent Traceys presence in the house and
complained a few times about hearing her and the baby in
another room, and made veiled threats about shutting them up.
She started referring to Matthew as that white-haired brat,
which made John feel increasingly uneasy, particularly in the
context of her antipathy towards children generally. But John
had other, more pressing, problems with her behaviour. Whenever her path crossed that of the previous, or next, scheduled
patient, she became fractious, jealous and aggressive. He started
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slotting more time between her appointments and those of his

other clients.
On 23 November 1992, however, Karen arrived at the
house and bumped into the previous patient at the gate. Karen
immediately leapt to the offensive. Why are you bothering to go
and see him? she hissed at the startled woman. Save your
money. Hes a waste of time. Later the patient reported Karens
words to John, and asked if she were always so close to losing
control.
But the damage was done and by the time Karen had walked
down the path to Johns rooms she was furious. The tape John
always made at his sessions recorded her words: I hate that
fucking bitch, shes ugly and fat I hope she gets run over by a
fucking truck. The session that day didnt go too well, with
Karen still eaten up with anger. By the time she left the house to
walk back up the pathway to the front gate, she was in a cold,
white rage.
John says at this point, she heard Matthew, now fourteen
months old, cry from the back of the house. Immediately, she
wheeled round, hurled the tape of the session at John and
charged past him towards Matthew. Terrified she might attack
his child, he raced after her, grabbing her by the clothing from
behind and dragging her back into the waiting room. He says
she then kicked and lashed out at him with her fists, and a scuffle
ensued before he could restrain her.
Eventually she quietened down and the two, both shocked
and shaken by the incident, sat down in the waiting room. John
says he suggested maybe she should report what had happened
to the police to have it made official. He knew he certainly
wanted to, but felt unable to do so because of issues of client
confidentiality and a doctors duty of care. Karen eventually
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went to her car and sat in the drivers seat, smoking a cigarette.
Watching her there from the window, John felt anxious that she
was so upset, she could easily have an accident on her way
homeshe often sped off after a session revving the engine
wildlyor act on one of her numerous suicide threats. He went
out to the car and offered to drive her home. She accepted.
John drove Karen to her flat, stayed there with her for 40
minutes until, he says, hed satisfied himself she was quite calm
and safe, and then caught a cab back home. There, he immediately put a full account of what had happened on his computer.
Karen continued her treatment with John over several
subsequent sessions, but he erected a 2-m high gate at the side of
the house to prevent anyone moving from his rooms to the back
of their home in future. In their consultations, they often
referred to that one session that had ended in violence and she
also wrote to him about it in letters. He was careful always to
respond coolly and rationally, reassuring her that he still liked
her and respected her, and was happy to continue their therapeutic relationship. She also mentioned again her plans for
suicide in early 1993. In a couple of the letters, she berated him
for the times shed asked him to visit her at home to treat her,
which hed always declined.
I was frightened of her and for her, and she was already taking up
far too much of my energy and my life. Not only was she a nightmare to deal with in the sessions, but now she was hounding me
day and night. As with any practitioner dealing with a seriously
disturbed patient of this nature, she was seriously compromising
my wellbeing and that of my family.
Today, doubtless, he would handle it completely differently.

Back then, he felt sure the problem would work itself out, and
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Karen would continue to improve. All they both needed was a

little time, patience and trust.
One day, however, Karen called John and said she was in
too much pain to come to the office, and please would he attend
her at home. Her voice, he remembers as being a little slurred as
if shed been taking medication. It was 14 February 1993, and he
immediately became worried she might be thinking of acting on
her suicide threats. He was right to be alarmed. So many authorities on Borderline patients warn that they should always be
taken seriously. Rapid mood shifts make suicidal behavior
common and dangerous, wrote Gutheil. Although many such
behaviors are interpreted as acting-out and often irritate and
frustrate the therapist more than they physically injure the
patient, the therapist must accept the fact that the patients
suicidal threats and behaviors are a very effective tool for manipulation and resistance; they cannot be ignored. Having already
refused to attend her at home on several previous occasions, this
time John reluctantly agreed to go over.
When he arrived at her flat, Karen opened the door and
immediately crawled back into bed. They agreed he should
massage her abdomen as she lay there. She lifted up her nightgown and pulled up the sheets to cover the lower part of her
body. As he massaged her, however, he says, he was suddenly
shocked to hear her say in a low, lazy voice, Lets have sex. John
was taken aback and says he immediately refused. There had
never been any suggestion of sexual attraction between the two.
But he says she then made a grab for his trousers, slid her hand
under his belt and touched his penis. He wrenched himself free,
made his excuses and left.
Karen, however, called a few times more, asking him to
come over; requests he always turned down. She then had two
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more consultations at his office, and their relationship seemed

back to normal. John recommenced the massage and the
psychotherapy. The last time she called him was in April 1993,
asking him to come over to her flat just before he was due to
leave for Bali for two weeks to conduct a conference on bodywork for American and Australian practitioners. She sounded so
distressedthat characteristic fear of abandonment again, he
assumedthat he finally consented to the home visit. He says
he went there, massaged her, was careful not to ever let his body
get too close to her, and then left, after a completely uneventful
consultation. It was the last time he was to see her that year.
There was no way John could ever have known this but, in
the course of a job shed once had and before shed ever attended
him for treatment, Karen had done some research on how to
complain about a doctor to the authorities.
And in July 1993, John received a letter from the Complaints Unit of the NSW Department of Health. It said there
had been an official complaint lodged against him.
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12

When that notice of complaint arrived, Dr John Harrison had
no idea of the forces ranged against him. He thought it was just
one woman, angry at the way shed been treated. Soon, however,
he would discover that his own profession was sometimes only
too happy to find scapegoats at a time when it was under attack,
with the official complaints procedure all too ready to press
charges against doctors who had dared to step outside the norms
of established practice.
But at that time, John considered himself safe. He felt confident that his version of events in his rooms that fateful day in
November 1992 would be believed over that of his patient: that
he was defending his small son against a woman who was suffering from a serious mental illness that made her prone to sudden
bouts of uncontrollable rage and aggression. She was obviously
extremely sick and had abused and threatened many other
doctors before him, as well as confessing to having threatened
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children. Her track record didnt look good. His, on the other
hand, after twenty years of practice, was unblemished. Hed
never had a single complaint against him.
But the complaint came at a time when other, far greater
forces were at work. The medical industry was in turmoil in both
Australia and overseas.
Firstly, there were the power struggles between conventional doctors and the growing alternative practitioner sector,
and then between these and the rich and influential pharmaceutical companies, who stood to suffer most if orthodox doctors
chose not to prescribe their drugs enthusiastically or alternative
therapies became widely accepted. Secondly, the medical profession had become hypersensitive to sexual issues in the dawning
of a whole new era of political correctness.
These fluctuating influences created an atmosphere in
which doctors, especially those who operated outside orthodox
practice, were perhaps more vulnerable than at any time in the
entire history of medicine.
From the late 1960s, regular doctors were on the defensive.
The rise in the number of epidemics like AIDS, which conventional medicine seemed powerless to prevent or cure; the cost to
government of providing comprehensive healthcare, which was
growing at twice the rate of the Gross Domestic Product; and
the increasing popularity of alternative practitioners, revealed
by the Webb Report, all weakened their position.
In the beginning, the orthodoxy had tried to demonise
alternative practitioners by dubbing them frauds or quacks.
Later, they broadened their own definitions of medicine to
incorporate some of their practices. Such drastic action was
vital. Also on the horizon were the threats of both State and
Federal governments to de-regulate the professions according
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to the recommendations of 1993s controversial Hilmer Report,

which wanted to prise the medical industry out of the grip of
the professional registering bodies. A subsequent inquiry into
alternative medicine and the health food industry by the Victorian Parliaments Social Development Committee in the
mid-1980s led finally to the Federal Governments recognition
of the complementary industry, giving it representation on
committees run by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.
By the early 1990s, therefore, alternative medicine had
become a lucrative local market. In 1993, Australians spent $621
million on complementary medicines and $321 million on
consultations with alternative practitioners. That meant, by the
time John faced his accuser, around twenty per cent of patients
were visiting an alternative practitioner. The Australian Medical
Association responded by lobbying the government to exclude
the alternatives industry from access to federal funding via the
Medicare system. It was a fight they were eventually to lose when
in 1999, the government introduced the enhanced primary care
Medicare items, opting to try to regulate and manage the
growing complementary field, and then giving the 30 per cent
rebate on the cost of private health insurance, which extends to
alternative services.
But when John was in trouble, the battle between the two
sides was perhaps at its most fierce. As a highly visible alternative practitioner with a huge and loyal following, there was a
great deal riding on his credibilityor lack of it.
Professor Ann Daniel, the head of the School of Sociology
at the University of NSW, talks about the practice of scapegoating when a profession is in crisis. When professionals
are under threat, she claims, they are likely to sacrifice one of
the group in order to maintain the strength, identity, status and
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reputation of the rest. Its an exercise in building loyalty within

the group, and showing the outside world that youre a profession with high standards and integrity.
Professions protect the professions, she argues. Of course,
there are villainous, venal, weak, stupid and incompetent people
within every profession who need to be weeded out, but sometimes the collective gaze comes to rest on a high-profile
practitioner of distinction who is vulnerable because they might
be practising on the fringes of the profession and isolated from
their colleagues. Scapegoating them guarantees a great deal of
publicity which will put out a signal to the community about the
profession, and serve as a warning to anyone else thinking of going
against the perceived interests of the groupand at minimal cost.
Its a dramatic theory, but Daniel holds that this has
happened from almost the dawn of history to preserve the
strength of groups. The professions in Australia are no exception. Members who are seen to transgress may be initially
treated with compassion, but are soon liable to be denounced,
pilloried and driven out to never again belong to the society of
registered practitioners, she says. In the course of her research,
among the numerous cases she followed closely, she studied
Johns.
Certainly, a number of well-known alternative practitioners
were all targeted around that time. Dr Mark Donohoe was a GP
specialising in allergy and environmental medicine and a vocal
campaigner against conventional medical treatments like vaccinations. In 1994, the year John was to appear before the NSW
Medical Tribunal, Dr Donohoe came to the fore of the public
debate between complementary versus orthodox medicine as
the founding member and first president of the Australian
Comprehensive Medicine Association, an organisation aimed at
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encouraging the integration of alternatives into the mainstream.

He was hauled before the Tribunal on a charge that hed failed
to diagnose a rare disease in a patient. His complainant,
however, left a note in the waiting room and departed before
proceedings even began. The note said she had never made a
complaint against him; she had complained about two specialists
treating her later and, in fact, had never even seen Dr Donohoe.
The Tribunal still insisted on starting a hearing, however,
and on grilling him about his methods, his vitamin therapies,
and every aspect of his practice. There was not even a complaint
against me, but they still used the opportunity to run a case for a
full day, says Donohoe. It was like a bad joke. They said they
had concerns with the type of practice I was involved in. It felt
like the complaint was just a trapdoor for getting me into the
Medical Tribunal, where they could open a Pandoras Box of so
many things. Theyd targeted complementary practitioners for a
long time and it felt this was just one more go.
Another practitioner against whom the complaints process
was started, but eventually abandoned, was Dr Archie Kalokerinos, whod gained international attention throughout the 1980s
with his pioneering work on the efficacy of Vitamin C and zinc
treatments, particularly in relation to SIDS and Aboriginal
health, and the dangers of some vaccination programs. He was
appointed a Life Fellow of the Royal Society for Health, a Fellow
of the International Academy of Preventive Medicine, Fellow of
the Australasian College of Biomedical Scientists, Fellow of the
Hong Kong Medical Technology Association, and a Member of
the New York Academy of Sciences. In 1978 Dr Kalokerinos was
awarded the A.M.M. (Australian Medal of Merit) for outstanding scientific research. He was also declared the Greek
Australian of the Century 19002000.
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He was accused of negligence on several grounds by the

Complaints Unit over a woman who died on her way to hospital
with a cancer of the large intestine which had ruptured, and
a boy suffering an asthma attack. After three years of the
complaint hanging over him, the Unit decided not to proceed.
It caused me an enormous amount of stress, says Kalokerinos
today. They dont go to doctors and say, Whats all this about?
They just take action against you. They target high-profile alternative practitioners and try to make life extremely difficult for
them. I feel a moral obligation to speak out about them.
Another doctor, deregistered in the 1980s for twelve
months, asked not to be named as he feels it necessary to keep a
low profile. I think its just like any club, they want to preserve
the status quo and stop anyone else working differently, he says.
Thats what conventional doctors are like. They see it as a threat.
I just carry on my work quietly, not making a fuss, not attracting
any publicity. I just want to keep out of the line of fire.
Another hugely significant player within the industry then,
as now, was the pharmaceutical companies. While the alternative healthcare industry was significant, but still small, the
influence exerted by the drug companies on the health industry
was growing exponentially.
In Australia, as in every other part of the world, healthcare
was fast becoming less a debate over preventative practices
versus remedy, and much more a scrabble for the health dollar.
With the public appetite for quick-fix medical drugs appearing
limitless and governments all eager to make their cut from new
pharmaceutical products, the drug companies exploited the situation mercilessly to create an industry now worth $400 billion a
year globallyand growing at a rate of around twelve per cent
per annum.
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They wooed GPs into prescribing their products with everything from free pens, lunches, dinners and medical seminars with
experts in their field, to conferences in Hawaii. They pressed
politicians into freeing up regulations with donations to political
parties and free advice, often with staffers lured direct from
politicians offices to lobby on their behalf. They bankrolled
high-profile patient groups. They won publicity for good results
for their drugs at medical trials and kept quiet about the other
evidence that showed some of their wares had either little effect,
or bad side-effects. Drug company influence has fundamentally
corrupted the medical establishment, from the GP surgeries to
the worlds most respected regulators, says Australian medical
industry writer Ray Moynihan, the author of Selling Sickness. In
Australia, drug companies spend more than $1 million a day on
promotion, and in the US almost $100 million a day.
Many point to the period from the mid-1980s to the early
1990s in Australia as the critical phase in the struggle by the
pharmaceutical companies to claim a principal stake in healthcare generally. It coincided, says psychoanalyst Peter Bruce, with
the point at which the Australian Medical Association was
particularly pro-pharmaceuticals and anti-alternative medicine,
with some seeing the drug companies as useful allies. Now the
feeling today is that the war is over, he says. The pharmaceutical industry won and doctors are counting their losses. The war
isnt about medicine, its about sales and the dollar. At a certain
moment in time, there was an opening for the pharmaceutical
industry. And John, and other alternative practitioners, couldnt
be owned by the drug companies.
Certainly, with the whole medical industry under so much
pressure to prescribe drugs, those at the top often so willing
to acquiesce and the entire culture becoming extremely
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drug-oriented, doctors failing to conform were at best regarded

with suspicion by their colleagues and at worst completely
shunned. John stood out among them. In 1992, the year in
which Karen had first come to see him, the average GP
prescribed around $300 000 worth of prescription drugs. Over
the same period, John prescribed medicines with a net cost of
just $79.63.
Some of his methods were regarded with outright mistrust
by other practitioners, too. His touching therapies were often
seen as trendy Californian nonsense, totally inappropriate for a
professional doctors surgery. Anyone following such practices
would inevitably be the subject of rumour and innuendo,
although Johns appointment book was always full, and his reputation remained unblemished. Many of his colleagues, however,
privately poured scorn on his practice, while looking enviously
at both his growing clientele and the high fees he charged them.
He had already made himself a highly visible target, in any
case, with his book Love Your Disease, which berated GPs for
doing little to cure people, merely addressing the symptoms and
sometimes actually prolonging illness. The idea of giving people
the knowledge and power to heal themselves wasnt too popular
in medical circles. Some thought it absolutely ridiculous, some
saw it as dangerous, others recognised it as a recipe for taking
doctors completely out of the healthcare equation.
Petrea King, today an acclaimed alternative practitioner
with a very high profile, says John was extremely brave even to
have written the book at the time. A number of people were
being innovative and daring in their approaches to health and
healthcare, but John seemed always to go one step further. John
was always putting the cat among the pigeons, says King, from
her Quest For Life Centre, which has treated more than 50 000
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people with alternative therapies over the last twenty years.

I think he was very challenging for a lot of people. He was
a groundbreaker, a pioneer, definitely. Putting his ideas into
printhe had tremendous courage.
But if you are going to stretch the boundaries, you are going
to meet resistance for sure. I think John put himself out there, to
an extent that wasnt wise in retrospect.
Yes, if theyd had a popularity contest among doctors that
year, John Harrison wouldnt even have been sent an entry form.
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13

The health care complaints system looking into the grievance
against Dr John Harrison was born of one of the most shocking
medical experiments ever conducted anywhere in the world.
The deadly Chelmsford deep sleep therapy of 1963 to 1979
in a small private hospital in Sydneys northwest had drugged
more than 1100 people, already suffering anything from heroin
addiction to anorexia, into two, three and four-week comas with
massive doses of barbiturates and sedatives. Doctors then shackled the patients to their beds and gave them daily doses of
electroshock treatment or psychosurgery, often inflicting irreversible brain damage. Forty-eight people died as a direct result,
183 died either in hospital or within a year of being discharged,
and the files of another eighteen fatalities went missing. Many
of those who survived were left with permanent scars, physical,
psychological and emotional.
The atrocities, revealed in all their horror over the two
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years of deliberations of the 1988 Royal Commission, sickened

and scandalised the international community. As a result, a new
complaints body, with powers unrivalled within the para-legal
and judicial systems anywhere in the western world, was set up
to replace the old Complaints Unit of the NSW Department
of Health.
When that original Unit had first come into existence in
1984, it had been the worlds first body specifically dedicated to
dealing with health complaints. With consumer advocates
Philippa Smith, formerly director of the Australian Council of
Social Services, serving as head for the first eighteen months and
then Merrilyn Walton, previously with the Queensland Aboriginal Legal Service, taking over, it was revamped three years later
with greater legislative powers to become the largest and bestfunded body of its kind in Australia. Although it had been
praised for the work it had done on Chelmsford by the Royal
Commission, it was soon the subject of an Ombudsmans Report
fiercely critical of the way it was being run. The new organisation which replaced it in 1994, the NSW Health Care
Complaints Commission (HCCC), was introduced by a vulnerable minority government fearful of being censured over the
operation of its predecessor.
The HCCC, as well as having a new standing as a statutory
body, extended the work of the Unit and was given unprecedented powers to make sure such terrible abuse of patients rights
could never happen again. It was the same year John was due to
be called to account, and all eyes were on the new organisation,
its massive budget and how effective it was going to be in prosecuting doctors accused of wrongdoing.
John had never taken much notice of the complaints
process; it was the kind of thing you only ever looked at once
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you had a complaint against you, or if you were expecting problems. Even when he received notice of a complaint, he didnt
see much cause for worry. He was confident he would explain
his case and be exonerated. But he was soon to discover that it
really wasnt that straightforward. The HCCC was a direct result
of scandal and a complete failure by all the responsible State
bodies to take action on Chelmsford at a time when they could
have saved lives and prevented untold damage and suffering.
The new body was a means of making amends for past wrongs
and, politically, was expected to be seen to be doing so.
Yet while on the surface many people welcomed the new
HCCC, expressing the hope that it would provide strong safeguards against any illicit activities by medical practitioners, there
were also a number of critics of the way the Unit had operated
in the past, and the way the HCCC was set to operate for the
future. The Unit, for instance, had been the subject of numerous
government inquiries and reports over its ten years of existence,
and the new HCCC was only to continue that tradition.
The main criticism was usually about the prosecutorial focus
of the system. Everywhere else in Australia, the various states
complaints commissions pursued, and continue to pursue today,
a conciliation agenda, using a system of conflict resolution where
professionally trained conciliators help aggrieved patients and
doctors work through the issues that have led to a complaint.
The rationale behind this approach is that doctors will be far
more likely to admit mistakes and refine their methods when
theyre not at risk of being named publicly and punished, and
thus the health care system will be improved as a whole. Only a
small minority of cases then need be referred on to disciplinary
procedures. The primary function of such bodies is the protection of the public, rather than punishment and restitution.
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In NSW, however, the emphasis has always been on initiating disciplinary action against doctors by legal means, says Dr
David Thomas, from the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of NSW, whos made a special
study of the system. The HCCC refers serious complaints to the
Medical Board and then on to the NSW Medical Tribunal,
which judges the cases and has the power to de-register doctors.
The former deputy President of the NSW Medical Board, Peter
Arnold, says this situation is unique in the western world, with
NSW being the only jurisdiction where the Medical Board does
not have the power to strike off doctors; only the Tribunal can
do so.
The disciplinary agenda Thomas traces back to the Units
origins as a vote-winning tool by politicians declaring a resolve
to stamp out overservicing and fraud by doctorswith a police
officer appointed as one of its first four staff members. Thomas
says that central tenet was then entrenched by Merrilyn Walton,
who headed up the Unit and then the HCCC for the fifteen
years from 1985 until 2000.
Before the Aboriginal Legal Service, Walton had been a
social worker among psychiatrically ill people and prisoners, so
had seen and experienced at first hand the powerlessness of those
groups, particularly against doctors, says Thomas. It had left an
indelible impression. Her 1989 University of Sydney Masters
thesis in Social Work talked of patients being at the mercy
of a largely unaccountable medical profession. [She] strongly
believed that the invocation of law was a necessity in any
complaints process, says Thomas.
An officer with the NSW Health Department at the time
says Walton was someone who managed to get a lot of convictions which, while a result of her absolute belief in the fairness
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of the process to catch bad doctors, nevertheless provided a huge

boost to her career. I remember her reputation was savage, says
the officer, whos asked not to be named. She had enormous
determination when it came to pursuing action. So much of the
budget, for instance, was spent on de-registering Dr [William]
McBride, who was famous for discovering the damage Thalidomide was doing.
Indeed, in 1993, the year before John came to the attention
of the complaints process, Dr McBride had been struck off after
the longest case in its history, with McBride spending an
astounding 41 days in the witness box. Eventually, at the end of
the case Walton v McBride, he was found guilty of scientific
fraud in an experiment linking another drug with birth defects,
but cleared of 44 other charges brought against him by the
Complaints Unit relating to his obstetrics practice, except for
one on which he earned a reprimand. The Unit and, by implication, Walton, was severely criticised by the Medical Tribunal
panel for the inordinate time scale of the inquiry (particularly
in relation to the obstetric costs), the multipIicity of issues of
fact and law, the length of the evidence and the submissions,
oral and written, and the lengthy retirement of the members of
the Tribunal for deliverations required in consequence of these
matters can only be described as oppressive.
Dr Gavin Frost, who was Deputy Chief Health Officer with
the NSW Health Department at the time of Johns case, the next
year, describes Walton as a woman of very strong views who
antagonised a lot of people along the way, particularly doctors.
He claims she saw her main role as punishing doctors who did
wrong. She seemed almost to revel in the fact that she was able
to do that, he says. His reservations with the system as it was
then were that, while its necessary to catch and reprimand bad
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doctors, it didnt seem to improve the quality of healthcare

generally. Theres not been anyone who practises medicine
whos not done something, or had an outcome, theyd not aimed
for, says Frost. Its a case of There but for the grace of God go
I, and, Thank God its not me.
Walton herself, naturally, doesnt see it quite the same way.
Now working as an associate professor in ethics at the University of Sydney after those fifteen years at the helm of the
complaints process, she says that at the start of her time, the
health system saw patients as ungrateful, vexatious and malicious. There was no acceptance of the role of patients to make
complaints, she says. But come the 90s with the evidence
coming from the Australian health care study and elsewhere
from the world about the extent of iatrogenic injury in the
health system (the adverse effects of drugs or treatment administered by doctors), the system started to realise the harm from
health events. Its the biggest killer, bigger than HIV, motorcyle
accidents Before we came in, patients were responsible for
investigating and making their own complaints. My job was to
maintain standards I was trying to protect the public, making
sure that bad doctors and bad nurses were made responsible for
their actions.
Walton eventually left and went on to take the role at the
university, with a post funded by the health system, via the Area
Health Authority. She says she was tired of the attacks on her,
both by doctors and by patients not satisfied with the process,
who ended up holding her responsible for their problems.
It was only when Walton left that the HCCC changed its
focus, swinging almost to the opposite extreme, no doubt partly
in reaction to what had gone before. Under the new commissioner, Amanda Adrian, it assumed a much more conciliatory
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bent. I felt there was an undue emphasis on only one part of the
business, which was prosecution, says Adrian today. There
wasnt enough emphasis on other parts, like providing advice
and dispute resolution. She was sacked in December 2003 after
the HCCC was found to have substantially failed in its duty to
adequately investigate allegations over nineteen deaths at two
Sydney hospitals, Camden and Campbelltown. Out of their
depth and inept was how one insider described the organisation.
During Johns time in the full beam of the HCCC headlights, however, the prosecutorial approach was still strongly
encouraged, despite the fact that many experts had spoken out
against it. They held that a law court, with its adversarial system,
was not the place to argue about how best to achieve efficiency
and effectiveness in health care. What do lawyers know about
doctors methods, or situations in which human error rather than
deliberate crimes cause medical errors? they protested. It was
hard to deny they had a point.
The system was seen also to have another fundamental flaw:
whenever a patient made a complaint, the HCCC undertook
both the investigation into the complaint and then, if it and the
NSW Medical Board felt it necessary, the prosecution against
the alleged offender. Even as recently as 2004, the chairman of
the Parliamentary committee overseeing the HCCC, Jeff Hunter
MP, described this as the controversial NSW model of combining investigation and prosecution powers into the one agency.
The recommendations of his committee, after a long-running
inquiry into the system, included, methods to increase procedural fairness afforded to practitioners.
The fundamental weakness is that there is little perceivable
distance between those who are delving into the facts of the
individual cases and those looking for evidence to back them up
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in a court of law. In NSW, the two tasks are carried out by

exactly the same people. In addition, the Unit is funded by the
Health Department, with policies determined by the Health
Minister and politicians, who may have their own special
agendas.
For many, that destroys the credibility of the HCCC immediately. Dr Michael Gliksman, the chairman of the Australian
Medical Associations (AMAs) NSW medical practice committee, is one critic. I doubt that the HCCC, as it is currently
constituted, is able to find the guilty or innocent, he says. It
never has to conduct its investigations in a fair and impartial
manner, so its outcome can never be anything but biased. Those
close relationships between the HCCC, the Medical Board and
the Medical Tribunal are regarded as a major problem, with the
consultative nature between investigator, prosecutor and judge
more or less guaranteeing inequity.
Gliksman says the point of the process in the beginning was
to find scapegoats for health problems, and distract attention
away from politicians who might not be funding, or running,
the health system adequately. Its a star chamber, set up for
politicians to avoid their responsibilities, he says. Such a
dysfunctional system serves neither the doctors nor protects the
public, but I think politically its protected by the fact that
people dont believe such a thing would ever exist in Australia
today. Such a system makes it inevitable that innocent people
will be found guilty.
Whistleblowers Australia is the organisation set up to help
people whove run foul of the industry or organisation they may
work in after highlighting some inadequacy or wrongdoing.
Theyre very familiar with the practice of scapegoating.
Spokesperson Jean Lennane, a psychiatrist, says although the
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biggest problems in health today tend to be a lack of resources

allocated by Government, its far easier instead to focus on individual doctors. You do nothing about the systemic problems, but
you make a bit of a showpiece of someone, she says. Its very
much a pattern.
Associate Professor Brad Frankum, Director of Medicine at
Macarthur Health Service, and Conjoint Associate Professor at
University of New South Wales, is another detractor. After the
HCCCs much-criticised inquiry into the Camden and Cambelltown hospitals, he wrote: It is difficult to trust that body
(HCCC) to perform a fair, thorough and reasonable investigation of any doctors.
Back at the time of the complaint against John, another
outspoken critic was Patricia Staunton, General Secretary of the
NSW Nurses Association, now a judge with the NSW Industrial
Relations Commission. They trample all the principles of
natural justice and procedural fairness, she said in an interview
with this books author in 1985. They act as judge, jury and
executioner. Investigating and prosecuting complaints constitutes a clear conflict of interest. When I complained about the
way they operated, I was told if they operated according to the
rules, theyd never get anything done.
Ms Staunton today declines to comment on the HCCC and
the Medical Tribunal, most likely because of the restraints her
position imposes. But ten years ago, she was forthright in her
condemnation. Just because someone makes a complaint, it
doesnt mean theyre right, she said then. But the HCCC treats
them as if theyre always right, when nurses and doctors are entitled to be treated fairly. Of course, its only right that there are
checks against negligent practitioners and people who make
mistakes, but you have to give people the chance to assert their
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innocence and explain. Thats a basic right. But the HCCC are
so heavy-handed in their approach. You cant condemn all
people out of hand, which is what they tend to do. Sometimes it
seems its much more about providing publicity for the HCCC
than doing the job it is charged to do.
The closest comparison body to the NSW Medical Tribunal
is the Legal Services Tribunal (LST), which performs a similar
function for the legal profession. But, put side-by-side, the LST
is much, much fairer, says Professor Ann Daniel. The LST hears
complaints against solicitors or barristers which have been investigatedindependentlyby the relevant professional body,
then follows the rules of the Supreme Court, including the rules
of evidence and due process.
The NSW Medical Tribunal, by contrast, is not bound by
the rules of evidence, with hearsay evidence being allowed, and
complainants not having to substantiate their claims or even to
try to prove that wrong has ever occurred.
As a result, more onus falls on the respondents in any action
to prove their innocence, rather than on the prosecution to
prove their guilt beyond reasonable doubt. Thats all very well,
but proving ones innocence becomes enormously problematic
when there have usually been only two people present in a
doctors surgery, the doctor and the patient, and its ones word
against the others. Without the normal rules of evidence being
followed, the complainants version of events can then be
preferred to that of the accused. Gliksman finds this alarming.
Doctors are guilty unless they can prove their innocence, which
is very difficult to do in a system where theres bias in the investigation and theres no procedural fairness in that there are no
rules of evidence. With hearsay admitted as evidence, they can
accept the meanderings of a clairvoyant or pick over chicken
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entrails if they want. There can also be selective gathering of

documents, selective presentation of documents and biased
selection of peer reviewers. In addition, the HCCC can afford
expert advocates at the Medical Tribunal, whereas the doctor
represents himself. The bias is demonstrable.
Daniel agrees. [This] freedom to ignore the rules of
evidence may put natural justice at risk, she states. The Tribunal
can, in addition, inquire into events, call for further evidence
and freely address questions to witnesses. It thus presides over,
and involves itself in, a proactive hearing which resembles the
inquisitorial model of civil law in some countries. This facet is
the one that so shocked Dr Mark Donohoe when he was brought
before the Tribunal via the trapdoor of the HCCC, and had to
face numerous questions from the judge and Tribunal members
at his hearing, despite there not even being a complainant
against him.
After her studies into the workings of the professional
tribunals, Daniel reaches the conclusion, I have come to believe
that there are structural defects which imperil the working of
some tribunals. The makers of these bodies have tried to weld
features of the inquisitorial procedures of civil law tradition onto
a common law adversarial system. The join has not taken and
some professional tribunals cant always ensure the safe carriage
of justice. The Medical Tribunal labours under such a defect.
Commenting today, she put it even more succinctly: They
investigate, they prosecute and they appoint people as part of
the judging panelin terms of legal justice, its quite a bastard
of a system.
The way the NSW Medical Tribunal reaches its verdict can
also be a problem. The legal precedent on which the tribunal
relies is in Briginshaw v Briginshaw & Amor: Except upon
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criminal issues to be proved by the prosecution, it is enough that

the affirmative of an allegation is made out to the reasonable
satisfaction of the Tribunal. This might not prove so difficult.
The expert witnesses, or peer reviewers, who give evidence in
the case, are appointed by the HCCC. Then, presiding over the
case is one district court judge, two medical practitioners and a
layperson, all appointed by the NSW Medical Board (the layperson from a panel of such people nominated by the Minister).
The finding is decided by a straight vote of the four. In the event
of a tie, however, the judge has the casting vote which means, in
effect, that the judge and the layperson can, together, overturn
the judgement of the experts in the courtroom, the medical practitionersas has frequently happened. This, again, is quite
different from the operation of the LST where, if there is a tied
vote, the legal peers retain the balance of power.
Gliksman says this means that the outcome of many cases is
virtually guaranteed before theyre heard. The expert witnesses,
who are paid to appear, may not wish to rock the boat with their
reports, particularly as it might not be in their long-term financial interests to do so. Similarly, the Medical Board, which has
recommended the matter go before the Tribunal, selects the
doctors and layperson to sit on the panel. In a number of cases
in the past, the layperson selected to sit was none other than
Philippa Smith, the founder of the original Complaints Unit.
Although she was no longer a serving member, some might find
it hard to argue she was a completely dispassionate observer with
no allegiance at all to her former employer and the staff with
whom she had previously served, or indeed to the course they
had all so enthusiastically pursued. In this case, not only could
the Unit or HCCC be seen to be the investigator and the prosecutor, it might also be said to play a role directly as judge and
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jury. It reminds one of the Salem Witch Trials, says Gliksman.

You cant win.
Conversely, Walton sees the HCCCs 80 per cent success
rate with prosecutions at the Tribunala figure far higher than
any criminal court conviction rateas no indictment at all of
the fairness of the system. It shows, she believes, she may even
have been too conservative in prosecuting doctors, taking on
only the most clear-cut of cases. The prosecution shouldnt be
winning every case, she says. But I was mindful of the consequences of pursuing something and damaging someone and
not winning. She also doesnt see the process favouring the
complainant, either, saying most cases favour the doctors.
Yet the peer reviewer idea continues to be a contentious
one. Frequently, medical practitioners brought before the
Medical Tribunal complained that the reviewers simply werent
their peers; they came from another kind of therapy or discipline
completely. Brad Frankum, for example, was startled by the
choice of reviewers in the HCCC review of the Macarthur
Health Service. It convened expert panels unsuitable for the
nature of the cases reviewed (eg, no Visiting Medical Officer
(VMO) involvement on a panel that investigated over 30 cases
of patients under the care of VMO physicians), he complained.
Our State Health Minister shares this opinion. Even by 2004,
Jeff Hunter wasnt convinced those peer reviewers, whatever
their field, were adequately equipped for their task. He recommended in his final report the introduction of better policies and
training for them.
While lengthy delays in HCCC investigations and filemanagement have also long been a source of censure, the appeal
system for verdicts of the Medical Tribunal is another problem
area. There is an appeal possible to the Supreme Court, albeit a
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process that can be prohibitively expensive, but only on points

of law or about the orders imposed. No appeal is allowed against
the facts of the case. This provides only an extremely limited
basis for any appeal to be undertaken, especially when, as has
been described, the laws of evidence are stacked against the
accused. In simple terms, if a defendant was prevented from
presenting evidence that might point to their innocenceas
they often werethey could not then appeal if they were found
guilty.
Again, in direct contrast, legal practitioners who have been
before the LST can appeal either on points of law or on issues of
fact, and can ask for a completely new hearing. No such opportunity exists for those medical practitioners whove appeared at
the Medical Tribunal. Even Hunter, the MP overseeing the
HCCC, is critical of this aspect of the system for its absence of a
formal and comprehensive appeal process, and has for years been
telling the Government so, but to no effect. There is no formal
external independent body to review Commission decisions for
complainants, he says. Similarly, appeals against disciplinary
outcomes from health professional tribunals can only be taken
to the Court of Appeal on the narrow path of points of law
[This Committee] has also, for many years, been requesting a
comprehensive review of the existing legislation.
The controversy raging over the Complaints Unit and its
successor, the HCCC, had always passed John cleanly by. Hed
never had a problem with a patient, and never imagined having
a problem, so had never taken the slightest interest in the workings of the complaints mechanisms. As someone operating very
much outside the realm of conventional medicine, never having
worked as a GP and never intending to go down that route, he
remained in a state of blissful ignorance about the tumultuous
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politics besieging the theory and practice of medicine in

Australia and NSW. He was totally absorbed in his new family
and in his lifelong quest to help patients learn how to heal themselves; nothing else seemed really to matter much.
One day, he remembers seeing a psychiatrist he knew, Dr
Win Childs, sitting in a pub where he and Tracey were celebrating a birthday with some friends, and noticed that she was
looking stressed and unwell. He asked around, and heard that
she had been going through a long-running hearing before the
Medical Tribunal. Still, at the time, he didnt really think too
much about it. It wasnt long, however, before he was forced to
think again.
For very soon after, John was shocked out of his peaceful
existence. In the space of just seventeen days in November 1993,
he received three more letters in the HCCCs ominous grey and
red envelopes. With a mounting air of disbelief, he tore open
each one to find that three more women had made complaints
against him.
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14

Another day, another letter for Dr John Harrison. Youll never
meet anyone in your life that will hate you as much as I do, he
read in the untidy looped handwriting. I will hate you for the
rest of my life Id love to have the guts to hurt you in a big
way
For quite apart from the three new letters from the NSW
Health Care Complaints Commission, John was also receiving a
regular flood of correspondence from Karen. Most of the time,
she just ranted and raved against him. One letter said shed
wanted to take something from him he couldnt take back, so
shed taken his sperm. Another said, I had an abortion and I
have a witness. At other times, she accused him and threatened
him by turn. My father did to me exactly what you did, she
scrawled in one. And in yet another: I understand I can say that
I would never hurt anyone until the cows come home but you
cant be sure of that about me or anyone else.
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One of the faxes she sent was even more menacing: When
your son grows up and your [sic] dead, I will find him and tell
him what you did to me and how you left me to cope with the
physical and emotional pain alone I hate you John and I hate
you more than you hate me. Ha!
Karen had also started writing to Johns wife Tracey, saying
shed frequently had sex with her husband when she was away
from the house. Tracey came to dread the letters. They became
increasingly worse as they went on, and we got this real horror
of going to the letterbox.
Occasionally, however, the letters would be calm and
conciliatory. I accept your biological instinct theory for your
attack, she wrote to John one day of their scuffle outside his
waiting room. I think you instinctively reacted to your childs
cry. And another day shed be alarmingly affectionate: You
wont want to hear this but I will say it anyway. I love you to bits
and I feel that way because the world is a gentler, nicer place
with you in it. The work you do is superb.
The best distraction from the worries of what might happen
with Karen and the upcoming case was Matthew. Both Tracey
and John adored children, and Matthew, a bright, funny kid with
a ready smile and an infectious laugh, was proving the light of
their lives. After having only irregular access to David in his
early years, John loved spending as much of his free time with
his youngest son as he could. The day they received the news
that Tracey was pregnant again, they were overjoyed. Wed
always wanted a big family with lots of kids running around, so
we were thrilled, says John. With Matthew two years old, the
time felt ideal for him to have a baby brother or sister. It sometimes felt the only bright spot on the darkening horizon.
For the phone calls were still coming, too, and were often
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very threatening. John started keeping the messages left on his

answering machine. Thanks for letting me use your sperm to get
pregnant, John, Karen called one day to say. Youre really
stupid. After a while, the messages began to grow far more chilling. Cancel your patients tomorrow, was another from Karen.
Im going to come and sort you out, boy.
Johns sister Robyn was staying with the family once, and
picked up the phone a number of times when it rang. She was
shocked at the stream of invective she heard. I took a number
of those phone calls when she [Karen] used to phone him, says
Robyn. When I told him about these awful bizarre phone calls,
not once, but a few times when I was staying with him, he would
simply say, Thats one of my patients, I know about that and
thats a difficult thing Im processing with her. He was
absolutely discreet in terms of handling patients. He was naive
in some ways, he wouldnt reveal anything about her or her
circumstances, so I didnt have a way of judging her. But these
calls they were absolutely abusive, sexual, ranting, really
snarling at Tracey. I think I was mistaken for Tracey a few times,
and I know the condemnation of her was vitriolic. It was frightening. The person on the other end had obviously lost it.
The first one I took was when theyd gone out and I was
babysitting for them. It came at 1 a.m. I felt mildly worried about
John having to deal with someone like that, but then I thought
hes been successful before in the face of absolutely overwhelming odds. But I noticed a change in John. I put it down to
perhaps difficulties in his relationship with Tracey. I just assumed
their relationship might have been going through a rocky patch.
Despite the threats often being so bloodcurdling, John continued generally to answer the phone when he heard Karens
voice and, with a patience that many of his friends found simply
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astonishing, calmly replied to each of her letters, however

abusive theyd been. In them, he wrote about the pairs therapeutic relationship, said how much he cared for her and
respected her, and wrote about how dealing with such traumatic
issues was bound to affect them both, with progress alternating
with pain. Sometimes, he adopted a jocular tone to try to laugh
with her at some of the issues. When she wrote one day
complaining about another doctor shed seen who wouldnt even
be able, she sneered, to have a wank in the dark, his response
included a little drawing of a cartoon character masturbating
in a darkened room in a light-hearted attempt to maintain
empathy. But he was always careful to salute her courage in being
prepared to confront her problems, and was gently encouraging
and positive about her. Usually, he signed the letters, Love
John, the way hed regularly sign off on letters to all patients
whom hed got to know well. Those letters were later to be held
against himand to prove devastating to the rest of his life.
Sometimes he longed, secretly, to break off contact, but never
did. Instead, he quietly just wrote back, hoping to calm Karen
down. I know in hindsight that it looks pretty stupid now, he says
today. But I was genuinely concerned with her welfare. She was
someone who was sick, and I had been entrusted with her care. I
had a responsibility to her, a duty of care. Id felt in the past that
wed made significant progress. I thought this was just a hurdle we
both had to get over. I felt confident wed get there.
Shed been rejected and badly treated by others in her life
and I was determined not to reject her now just because it had
become tough going. I always tried to be calm, to make a joke of
some of the things she said in anger and to make her aware that
I truly cared about her wellbeing, I truly cared about her, and I
would be there for her.
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Its an excruciatingly difficult position, and one that many

therapists have been familiar with in the past, and will continue
to know in the future. The Sydney psychiatrist with the Borderline patient, who also ended up complaining against him at the
Complaints Unit in 1991, says its a complete no-win situation.
He says he found the situation impossible. Borderlines are the
most dangerous people in psychiatry, he says. Its just so difficult because of the cycle of idealisation and then demonisation
they go through. But its very hard to stop treating them and get
away. Professionally, its hard to abandon someone when they
are obviously so sick. Itd be like a surgeon walking out in the
middle of an operation and saying, Nurse, you close up. You
cant do it.
With my Borderline patient, shed come to my home, shed
ring the doorbell at all hours of the day and night, shed make
threats to kill herself if I didnt pay her attention. The pressure
can be so intense. A Borderline may make sexual overtures to you
and even when you extricate yourself, they can see that as you
rejecting them, which can make them even more determined to
exact revenge. What do you do? Its lose-lose all the way.
Despite the urging of his friends, John continued to engage
in dialogue with Karen. Yes, he had physically restrained her that
time, but he ardently believed in the value of keeping the
dialogue going. Tracey was wary, but she had absolute faith in
John that hed be able to handle it. He felt he had no choice.
He believed passionately in his work, and felt sure hed be able
to help Karen if only they could ride out this storm. It was a
dangerous mix of an overdeveloped sense of duty, raw naivety,
idealism and, perhaps, arrogance. He had made the lame walk
and the blind see, after all, so why would anyone blame him for
believing he could cure Karen?
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But the real shock for John had been the complaints of the
three other women. He looked back at their files. One he had
seen for just two appointments more than a year before. She was
alleging not that hed treated her inappropriately, but that she
thought he might. Another he had last seen nearly five years
previously, but now she was alleging that hed sexualised her
treatment. The third he hadnt set eyes on for eight years. She
was claiming that, in a massage, hed not avoided her breasts.
He was stunned. It hadnt even occurred to him, he says, that
anyone would ever construe his therapy as being remotely sexualising. Sex wasnt a subject hed avoid, of course; it was a major
lifeforce, and that had to be acknowledged. But he felt hed
never acted either sexually or inappropriately, and certainly
never done anything for his own gratification. Besides, why had
those women complained so long after seeing him? And, if his
methods of treatment had upset them so much, why on earth
hadnt they said anything? None of them had given any indication they didnt feel comfortable during their consultations and,
indeed, two had returned to him for a number of sessions after
the treatments theyd complained about. But all three were now
accusing him of sexual misconduct.
John had always felt protected in his practice by the fact
that 99 per cent of his clients had previously read Love Your
Disease, so they knew exactly what to expect during a consultation, and they understood the reasons for everything he did.
That way, no-one was shocked when he asked them, before an
examination or bodywork, to take off however much of their
clothing they felt comfortable with. Neither were they surprised
to be massaged in an area, like the abdomen, where they might
complain of pain, or to hear him ask them bluntly about their
past, their present circumstances and their level of sexual energy,
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and to boldly discuss with them even the most intimate of sexual
issues. Later, he was to discover that the first of the three other
complainants had never read the book, so his approach came as
a complete surprise to someone expecting a much more orthodox practitioner.
The reasons not to avoid the subject of the sexual self
seemed self-evident to John, particularly since a number of his
patients had been abused as children and so were struggling with
the aftermath. Many eminent physicians, philosophers and
anthropologists from both Western and Oriental traditions have
postulated that sexuality, in the broadest sense, lies at the heart
of human existence, he says. Sexuality, gender and reproductivity are matters of major concern to individuals and society. It
follows that many disturbances of human physical and psychological functioning owe their origins to disturbances of sexuality
and gender. Physicians could reasonably expect to spend substantial amounts of time dealing with matters of sexuality, if they are
exploring a cure.
At the time, however, that wasnt a terribly fashionable
view. The furore over Chelmsford was sparked not only by the
barbaric experimentation that took place, but also by allegations
that some psychiatrists, including the man in charge, Dr Harry
Baileywho later committed suicidehad initiated sexual
intercourse with patients, with claims that it would be therapeutic. Suddenly, it became anathema for doctors to discuss, bring
up or even indirectly imply any kind of sexual origin for physical
or psychological problems.
As well, the schools of psychotherapy that minimalised
the role of the practitioner were on the ascendancy. One
strand was the behaviourist school, from which the fashionable cognitive behavioural therapy emerged, where treatments
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concentrate on problem-solving in the present, rather than

looking back on the past or delving into childhood. Another
sector was made up of those psychiatrists who held the belief,
originating with Sigmund Freud, that the practitioner should
become almost invisible to the patient, sitting behind the
couch out of view and not even shaking hands at the beginning of the consultation. Touching the patient was absolutely
taboo.
On the other side of the divide were the humanistic or
dynamic psychotherapists who were happy to have interaction
between the practitioner and the client. To this kind of
approach, John had added and integrated his absolute conviction about the power of bodywork to make therapy much more
effective. Hed regularly cuddle his patients, female and male
alike, hold them as both child and adult, often be quite affectionate in his language and gestures, and talk in terms of utilising
their sexual energy.
Its not hard to see the kind of danger such a methodology
could put him in. There was always enormous potential for
anyone to take offence at his approach, and misconstrue him as
sexualising therapy. Mainstream doctors need patients to disrobe
for a multitude of reasons and John believed his practice was no
different. If there was no therapeutic advantages, no clothes were
removed, just as in orthodox medicine.
When, at times in the past, hed offered the option of a
chaperone to women patients who were nervous, theyd been
dismissive and often even been offended by the suggestion.
There were many other occasions where hed recommended the
patient bring along a friend or family member to the sessions,
and in all the years he practised only two people took him up on
the offer. Besides, he religiously continued his practice of audio
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taping all of each session and giving the tape to the patient to
take away with them to listen to again at their convenience,
never keeping a copy for himself. He also actively encouraged
every patient to play the tape to anyone whom they trusted
might assist in their recovery.
Obviously, he would have been crazy to have abused his
position, knowing that his patient would have all the evidence
he or she ever needed on their tape. Yet that thought probably
hadnt even occurred to him at the time. People who know him
talk about him as a man of very strict scruplessometimes too
strict. Fellow therapist Ian Austen, whod helped him that one
time with Karen, says his principles sometimes blind him to the
need to protect himself. Just because hes so honest, he often
cant conceive of others not being the same.
John, probably more than anyone else I have ever met, is a
man of principle, says Austen. Hes someone with really strong
scruples and morality. His moral scruples almost go too far. It
makes him extreme, rather than pragmatic.
Along with Johns philosophy of patients having the power
to heal themselves, he also believed very strongly in the ability
of the patient to divine what was doing them good, or otherwise.
If they felt uncomfortable with anything, or did not want to
continue with any treatment, he felt sure they would say so, and
he would immediately desist. That also went against the mood
of the time, however.
It was a period in which the unequal power of the doctor
and the patient was being constantly underlined in feminist literature. A female patient might not have the courage or the
confidence to say No to a male doctor, they argued. It was, quite
reasonably, up to the doctor in the first place not to do anything wrong. But in the privacy of a doctors surgery, it would
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invariably be a doctors word against that of the patient. The

difficulty then becomes whom to believe.
Such issues were part of a much wider debate through the
1980s and early 1990s. Helen Garner had discussed it in her bestselling book, The First Stone, through the true-life event of two
young women students in 1992 accusing a Melbourne University head of college of indecent assault at a party. There had been
no witnesses, and there was no proof. But the male tutor was
eventually forced to resign by the scandal, the campaign of retribution, the confusion and the divided loyalties that ensued.
The women refused to be interviewed by Garner so she
never really ever found out what, if anything, had happened. But
in the book, she becomes angry at the implication that women
are helpless victims of predatory men, unable to tell them to
move their hands or back off, or to slap them in the face, or take
whatever other action is necessary. She loathes that very
contention. Of course these problems are real, she writes of
sexual harassment. Every woman knows it. But this constant
stress on passivity and weaknessthis creation of a political
position based on the virtue of helplessnessI hate it. Later, she
expands on the thought.
The daily papers were awash with endless outrages against
women, as if victimhood were the sum of our experience.
Feminists were redefining themselves in these terms, dragging
themselves on bleeding stumps to the high moral ground of
survival. To try to draw ethical distinctions, to point out graduations of offence, to suggest that women were in possession of
untapped power, was now an act of treachery.
Such an intense focus on issues of sex and power was replicated in the work of the HCCC. In the beginning, the majority
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of complaints received by the Complaints Unit were about

Medibank fraud. From the start of the 1990s, nearly half of all
complaints involved alleged sexual misconduct. In 1988, there
were 26 complaints of sexual misconduct; in 1994, the year of
Johns scheduled appearance in the NSW Medical Tribunal,
there were 84. Whats more, most of the complaints found
proven ended in de-registration. Between 1989 and 1993/4, the
period immediately leading up to Johns case, there had been 159
complaints about sexual misconduct. Of the 23 finalised in the
same period, almost all ended in the medical practitioner being
struck off.
One of those practitioners was the high-profile psychoanalyst Dr Win Childs, the woman John had seen sitting in the pub
that time. Shed held an executive position on the Australian
Society of Psychoanalysis, taught and supervised at the University of Sydney and the University of NSW, and was a consultant
therapist to the Prince of Wales, Westmead and Prince Henry
hospitals. In 1989, she was summoned to appear before the
Medical Tribunal, with the most serious accusation being
that shed had a lesbian sexual encounter with a patient, Erica,
while Erica was still in therapy and then rejected her shortly
afterwards.
Childs denied there had ever been a sexual relationship
with her patient, saying that Erica had merely made advances
that were gently rebuffed. The Medical Tribunal, however, said
that when Childs evidence conflicted with Ericas, it would
choose to believe Ericas. It said it felt Childs had more reason to
lie than the patient whose advances shed claimed to have
spurned. Childs was de-registered for three years, despite 22
psychiatrists and four doctors writing to the Medical Tribunal in
her support.
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Today, Childs has declined to re-register, saying she is so

disillusioned with the system. It was a terrible case, she says. It
was like a medieval inquisition, with no attempt at justice at all.
It felt like such a rigged process. Youre named, over and over
again, yet the patient stays anonymous; they have absolutely
nothing to lose by complaining. Even if its found that theyre
making false accusations, so theyve perjured themselves, theres
no finding against them. So you have no protection at all against
a malicious person making things up. And you have to prove
your innocence rather than they having to prove your guilt. The
process itself is so unfair.
The other psychiatrist who, like John, ended up struggling
with the treatment of a Borderline patient was also taken before
the Medical Tribunal, alleged to have had an affair with her,
something he strenuously denied. But Childs ex-patient Erica,
evidently acquiring a taste for these proceedings, volunteered to
help the woman testify against him. That psychiatrist had been,
after all, her soon-to-be-ex-husbands therapist. But whatever
the truth of the allegations, the psychiatrist points out the difficulty of rebutting such an accusation without witnesses to back
up anyones version of the truth. The Medical Tribunal has no
standard rules of evidence, so can decide what it will permit to
be brought before it.
In his case, he said he had evidence of fraud that would
demonstrate his patients unreliability. It was not admitted to
the proceedings. You know, if youre accused of murder in a
regular court, youre much better protected than in a Medical
Tribunal accused of sexual misconduct, he says. There, at least,
your fate is decided if something can be proved beyond reasonable doubt. In the Medical Tribunal, its just on the balance of
probabilities.
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Dr Peter Arnold, the former deputy President of the

Medical Board, said sexual complaints can be a very difficult
issue. He was involved in one case where three women had
made complaints against a doctor who was the only local bulkbilling medical practitioner. They turned out to be sex workers
with a grudge against him. Another woman accused her doctor
of having sex with her in his surgery, something which the
Medical Tribunal eventually discounted because the receptionist was sitting on the other side of the thin fibro wall, able to
hear everything that went on, and the complainants description of what had happened on the couch turned out to be a
physical impossibility.
Certainly you could blackmail a doctor quite easily by
asserting there is a sexual relationship, says Arnold. Its a pity
in a way, because its spoilt part of the doctors relationship with
a patient, where there might have been some comforting possible, like an arm around the shoulder, when the patient is
distressed.
Australias first sex therapist, Bettina Arndt, also sounded
the alarm bells in April 1994, just a few months before Johns
case. In a newspaper article she talked of cases of alleged sexual
abuse being brought before the compensation tribunals with no
verifiable evidence and being backed up by expert witnesses,
which was in the end merely left to those sitting in judgement to
interpret. She quoted Don Thomson, practising barrister and
professor of forensic psychology at Monash University, as saying,
You have psychologists prepared to go to court or support
compensation claims on the flimsiest of evidence They are
prepared to support these sorts of claims and may well know, deep
down, there is dishonesty and there is ignorance on their part in
doing so. They are complying with the pressures of the times.
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She also referred to the latest 1993 report from the Accident
Compensation Corporation in New Zealand, which indicated,
an alarming level of opportunistic sexual abuse claims.
Meanwhile, Erica, Win Childs accuser and the supporter of
the complainant against the second psychiatrist, was on a roll.
The victim herself of sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather,
shed spent a couple of periods in psychiatric hospitals, one after
trying to overdose on Valium. She had also been in therapy
for many years. With her abuse defined as incest-related, she
was a natural to become a keen champion of women she saw as
being abused elsewhere. Her evidence also helped the Medical
Tribunal de-register another psychiatrist friend of Childs, Dr
John Buttsworth. Hed fallen in love with a patient shortly
before shed finished her therapy, and the pair went on to have a
long-term relationship. Erica makes no bones about her involvement in his case. In an interview recently with the author of this
book, she confesses she instructed her own lawyer during the
Childs case to make sure her allegations came out in open court.
I said to the solicitor, Ask me [while Im in the box] about the
other relationships and then Ill tell you about John Buttsworth.
I used to look at him [Buttsworth] in court and think, you idiot,
Im going to really blow the whistle on you. They [the HCCC] came
back and said they would be investigating him.
Indeed, following Ericas allegations, the HCCC phoned
the woman and pressed her to lodge a complaint against
Buttsworth, but she refused; the couple were in love. Stymied by
the lack of a complainant, the HCCC decided to take on the
role of complainant themselves, in addition to being the investigator and prosecutor. Buttsworth was struck off for three years
and, like Childs, chose never to work as a psychiatrist again. It
destroyed my life, he says now. It had such a big effect on me.
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Its only in the last four years that Ive been able to get over it.
Erica admits today she was operating what amounted to an
informal support network with her one-time psychiatrist, Dr
Carolyn Quadrio, and the HCCC. She knew Quadrio as shed
once worked under her in a unit at the Prince of Wales Hospital, and had socialised with her afterwards, too. Indeed, Childs,
in a bizarre quirk of fate, had been the one originally to refer her
to Quadrio for marriage counselling. Then, ironically, it was
Quadrio who first encouraged Erica to complain against Childs.
The network operated quite well, says Erica. Someone
going through the complaints process would be asked by either
Quadrio, Merrilyn Walton or other HCCC staff if they would
like some support, and Erica would be called and given their
phone number. I felt quite strong afterwards [following the
Childs case], says Erica. So I felt, lets turn this around and if
there are other people going through this, then I have something
to offer in terms of supporting them. Walton says Erica was very
helpful in this role, but probably still didnt realise quite the
enormity of that helpfulness. [Erica] was very concerned to
help improve communications and she did it as a person who
had been through the system to give information and help, says
Walton. She herself had enormous challenges.
John had heard the stories of other doctors whod fallen foul
of the authorities in the Medical Tribunal, but he still had a
blind faith that the system would be kinder to him. He had no
idea of the informal network that had just been put into place,
and was blissfully unaware of Ericas imminent involvement in
his case.
He thought that the Medical Tribunal would simply try his
case and theyd realise what an injustice was being done to him.
It seemed simple and straightforward, and even fair enough.
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He contacted his insurance company to arrange for them to

help pay for his legal representation. But there, a terrible shock
lay in wait.
John had been with the Medical Defence Union (MDU)
since graduating from medical school in 1972 but in 1990 had
swapped to C. E. Heath with its cheaper premiums. All was well
until he wrote to Heaths about the complaints against him at
the HCCC for alleged sexual misconduct. Too late, he discovered they had an exclusion clause in their indemnity plan
for improper relationships with the patients. Alarmed, he
contacted the MDU, which had insured him for the period hed
been treating two of the complainants. Its response floored him.
As a medical defence organisation, it was not an insurance
company, so had the discretion to refuse claims.
In addition, it had adopted a new policy not to support any
of its members charged with sexual impropriety. John was
outraged: despite having medical indemnity insurance for the
entire twenty years of his working life, both insurers denied
liability when it mattered. But what if doctors are fighting
opportunistic or mischievous claims? John asked them. Youre
hanging them out to dry. Moreover, insurance companies, he
argued, had a duty to protect their clients in actions that might
also undermine genuine claims by women of sexual abuse. But
his protestations made no difference. He could sue them, he was
advised. He was tempted, but realised how ridiculous it might
prove to be entangled in a legal case with them at the same time
as paying for his defence at the Medical Tribunal. Hed then
have to raise twice as much money to fund both actions.
John was absolutely devastated. He knew he would have to
find a legal team himself to represent him, and pay for them out
of his own savings and the money he had invested in his half of
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the house. He realised hed have to look for lawyers who were
not only good but cheap.
Trawling around those lawyers offices was infinitely
depressing. The case at the Medical Tribunal was set down to
last for between seven and ten days and could, he was reliably
informed by a number of the solicitors he tried, cost him several
hundred thousand dollars if he lost. Some advised him simply to
roll over, plead guilty to all the charges, and weather the punishment. It would be far cheaper in the long run, they said. You
know, Ive heard the HCCC has won 35 of its last 36 cases to do
with sexual impropriety, one solicitor told him gravely. Have
you considered just trying to offer the women an out-of-court
settlement?
John was outraged by the very thought, and marched out
of the solicitors office in fury. Later he was to learn that its a
course chosen by many medical practitioners, who also opt to
de-register themselves, to avoid the humiliation of being named
in newspapers, and the expense of a court case they believe
theyre unlikely to win. John, however, still had faith that he
would be able to prove his innocence.
In the end, he and Tracey interviewed 37 prospective
lawyers in their attempt to find someone affordable who would
also be willing to mount, and capable of conducting, his defence.
A friend recommended a solicitor and he finally found a barrister who was willing to act for a smaller fee since he was not very
experienced in the workings of the NSW Medical Tribunal,
having appeared there before only occasionally. That was to
prove, in retrospect, a saving that would cost John dearly. But
with lawyers finally engaged, a flat fee negotiated, and the
date of the case set for 15 August 1994, he tried to get on with
his life.
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A few days later, Tracey was on the beach with Matthew.

The sun was going down in the late afternoon, and there was a
distinct chill in the air. She was just gathering her belongings,
putting Matthews tricycle under her arm and picking the small
boy up when she sensed someone watching them. She looked up
the stairs leading from the sand to the promenade and saw Karen
standing there, staring down at them.
Tracey shivered involuntarily and started walking up. As
she went to pass Karen, she heard her clear her throat. Hello,
Tracey, she said in a low, menacing voice. Tell John, good luck
in the trial. Tracey turned round and glanced at her. Karen
was smiling.
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15
The Physical and the Sexual

Karen had gone to the police shortly after the scuffle with Dr
John Harrison following her consultation. The police said there
was a problem: in the absence of any witnesses, it would merely
be her word against Johns. They told her she just did not have a
case.
She then went to the Complaints Unit, which was soon to
metamorphise into the new HCCC. She says the director of the
Unit, later to become the Commissioner of the new body, Merrilyn Walton, saw her, listened to her grievance and suggested she
pursue action against John. She was then referred to psychiatrist
Dr Carolyn Quadrio, who worked regularly with the Unit,
because she was concerned Karen might not cope with the investigative procedures. We certainly used Carolyn Quadrio, says
Walton today. We used to refer victims to her, I think, or give
them a list of members. I cant recall Karen duly went along
to see Quadrio on 11 February 1993.
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Quadrio was interested to meet Karen. A high-profile practitioner and consulting psychiatrist at the Prince of Wales
Hospital, she had a formidable reputation as someone determined to expose sexual misconduct by therapists. With a strong
interest in cases of abuse by male doctors on female patients,
shed had a paper published in the Australian and New Zealand
Journal of Psychiatry on that very subject just the year before.
In it, shed described therapistpatient sex as incest and had
written: since we deliberately employ parent/child paradigms
in conceptualising the therapy relationship, we must accept that
violations of that relationship will be regarded as symbolically
incestuous.
She saw some of the problem as based in the masculine identity itself. the vulnerable young woman [patient] represents
the repudiated self of the highly masculinised therapist, she
wrote. Since he must envy and wish to destroy as well as possess
she who represents his lost self, he may re-enact the destruction
of his own relational self. She also quoted the extensive literature on the subject of the treatment of victims and referred to
four works, one being the controversial book The Courage to Heal.
This book has been widely condemned in the therapy industry
for its championing of the now largely discredited repressed
memory syndrome, the theory that victims of abuse may blank
out the memory of abuse, but recall it years later. The book goes
even further: If you are unable to remember any specific
instances like the ones mentioned above but still have a feeling
that something abusive happened to you, it probably did. And it
adds later, Many women dont have memories, and some never
get memories. This doesnt mean they werent abused.
Many people were accused of abuse on the basis of recovered memories, were convicted, and had their lives destroyed.
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T h e P hy s i c a l a n d t h e S e x u a l
But gradually, they started winning appeals against their convictions, and the book started to fall into disrepute. In one 1994
case in California, a father received $690 000 in damages after
two therapists were found by the court to have implanted false
memories of child abuse in the mans daughter. In another case
in Texas, a woman won a six-figure out-of-court settlement
against a therapist she accused of creating the memories that
had led her to accuse her mother, brother and grandfather of
abuse.
There were similar cases around the world, and in Australia,
of false memories having led to accusations of abuse that never
happened. Some of the so-called victims came together in incest
survivors groups which used The Courage to Heal extensively. A
recent American survey of several hundred families accused of
abuse revealed that The Courage to Heal was implicated in almost
all cases, says Bettina Arndt. Current research suggests that bad
memories, in reality, are very rarely capable of being suppressed.
University of California Professor Elizabeth Loftus, whos studied
the subject for more than 30 years, says, When traumatic memories are accepted uncritically by therapists, social workers, police
officers and attorneys in the absence of any corroborating
evidence, the result is the wholesale destruction of families. The
ultimate tragedy is that society will begin to disbelieve the cases
of genuine abuse that need its vigilance.
When Karen was referred to Quadrio, who believed in
repressed memory, she could never have realised how important
the psychiatrist was to going to prove in her case against John.
As a result of treating her, Quadrio wrote a report that would
later be used in court. The book The Courage to Heal was quoted
at the top of Quadrios list of references for that report. Erica
also recommended the book to all the complainants she was
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supporting. One of those clients, Wendy, bought it on her

suggestion, but soon discarded it. She [Erica] thought it was very
good, says Wendy. But I didnt like it. I thought it went too far.
Quadrio was familiar with the complaints procedure and
appears to have had complete faith in it, particularly in cases of
female patients possibly making malicious complaints against
practitioners. In NSW both the Medical Defence Union
(personal communication) and the Complaints Unit of the
Health Department (personal communication) report that mischievous accusations are readily clarified, she wrote. It was a
position with which many would disagree. Today, she declines to
speak about the case. Because I was involved in treating
someone connected with this case, I feel it would be a breach of
confidentiality to discuss this with you, she responded to phone
calls and an email asking for an interview. However, I have
written on the subject of therapy abuse and you have probably
read my work, so you could cite my published comments.
Certainly, from these writings, its evident that Quadrio
wouldnt have much time for Johns beliefs in the essential
equality of the doctor and patient, with most of the responsibility resting on the patient for their own health. She saw the
therapistpatient relationship as completely unequal in terms of
their respective positions of power. The abused patient tended
to be either the helpless recipient of unwanted attentions or
someone being preyed upon by a person wielding immense power
over them. Her view didnt accept that patients had the opportunity or the ability to refuse an advance. Johns whole
philosophy, by contrast, was predicated on the view that patients
almost always knew best, and that they had the power and ability
and, indeed, the responsibility to take whichever path would be
most helpful for them. As a committed feminist from childhood,
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he felt women were easily up to the task of being carvers of their

own destiny, rather than passive, helpless creatures totally at the
whim of lecherous therapists.
His views on the value of bodywork would have also clashed
violently with her approach to the subject. In a recent radio
interview Quadrio was asked if there were grey areas in nonsexual touch in the therapeutic setting. People vary on how
rigidly they take boundaries, but I think touching is the one
where everyone would agree that theres a little bit of greyness,
she replied. That if you put your arm around [a patient] whos
sobbing, very few professionals would condemn for doing that.
But on the other hand, often that is the beginning of the slippery slope, of putting your arm around the patient regularly and
then, you know, maybe going on to a hug
When Karen first went to Quadrio, her complaint against
John for allegedly physically assaulting her lay on the file. There
was no sexual component to the complaint at all. John phoned
the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission at the time of
the complaint, and it was confirmed verbally to him that it was
just in relation to an alleged physical attack. For a while,
however, Karen was seeing both John and Quadrio at the same
time. John had no idea Karen was seeing another therapist;
Quadrio did. She was urging Karen to break off all contact with
John. Karen, however, was resisting. She says today that she felt
conflicted and claims Quadrio didnt like it when she praised
John, despite what had happened between them. She didnt like
that I, still, even after what had happened, still thought that his
view of psychology was terrific, that I still respected it, that I
thought he was right, says Karen. She hated that!
Quadrios own report on Karen to the HCCC makes
fascinating reading. Diagnosing her as suffering Borderline
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Personality Disorder, the psychiatrist quotes Karen as saying

John was the only therapist who made any sense to her and did
more for her in one hour than anyone else had ever been able
to do. Karen said the assault on her by John had been precipitated by an angry outburst on her part when shed thrown the
tape hed given her of their session onto the ground. She said
hed punched her in the face, hit her head on the ground and
attempted to choke her. His ferocity was terrifying, Quadrio
reported Karen as saying. I thought he would kill me.
Quadrio analysed Karens behaviour as very much consistent with someone who has experienced childhood sexual abuse
and has since experienced a profound transference attachment
to a therapist. At that point, she quotes the book, The Courage
to Heal. Despite John believing Karens parental abuse was from
her motherKaren had told him her mother loathed her and
treated her like an animalQuadrio saw things differently. Her
only comment on Karens mother was that she was lovely.
In the rest of the notes from each of the two consultations,
Quadrio talks of the other information shes extracted from
Karen. Her patient has talked freely about how her employers
want her to leave her job, but shes refusing to quit, even though
its an appalling situation and its harming mesomething
thats going to be of vital importance later in court when John is
sued for losing Karen jobs. Also, Karen tells her how she was
certified by a Medical Officer at the age of eighteen, and put in
various hospitals where she was raped by a psychiatrist. She estimated shed seen around 50 other therapists. Karen also stated
that shed been date-raped a number of times and had lost several
jobs because of sexual harassment.
Karen returned to see Quadrio twice more, on 5 March
1993, which was nineteen days after John had visited Karen at
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home and said she had made a lunge for his penis, and on
29 March 1993. Karen, Quadrio reports, was still praising John
and refusing to continue with her complaint against him. At
that time, I told [Karen] that I thought she should terminate the
therapy with John because it was an abusive relationship,
reported Quadrio. Then Quadrio gave Karens phone number to
Erica, whose own evidence had led to the striking off of Dr Win
Childs and Dr John Buttrose, and who was now looking after a
number of other women complainants and urging them to read
The Courage to Heal. Erica was eager to help. [Karen] was so
alone, she says now. She just had no-one and her situation was
so extreme. I wanted to support her.
Ericas intervention sealed Johns fate. She called Karen
regularly to talk about the treatment shed received from John
and the pair also met up. Eight months later, Karen made an
appointment to see Quadrio again. That day, 10 November
1993, almost exactly a year since Karen and John had been
involved in their altercation, Karen arrived at Quadrios office
to report that shed changed her mind about complaining, after
her conversations with Erica. Karen read Quadrio the statement
she had now decided to make to the Complaints Unit. This
revealed a dramatic change in her position: she was now claiming that John had both raped and sexually assaulted her.
It appears to be the first time Karen had ever mentioned
sexual abuse to Quadrio, but the psychiatrist listened to her carefully. Karen explained shed come to the decision to lay such a
complaint after spending some time with Erica. [Karen] was
reluctant to make a complaint at first, Quadrio records in her
notes, now feels differently, esp. after speaking to [Erica].
Karen said in her statement that John had come to her
home, apparently in an attempt to mollify her after the scuffle
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outside his home, and because he was aware she was laying a
complaint against him. She said she had complied with his
sexual advances in the hope that this would mean he really
cared about her. Quadrio noted that Karen had apparently
allowed the sex.
Karen then said shed also been sexually abused by her
father, but quickly contradicted herself and said that perhaps she
hadnt been. Next, she referred to her father as a pedophile.
Quadrio saw this immediately as transference, the process by
which a patient confuses an abusive parent with her therapist.
This markedly ambivalent attitude towards her father and her
former therapist is so intense and so much do her feelings about
one entirely resemble her feelings towards the other, that it is
evident that she has a strongly developed and totally unresolved
transference relationship, said Quadrio, meaning a tranference
from parent to therapist of attitudes and feelings which developed during childhood.
The following year, Quadrio was to write a paper on the
phenomenon of counter-transference problems in psychiatry
with victims of therapistpatient sexual abuse. At that point,
however, she arranged to see Karen weekly to support her during
the complaints process, and to work through her ambivalent
feelings towards her erstwhile therapist.
Initially, Karen again denied there had been any sexual
activity with John, but then gradually, over the weeks, talked
about sexual abuse in his rooms. Quadrio seems to have been
most sympathetic, and believed Karen was telling the truth. In
my experience of treating a number of women like this, the
process of therapy and recovery is difficult and the risk of further
serious depression and suicidality is high, she said in the report.
The need to be heard, to be validated, to have ones injury
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acknowledged, to witness appropriate retribution and to experience some attempt at recompense is central to the survivor of
trauma. Most especially there is a powerful need to have the
burden of guilt and shame lifted by acknowledgement from the
perpetrator. I think the prognosis for this woman is poor if appropriate recognition and recompense is not forthcoming.
Quadrios position was clear: even though she accepted that
Karen had been transferring her anger and beliefs about an
abusive parent onto John, and despite Karens constant contradictions of her own complaints against John, she was convinced
Karen had been abused and, in order for her to become healthy
again, John had to be convicted, and punished.
When John received a letter from the HCCC alleging that
not only did he physically assault Karen but now she was saying
that he had also sexually abused her, suddenly, for the first time,
he felt sick with fear and rage.
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In the final stretch before the NSW Medical Tribunals hearing,
Dr Carolyn Quadrio was fast discovering that Karen wasnt the
easiest patient in the world. She wrote in her notes that Karen
had spat at her after becoming angry when thinking about the
way a doctor had treated her sister. Another time, when Karen
visited a different doctor, shed had to be escorted from the premises by a security guard. Karen said the doctor had become
aggressive when she asked for treatment and had called her a
drug addict. The doctor phoned Quadrio the next day to
complain at such a vexatious patient.
According to the files of that doctor, Dr Shane Woods of a
family medical centre in Sydneys south, Karen had admitted on
a previous visit to being addicted to narcotics. He had therefore
refused to write her a prescription. He says she then became very
aggressive and refused to leave, so he asked a security guard to
assist him in getting her to go. On the way out, the patient
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threatens to damage surgery! he wrote in his notes of 8 April

1994. And make a complaint against me! A few days later he
recorded in his files that an officer from the Department of
Health phoned to say Karen had not made a formal complaint,
but had notified them that he: was violent and very aggressive
and refused [to give her] treatment. Dr Woods then wrote, in a
firm hand: Not to be treated at this practice. Woods was later
asked by the Complaints Unit to apologise to Karen so that his
matter wouldnt prejudice the main case against Dr John Harrison, and to avoid proceedings against himself.
Quadrio also referred Karen to a number of other GPs, but
they all ended in disaster. Her interactions with a variety of
other doctors have been unsuccessful, Quadrio wrote in her
report to the Tribunal. In addition, she sent Karen to the Pain
Assessment Clinic at the Prince Henry/Prince of Wales hospitals which, despite Karens claims of suffering severe abdominal
pain, found nothing physically wrong. The Associate Director,
Dr Stella Engel, said she noted three other medical reports in
her file that had found similarly, deducing that her pain had its
origins in her psychological problems. She said, however, there
were difficulties in dealing with Karen. She would not fill out
most of the questionnaires, dismissing them as psychological
tools, said she hated psychologists, and also refused to see the
psychiatrist or physiotherapist.
Despite Karens track record of threatening to complain to
the HCCC in an effort to bully doctors, and despite Quadrios
position as simply her therapist, Quadrio continued to help her
with her case against John. She encouraged Karen to rehearse
her case and suggested they both rehearse her position under
cross-examination together. She also spoke to Erica, her unofficial support worker, who had persuaded Karen to change her
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mind about complaining. And Quadrio rang both the head of

the Complaints Unit and an assistant when Karen grumbled at
never hearing from them. She also faxed the assistant to tell her
that Karen needed some real news of imminent action adding,
somewhat mysteriously, I will do my best to contain the situation. Later in court, Quadrio was to insist that she was acting
purely as Karens therapist rather than, as the defence counsel
implied, an advocate for the NSW Health Care Complaints
Commission and its head, Merrilyn Walton.
It wasnt only the psychiatrist who was having trouble with
Karen, however. Johns wife Tracey had received another phone
message from Karen. I hope you got my letter, Tracey, she said
in a call on 21 October 1993. I know of sixteen other cases
where the same thing happened.
When Tracey called John to listen to the message, he was
horrified by the implication that sixteen other women were
claiming hed either physically or sexually assaulted them.
Thats absolute rubbish! he said, angrily. Shes making it up. Is
there no end to this nightmare? But when hed finally calmed
down, he phoned his lawyer. She said there are sixteen other
complainants! he said. Could you tell me, is there any way this
is true? His lawyer, Geoff Cahill, expressed disbelief, went away,
made some phone calls, including one to the HCCC, then came
back. No its not, he said firmly. I dont know where thats come
from, but its a complete fabrication. Karens call, however, had
done the trick; she was beginning to get inside Johns head.
John felt reassured that the sixteen other cases were a
figment of someones imagination. And they were but they
would do untold harm when his case finally came up. For,
unknown to him, two of the three other women complaining to
the Medical Tribunal about him had also been told the same
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thing. In fact, in both cases, that single factor was the main
reason they went ahead with their action.
One, Rachel, had last seen John eight years previously. One
day she was chatting to her friend, Wendy, who happened to be
pursuing a doctor through the complaints process. With a history
of severe emotional problems, Wendy had been involved in a
ten-year friendship with her psychiatrist that later developed
into a four-year affair. Five years after the end of the relationship, another psychiatrist told her she should complain. So she
did. Wendys first psychiatrist was eventually found not guilty of
professional misconduct, but guilty of unsatisfactory professional
conduct. All through the process, Wendy was in regular contact
with Erica. Wendy was the woman whod rejected the theories
of The Courage to Heal.
During Rachel and Wendys chat, Rachel had casually
mentioned that one time when she was massaged by John, he
hadnt avoided her breasts. Wendy was horrified. Thats abuse!
she told Rachel. Is it? replied Rachel. At the time, shed been
so unconcerned, shed even returned to John for treatment later.
She said she had no plans to make a complaint. But then Wendy
phoned Erica. I told Erica what Rachel had said to me, and Erica
told me there were sixteen other women complaining about John
Harrison, says Wendy. Wendy then gave Rachels number to
Erica. Today, Erica says she cant remember who told her about
the phantom sixteen, but concedes it could have been Karen.
The poison had begun to spread.
Erica called Rachel, and told her about the sixteen. The
trouble is, Rachel recalls Erica saying, they were all too scared to
come forward. If Rachel didnt make her complaint, then there
was every chance John would continue to abuse women coming
to his rooms. Rachel was then in a quandary. She didnt want to
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complain, but suddenly felt she had no choice in order to protect

other women. In an interview for this book, Rachel revealed that
up until Ericas intervention, shed not planned to pursue the
issue at all.
Wendy had also been having therapy under Quadrio. She
was trying to set up a support group but I was told by another
doctor that was naive, it was contaminating evidence having us
talk to each other, says Wendy. That wasnt right. People could
easily change their evidence to make it fit I personally believe
that John Harrison got a bad deal.
But the support group was functioning, albeit unofficially,
and the nexus of complaint was taking shape: Karen, Erica,
Wendy, Quadrio and now Rachel encouraging, supporting and
in Ericas case, at leastmisleading each other in their pursuit of
John Harrison. Each of these women had been in touch with at
least one of the others. Erica had been in contact with all of
them. Ultimately Quadrio, too, was to have that distinction.
Rachel is adamant today about what happened. I talked
to [Erica] on the phone and she said thered been about sixteen
people, but no-one has come forward and we need them to come
forward so that something can be done about [John], says
Rachel. Thats when I got into my Oh my God, this man is
harming people, I cant let this happen, so I got into my Lets
save the world mode. Thats how I got suckered into it
[complaining] as I had no intention of doing it. In short,
presented with the fiction of these sixteen other complainants,
Rachel felt it was her public duty to complain.
[Erica] was probably gung-ho about the whole abuse system,
whatever her thing was, says Rachel in the recent interview.
She had a funny relationship with the people in the [Health
Care Complaints] Commission. She had a case as well. Thats
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why she was so close to the Commission. She was like the dogooder afterwards. When I spoke to her, she said Merrilyn
Walton wants to speak to you. It was like I was the only one
coming forward and they really wanted to talk to me.
Penny, the other main complainant who alleged that John
had sexualised her treatment, has a strikingly similar story. The
incident she was complaining about had happened more than
five years before the date of the Tribunal hearing, and she also
had continued going to see John afterwards. Four years later, she
met a man at a yoga class, and mentioned to him what she felt
had happened in two of Johns sessions. He turned out to be a
friend of Merrilyn Waltons.
In a taped interview for this book, Penny said events moved
on quickly. She [Walton] sent a message back through him,
saying, Ask her if its Dr Harrison. And I was like absolutely
blown away. It was like: if it was, and I think it is, we want to
speak to her. I had no idea [about complaining]. It hadnt
occurred to me. I hadnt taken any steps of where to go, anyway.
It was just a notion, just like, it seems a good idea. I had no
notion, no understanding of where to go, who was in charge of
all that. For some reason I think I was told there were seventeen
people whod made a complaint about him, which was a lot.
That might not be accurate. I was told that by HCCC I think
I was too tranced out, spaced out, to even know what I was
doing. I wasnt that conscious of what I was doing. And I think
thats just as well, otherwise I wouldnt have done it. It was just
like, oh yeah, this wasnt right.
Penny says she went into the HCCC office, and her statement was taken. I felt like the whole thing was a bit of a blurry
dream. I just remember going into the office and Merrilyn was
there with another lady and its like they just launched straight
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into taking notes about what happened. It felt like in my

memory, they just launched straight into it. I dont remember
there being much sort of creating, getting me to feel comfortable
or explaining what the process was. It was almost like they were
so desperate to get a statement before I walked out the door or
changed my mind or something. They were like, Right right,
what else happened? It was just a bit full on.
For Penny, one positive aspect was that Walton and her
assistant took what she was saying on board. They didnt doubt
me at any point, she says. I didnt feel they ever doubted what
I said. Probably because theyd heard it sixteen times before.
Again, the fictional sixteen complainants turn the tide against
John Harrison.
Before the case, there was also contact between those three
real complainants, Karen, Rachel and Penny. Rachel said in
court that Karen had phoned her before the case. Erica had given
Karen her number, something at first denied, but finally admitted by Karen in court, and the pair had spent between two and
two and a half hours on the phone, discussing the case against
John, including the (fictional) sixteen complainants. Karen
would initially deny in court ever having spoken to Rachel, not
knowing that Rachel had previously told the Tribunal all about
their conversation. Karen then admitted it, but became vague
and disjointed as she sought the protection of her psychological
instabilityas she so often did when challenged.
For instance, when it was put to her by Johns barrister that
shed spread the idea of there being sixteen complainants, she
flatly denied it, but then admitted making the phone call to
Tracey mentioning them. Despite the fact that shed been the
first to raise the subject of the sixteen, in the phone message to
Tracey, and then had been talking about them to Erica and
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Rachel, she next confessed they had never actually existed. I

dont know of other cases, she told the hearing. I dont know of
other cases. I was desperately trying to put the willies up them,
whatever the saying is, saying because of what was going on with
me, my continual illness
Even Walton today confirms there were only ever four
complaints against John. But at that point, it was too late. The
damage had already been done.
Penny and Rachel also met just before the case started.
They were both shown into the same waiting room and sat next
to each other, where they compared notes on their experiences
and talked about the case to come and how they were flying the
flag for those sixteen poor women, too frightened to speak for
themselves. In a regular court, that would never have been
allowed to happen. Some might argue it could even constitute
grounds for a mistrial.
The final complainant against John, Janice, wasnt part of
this group. She had no contact with any of them. But unlike
99 per cent of his patients, she hadnt read his book, Love Your
Disease, before her consultation, so had no idea what to expect.
Shed gone along for help after a terminationwhich had left
her feeling very guiltyand for depression and her bulimia.
When John started talking about his bodywork therapy and then
did some preliminary work on her, she was alarmed. Having no
idea of the kind of therapies he used, she was shocked by the
radical notions he espoused and the confronting practices he
matter-of-factly said he planned to use on her in future sessions.
Even so, nothing untoward actually happened in his rooms, she
says, but she thought that later it possibly might.
She ended up withdrawing her complaint and refusing to
attend the Medical Tribunal. In an interview recently, she said,
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I had kind of recognised him as a problem instantly and got out

of there ASAP and reported him immediately Nothing really
happened, apart from him touching me up a bit, so I got out of
there quick smart.
Janice said she decided not to go through with her
complaint to the Medical Tribunal because she didnt want the
publicity, nor to become a victim. However, shed been shocked
by how shed been treated by the HCCC when she told them
she had decided to withdraw. She said shed received a call at
home from the Commissioner, Walton:
I was almost going to make a complaint [about her]. I felt quite
harassed by the HCCC at the time because I decided not to go
and give evidence in the case, and then I got a call from who I
think was Merrilyn Walton at the time, and she was sort of
suggesting that they might subpoena me.
I dont know if they really had the power to do that, but it felt
they were being very heavy-handed and threatening They
held that over my head that they might subpoena me to try and
get me to go and give evidence, which I thought was a pretty dirty
tactic, and they never followed through with that, and I was very
insistent that I was not prepared to do it. They were determined
to get me in the witness box because I was such a credible witness
[compared to the other women] I had not returned to him
[after an incident complained about] and made an immediate
complaint and nothing really happened.
John wasnt to know of any of this, however. He simply felt

hed done nothing wrong, and had faith in the system to hear
his case fairly, and then exonerate him. But as well as the women
themselves, and whatever theyd been told, there was the
HCCCs brief to de-register abusive doctors.
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I think they [the HCCC] were biased, says Wendy today,

having been through the process from the complainants side. I
know what he [ John] did to Rachel, and you dont stroke
peoples breasts even if they are in therapy, but I think at the
time I had the feeling that they wanted to get him. He was New
Age, he was alternative and they were interested in getting him.
Undeterred, John held out more hope in the selection of
his peer reviewers, the doctors nominated by the HCCC to look
at the complainants statements and doctors responses to see if
theres a case to answer. If those peer reviewers reckon there is,
by indicating that they disapprove strongly of the doctors
actions, then the matter proceeds to a Medical Tribunal, and
theyre then usually called upon to be expert witnesses in the
case. Mild disapproval, on the other hand, may simply lead to
counselling or a ticking off.
As for those peer reviewers, a definition supplied by the
HCCC talks of them as people with similar qualifications and
experience to the practitioner against whom a complaint is
made, who can provide an opinion as to whether: the practitioner applied the appropriate standard of care; and there are
deficiencies in the system of care provision.
In Johns case, however, it would have been tough for
anyone to argue his peer reviewers met that criterion. The first
was a GP, something that surprised John, for a start. John had
never worked as a GP and had made that very clear to everyone,
so found it odd that a GP be appointed his peer. Johns medical
records tendered to the HCCC, after all, revealed that he
referred no patients, ordered no pathology nor radiology,
and prescribed barely any medication at all. In addition, he
saw, on average, just one-fifteenth of the patient numbers of
the average GP.
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Moreover, the GP the HCCC had chosen was also one of

the most conservative around. Dr Bernard Kelly was a member of
the NSW Medical Board and, as far as the orthodoxy went, he
appeared its very embodiment. An affiliate of the Medical Guild
of St Luke, a grouping of Catholic medical practitioners examining issues like abortion, euthanasia, the Morning After Pill and
the use of condoms, his initial report on John made startling
reading. On the basis of the complaints received, he wrote to
HCCC Commissioner Walton betraying not a shadow of a doubt
of Johns guilt, and asking whether John might be a modern-day
Machiavelli with a Svengali-like hold over an array of vulnerable
women. He also asked whether a practitioner such as John could
possibly possess knowledge Kelly didnt, after 30 years in general
practice. Later, he wondered whether John had a psychiatric
problem which he was trying to solve by means of his therapeutic
approach, making him more patient than practitioner.
Kelly went on to say that the key to understanding Johns
actions seemed to lie within Karens statement to the Tribunal.
In this, one of a number prepared by her at different times, she
claimed that John, while partaking in other sexual practices with
her, had refused sexual intercourse because hed said his father
was unfaithful to his mother and he felt that had damaged his
childhood stability. Dr Harrisons philosophy is likely to be as
follows, wrote Kelly. Peno-Vaginal penetration is sexual intercourse and therefore unethical with a patient, whilst everything
else including physical assault is fair play. His conclusion,
considering the case hadnt even been heard, and Johns guilt or
innocence remained unproven, was simply remarkable. I also
object, as a taxpayer, to contributing to Dr Harrisons income
via the Medicare system.
The second peer reviewer was Dr John Ellard, the doyen of
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Sydney psychiatry until he recently retired, the Chair of the

Standards Board of the Royal Australian and New Zealand
College of Psychiatry and a former Commissioner of Corrective
Services in NSW until 1987. He, again, was a most unlikely
candidate to be a peer of Johns. Well-known for his treatment
of both adults and children with Attention Deficit Disorder, he
tended to prescribe dex-amphetamine or Ritalin. He believed
behavioural techniques, or psychological training, should be used
only when drugs failed, in around five per cent of cases. His 1989
book of a collection of essays, with its title piece a controversial
discourse on euthanasia, Some Rules For Killing People, was
distributed to doctors in NSW by the giant pharmaceutical and
chemicals company Ciba-Geigy, the third largest manufacturer
of prescription drugs in the world. Even more worrying, however,
was Ellards professed close relationship with the HCCC. He
had, in the past, gone so far as to describe himself its de facto
advisor, and on another occasion described his relationship with
Walton as good friends. Walton herself describes Ellard as her
mentor in that hed always been extremely supportive of her,
and of her role with the HCCC. He supported me and the
Commission when doctors were baying for blood, says Walton
today. He certainly didnt feel, to John, like someone whod
understand his position.
A couple of years before Johns case had arisen, Ellard had
also written an article about touching in psychotherapyJohns
fortein a psychiatry journal. In it, he confessed to having
serious doubts about many therapies that prescribed touching as
part of the treatment:
There are some, I suspect, who would take the position that it is
never permissable [sic] for there to be physical contact between
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patient and therapist, except perhaps a formal handshake at the

beginning and ending of therapy. I accept that this is an excellent principle, and that much harm and mischief have arisen from
departing from it.
On the other hand, he admitted he had occasionally

departed from the principle and touched people in therapy
himself. Once a woman had even sat in his lap and hugged him,
he admits. Anyone who had walked into my office and observed
us would have been entitled to wonder what was happening, he
says. It was understandable in its context; to have asked her
to get off my lap would have slowed therapy greatly or stopped
it. Yet he was still confusingly adamant that touching had
no place in therapy. Such conservatism didnt augur well for
someone routinely practising the kind of bodywork techniques
John had become expert in.
Even Ellards psychiatrist colleague, Julian Hafner, a
man who much admired him, thought him a strange choice as
a peer.
Although John Ellard couldnt be described as someone who was
relentlessly orthodox, and did have controversial views about a
number of issues, I would think that fundamentally his views
would have been clinically orthodox. I dont think theres any
argument about that
I think these things are tricky. When one is to be judged by
ones peers, then I think that the definition of a peer needs to be
thought carefully about, although obviously, in the strict sense of
the term, other physicians were Johns peers. But Johns stated,
widely published views were so much at odds with orthodox
medicine that I think one could argue to find true peers in terms
of philosophy of medical practice would have been quite difficult.
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One would have had to perhaps search the ranks of alternative

physicians to actually find true peers.
John, he believes, would have been disadvantaged in that

way from the start.
Recently the whole issue of expert witnesses has attracted
fresh controversy internationally, with accusations that theyve
sometimes been less accountable to the courts to which theyre
called to give evidence, and more mindful of the evidence that
their paying clienteither the prosecution or defencewanted.
In 2004, the Law Reform Commission of NSW launched its own
inquiry into the operation and effectiveness of the rules and
procedures governing expert witnesses in the State.
Dr Peter Arnold, the deputy president of the NSW Medical
Board at the time of Johns case, said this was always a concern
for him, and hed made submissions to the 2002 Parliamentary
Committee on the HCCC about the need for the body to
employ its own staff doctors to evaluate cases, rather than to pay
expert witnesses to come in and advise it. He says,
Thats been a big problem with the HCCC. There have been
strange casesfrom a medical point of viewwhich shouldnt
have gone to court, and some cases which have outraged the
profession which didnt. The peer reviewers, in a sense, and this
is unfortunate, become advocates. They take a line. This is where
the subject of expert witnesses has become so controversial, both
here and in England. They tend to take the line of the side which
is paying their fee. Their prejudice and bias become obvious, and
it isnt a good way to proceed.
But back then, when John found out who his peer reviewers
and expert witnesses were, he immediately phoned the HCCC,
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pointed out his concerns and pleaded for more suitable candidates to be appointed instead. For an alternative practitioner to
be judged by such orthodox doctors felt a little like a vegetarian
restaurant being reviewed by stakeholders in McDonalds. The
person who took his call was sympathetic, and promised to see
what could be done. In the event, nothing was.
Instead, John fervently hoped that there might be a medical
practitioner involved in alternative therapies on the four-person
judging panel, or that the single layperson selected might be
someone from a non-traditional profession who would have
experience of the kind of work hed built his life around. Yet it
wasnt to be. His panel was made up of a group of people with
orthodox backgrounds who were well-established in their
spheres, were on the upward ascent in their professions and who
were accepted, and embraced, by the establishment. His panel
was made up of the district court judge, Judge John Smyth; one
layperson, Robyn Sexton; and two medical practitioners, psychiatrist Dr Kay Wilhelm and country GP Dr Philip Knowles, both
appointed by the NSW Medical Board.
Wilhelm, nowadays an associate professor at the School of
Psychiatry at the University of NSW, and the head liaison psychiatric consultant at St Vincents Hospital, has a longstanding
interest in the field of depression and gender issues. Shes written
numerous papers on the subject and six years after Johns case had
a paper published, written with a colleague, entitled Disruptive
Doctors: Unprofessional Interpersonal Behaviour in Doctors. In
the piece, she talks of unprofessional conduct as a broad term
covering behaviours ranging from rudeness to fraud and sexual
assault, and argues how profoundly it can affect patient care and
how urgently it needs to be pro-actively managed. In 1998, she
was appointed a member of the Medical Board.
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The other medical practitioner on the Tribunal panel was

the GP Dr Phillip Knowles, then practising in NSWs Southern
Highlands. Describing Kelly, the Catholic practitioner and peer
as his mentor, Knowles was formerly the President of The
Gideons International, the extended missionary arm of the
church, an inter-denominational association of Christian
business professionals, dedicated to distributing the Bible and
making sure the Word of God reaches as many people as possible.
He had also served as a rectors warden in the Anglican church,
but had resigned after someone hed recommended for a high
position was arrested on charges of pedophilia. His sixth greatgrandfather had come to Australia after serving as a missionary in
Tahiti, and it is a family tradition that still survives today for the
Knowles family to leave everything to the mission. It wasnt likely
hed have too much in common with John, either.
Sexton was the layperson appointed by the Board from a
panel of ministerial nominees, a woman who is currently the
principal solicitor in her own specialist family law practice. At
the time of the Tribunal hearing, she appeared on TV encouraging women to take out Apprehended Violence Orders against
men they felt to be abusive. Shes a volunteer with a local court
domestic violence service and regularly speaks to community
groups about family law. She has also been a member of the
Social Security Appeals Tribunal, a Commissioner on the Legal
Aid Commission of NSW, Deputy Chair of the NSW Juvenile
Justice Council and a panel solicitor at Bidura Childrens Court,
Glebe, as well as a member of the Kirribilli Legal Advice Service.
In 2004, she was appointed by Attorney-General Philip Ruddock
to be a new Federal magistrate in Parramatta.
To John, it started to feel as though the prosecution had
appointed the jury. He began to grow sick with worry.
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For Tracey too, the whole affair was proving incredibly

stressful. Her short blonde hair had started falling out in clumps,
and she wasnt sleeping well at night. I was stunned by it all,
she says now. I totally understood the work John was doing and
I have absolute faith in him as a person of integrity, so I never
doubted him. But I was angry with him that this had happened,
and angry that we had to deal with this in our lives. The really
horrific thing about something like this is that youre both
having to deal with your own stuff, and I was dealing with it as
best I could. So I dont think I had a huge capacity for understanding Johns feelings about all of those things or even for
talking to him about it in some ways.
Just as the strain was growing unbearable, the unthinkable
happened. Tracey, by now twelve weeks pregnant, started bleeding. She was rushed to hospital, but it was already too late. Her
baby had been lost. Numb, she and John tried to come to terms
with their loss. They were devastated. I know the miscarriage
was related to the stress, says Tracey now. I was so down and
stressed. But I didnt have the time to grieve properly because of
everything else happening. I didnt fully grieve for years after.
Tragically, they found they were never able to conceive again.
Their dreams of a happy, chaotic home full of noisy kids had
been lost forever.
Johns older son David, about to celebrate his thirteenth
birthday on the first day of the Medical Tribunal sitting, came
over from the US for a holiday with a friend. John had an uncle
with a yacht and Tracey persuaded the three of them to go sailing
in the Whitsundays to get away from it all. While they were in
Queensland, she had a call from their solicitor, Geoff Cahill.
Hed injured his back badly, had a slipped disc and was lying on
the floor of his home in agony, unable to get up. She raced
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straight round to his house. I looked at him and he was obviously in agony, she says today. After that visit, my first thought
was, Oh God, hes not up to this trial. His back had gone. He
just wasnt coping. I wondered if wed have to find another
lawyer. But he was booked in to have surgery, so we could only
wait and hope for the best
In the run-up to the case, everyone was feeling raw. Early
one morning, Karen phoned John again. Youre going to jail,
you sonofabitch! she said. John remained calm. You shouldnt
be calling me, he replied. Karen scoffed: Youre so tough, loser,
before putting the phone down.
By the time the day of the Medical Tribunal finally arrived,
Monday 15 August 1994, everyone was looking forward to
getting into the courtroom, and getting the case over and done
with. Cahill was back on his feetjustbut he was obviously
still in a lot of pain. He was looking extremely anxious about the
hearing, too. The day Tracey delivered her written statement, he
looked it over, walked around his desk, and put his hand on
her shoulder. You know, John will be a changed man after this,
he said gravely.
But despite his lawyers misgivings, the history of the
HCCC and the warnings hed been given about the Medical
Tribunal, John felt sure of his ground: in 21 years of practice,
hed never previously received a single complaint against him.
Now, four complaints at the same time couldnt possibly be pure
coincidence. Besides, one woman had withdrawn her complaint,
two women had complained many years after alleged incidents
and had still continued to see him afterwards and, with Karen so
obviously severely disturbed, he was sure her complaints wouldnt
be taken seriously.
Yes, he was feeling confident. But then so was Karen.
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17
Karens Story
When Karen finally made her entrance on the second day of the
NSW Medical Tribunal hearing on Tuesday, 16 August 1994, her
appearance electrified the courtroom. She dragged herself into
the hushed court in Queen Square, Macquarie Street, almost on
her knees from the pain she said she had in her stomach, clinging
to the walls to keep her balance. But it was when she started
speaking that she delivered her biggest bombshell.
Dr John Harrison had been sexually abusing her since 1988,
she said. Hed coerced her to take off her clothes during a treatment and touched her genitals and her breasts. The pair had
masturbated each other and indulged in oral sex on a number of
occasions, both at her unit and in his rooms at his home. The
allegations were absolutely damningor they would have been
had her testimony not been wildly inconsistent, sometimes
contradictory and often completely nonsensical. At one point,
for example, Karen said John had had sex with her and/or raped
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her, and she then changed her mind, saying intercourse had
definitely never actually taken place.
But she was adamant about his sexual overtures. Months
before, since early 1988, [his sexualised treatment] had become
progressively more invasive, she told the hushed courtroom, but
he is very convincing that it is always me that has the problem.
You start to believe it after a while. I knew, can you believe,
I didnt think it was right and I am a fairly open-minded person,
but I was very supportive of what I perceivedthat he took risks
with people and I admired him for that and I thought he was not
able to self-assess.
Karen was obviously askew on the dates; she said John had
been sexually molesting her since 1988 when her first consultation had not even been until 10 January 1992. But no-one
seemed to notice. Her claims had simply proved so startling that
the details were drowned somewhere between successive shockwaves. The ground seemed to shift so dramatically with each
factual error, prevarication and lie that, at times, it was utterly
impossible to tell truth from fiction.
For instance, Karen claimed that shed been in perfect physical health when she first went to see John, but that her health
had deteriorated ever since, with abdominal pain first occurring
only after shed been seeing John for a couple of months. The
reality, the Tribunal heard, was that she had been suffering from
possibly the most serious of all psychiatric illnesses, had suffered
from the physical symptoms which accompany it, and had been
in and out of hospitals all her life. But Karen insisted her health
had worsened significantly after her appointment on the afternoon of 23 November 1992. That was the day John had talked
about having to restrain her when she made a lunge for his fourteen-month-old son Matthew, grabbing her, pulling her back
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into the waiting room, pinning down her arms with his knee
across her lower chest and pushing her head towards the carpeted
floor. She described it quite differently: John had brutally
attacked her, and completely without any provocation.
According to Karen, as she was leaving the clinic, shed
refused to make another appointment, and had told John, Oh, I
dont think youre as good as you think you are. At that point,
she heard the baby cry, and said, I am sick of listening to that
all the time, too. As she walked down the path, she turned
around and said, I am sick of listening to all this rubbish, and
threw down onto the ground the tape recording that John had
made of the consultation. But as she bent down to pick it up,
she said John grabbed her arm, pulled her back into the clinic,
tripped her up and slammed her into the floor.
He then started lunging his knee into me and [had] his
hands around my throat, she told the tribunal.
I was frightened because I just had surgery the week before, not
that it was anything major, it wasnt. Its justI was frightened.
I went into shock initially because I have never been hit before.
Then he wasgot my hair and [was] smashing my head into the
floor. I was in shock for a while. It went on and on. When I
caught his eyes he had this look of utter rage in his eyes such that
it suddenly occurred to me that I was in serious trouble. He just
kept punching my face. Then I screamed out. I realised I was in
trouble there was nothing I could do to get him to stop. I said,
Dont you know its me? What are you doing to me? But then he
had his hand round my throat and said, If you ever cross my
boundaries I will kill you, not, I am going toI will kill you.
I was saying, You are mad. You have gone mad. EventuallyI
couldnt break free. I actually didnt fight back, go into shock.
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Eventually, it seemed like ages, I rolled over onto my side and put
my hand over my head because I thought he might be going to
get away from me or do something more
Later, Karen said she cared very much about the work John
was doing, but that he had a violent streak. It was the unmitigated violence on me that day, it was unprovoked, she said. I
left his property, yes. I loved him as a human being, but his
violence was his own. He is a violent person and I wanted him
to get help for that. I am not saying he is evil in that area, he
has a problem in that area but to come around and blame the
patient is despicable to the point, and then come around and
have sex with me and at his office. What was he trying to do?
Johns and Karens accounts of nearly everything that passed
between them varied markedly from each other. John had said
hed merely contained Karen when shed made a grab for his son,
fearful she would injure the small boy. Shed often made threats
against his son and other children, he claimed, with some
recorded in the case notes on the first session shed had with
him. Karen, on the other hand, said the motivation behind the
attack had been purely that Johns ego had been so dented
when shed refused to make another appointment and had told
him his treatment wasnt working. Hed then bashed her to a
pulp.
The letter from Karen to John in which shed written, I
accept your biological instinct theory for your attack. I think you
instinctively reacted to your childs cry, was completely ignored.
Obviously, there had been no witnesses present. It was
Johns word against Karens; Karens word against Johns. John
said after driving Karen home, hed returned to his house and
written a detailed account of what had transpired between the
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two of them. When she visited him on her next appointment,

he noticed a bruise on her face, although he didnt take too
much notice as she had such a history of self-harm. A close
friend of hers also said Karen had a bruise when they met three
days after the incident. But who knows how it had really been
caused? And was it evidence of someone who, in her own words,
had been beaten to a pulp?
That same friend backed up Karens claim that shed always
been in perfect physical health before starting treatment with
John. Physically, she was in excellent health, she told the
Tribunal. She would occasionally joke that she didnt have to go
and see a doctor and hadnt had to do so for a number of years.
Medicare records told a stunningly different story. They showed
shed actually visited eighteen different doctors the year before
shed started seeing John, and thirteen in the year she was being
treated by him. She obviously had little real idea about Karen.
Karen was later forced to admit her contention that I have
never been ill in my life was an outright lie. Under cross-examination, she confessed that she had actually seen a large number
of medical practitioners in the previous couple of years. It was
put to her, from Medicare records, that shed been to a Dr Christine Anthony-Goodwin at the Holistic Medical Centre in Surry
Hills on 23 November 1988, and on 23 January 1989, for a start.
She said she couldnt remember either visit. It was then put to
her that shed suffered from pelvic inflammatory disease for six
weeks in 1991something she admitted. It was, in addition,
suggested shed seen another doctor on 1 November 1989, whom
shed verbally abused. She confessed she had called him a useless
little creep.
It was alleged that shed had similar arguments with another
doctor she saw the same year. Karen protested, No, that doctor
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was nice. She was also said to have had problems with a further
doctorwhom she told the tribunal she couldnt remember. At
first, too, she denied having seen a certain psychologist, before
finally agreeing she had seen him an astonishing 27 times. She
couldnt recall a visit to a Dr Sue OReilly on 2 November 1989
either, nor to a Dr Huber to whom she was allegedly violent on
18 February 1993.
Karen did, however, remember Dr Shane Woods, the doctor
whose records showed hed asked a security person to remove her
from his surgery and against whom shed made threat to damage
his surgery and also later taken out a complaint to the
Complaints Unitan action that was dropped following the
apology arranged by the Unit. Karen also agreed under crossexamination that she had said shed been raped by staff at a
psychiatric hospital, but couldnt recall a conversation in which
shed claimed shed been raped three times.
All through the hearing, Karen appeared nervous and
agitated, often failing to answer barristers questions until Judge
John Smyth was forced to intervene. She offered irrelevant detail
on other matters instead, rambling and frequently appearing
confused by what was going on. She evaded questions, then
would answer them one way, then another, often changing her
responses somewhere in between. But the main thrust of her case
was clear: she had come under Johns spell early, believed hed
be able to help her health, wanted to please him and felt that
agreeing to his demands and allowing him sexual gratification at
her expense would be a way of clinging onto his affections.
Refusing him ran the risk of his ending their relationship and, at
first, she valued that too much for that to happen.
The sexual abuse started, Karen eventually said, on 11
September 1992, when John persuaded her to strip down to her
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underpants and then massaged her abdomen while pressing his

arm against her genitals, sexually arousing her. This happened
again the next week and again two weeks later, she said. That
day, he said, as could be clearly heard on the tape of the session,
Youre lying like that because you want me to fuck you, the
comment he says he made to lighten the atmosphere between
the two, and which she, in turn, laughed at. Hed also talked
about the workshop hed once taken part in over in the US
where the woman, whod been punished as a child for sexual
behaviour with a cousin, had been treated in therapy by being
permitted to touch the genitals of a group of naked men.
Then came another shock. On another part of the tape, the
transcript read that John had said to Karen, Now I would like to
put this hand ... while I feel your genitals John was stunned.
He asked to see the transcript of the tape again. I never said
anything like that! he exclaimed to his lawyer. I asked permission to feel her tummy! That transcript isnt right! The lawyer
asked if they could have the original tape to listen to, and the
judge agreed. Sure enough, when they heard it, John had definitely said, Now Id like to put my hand ... while I feel under
your tummy here. John was furious; to him it looked like a calculated attempt to damage his case and his credibility. The
transcript, it turned out, had been prepared by the HCCC.
In court that day, Johns barrister alleged the transcript had
been severely doctored. The Tribunal, however, appeared
unmoved. I accept there may be errors in the transcription, said
HCCC barrister John Basten. The suggestion that it was
doctored is one which I would think inappropriate. It was
never discussed again.
Karen continued. The next year, in February 1993, she said
John had visited her at home, where hed massaged her with
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baby oil, and the pair had performed oral sex on each other, after
which John had lay on top of her. There had been further sexual
contact throughout March at Johns clinic, Karen claimed, and
once in April. John denied there had ever been sexual contact
between the pair. It was his word against hers. Even when a tiny
ten-second snatch of one of the 30 hours of tapes John had
recorded of their sessions was played in court, there were
completely different interpretations of what was happening.
At one point, Karen said she used to pretend John was her
mother, the woman shed originally told John who had so
severely abused her, bringing up more questions about the possibility of transference than there were ever answers.
Karen was also quizzed about the messages shed left on the
Harrisons phones and the letters shed written to both John and
Tracey. She admitted making phone calls in 1993. I did it a lot
when I waswhen I couldnt cope with the pain, she told the
Tribunal. I wasnt doing it towhen I first did it he asked me
told me about it and he asked me and I said, Yes, I did it, and
he said, thanked me for my honesty I told him I do that sort
of thing to push somebody away from me, that I didnt have the
ability to leave somebody She denied, however, making any
threats to him. She also denied threatening another therapist
that she would burn his house down.
Karen admitted, however, writing to John to say she was
pregnant to him, shed had an abortion and she had a witness
even though she later said the pair had never actually had
intercourse. Shed written that, she explained: Because I wanted
him to realise what he was doing and it seems ironic that now I
am sitting here but I wanted him to see I was desperately trying
to alert him to the fact that he was completely irresponsible and
dangerous to his own family. I wouldnt know if he is fertile or
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not but I could have got pregnant to him several times and thats
whyI was frightened, thats why I wrote that letter to his wife
so he wouldnt put himself in that position again. I am proud of
it because I care about him. In other words, another lie, this
time dressed to appear as if she were helping John.
John asked his lawyers to play the calls, with Karens voice
unmistakeable on the tapes, in the courtroom, but they argued
that it would harm his case to be seen to be attacking his
victim. The Tribunal panel were naturally bound to feel some
sympathy for such an obviously sick person; John could earn
their ire if he tried to highlight all the lies. It turned out to be
advice that really didnt help his case at all. As a result of the
tape not being played, Karen was able to deny saying the exact
words on some, and to say she couldnt recall others, even
though all are clearly the same voicehers. In the end, she only
admitted making a few. Of the call Tracey received saying, I
hope you got my letter, Tracey. I know of sixteen other cases
where the same thing happened. Bye-bye, Karen confessed she
had made the call, but said it was yet another lie about those
mysterious other sixteen cases. I dont know of other cases, she
told the Tribunal. I am not doing this against him to hurt
him, I am doing it because of what he did to me. I know that to
be valid, too. She also admitted calling and saying, Youre going
to jail, you sonofabitch.
When the judge asked Karen why she was so angry towards
Johntypical Borderline behaviour in demonising the carer
she answered, That I had suffered a lot and I really valued what
I saw as his contribution to medicine. It was a devastating position to me. How could I give countenance to this book when I
knew this person who wrote it couldnt accept responsibility for
his own feelings and who then turned around to the patient who
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was very kind towards him and tolerated it and who didnt tell
anyone and add insult to me by blaming me and using his son
as an excuse, and then come around to my house and have sex
with me?
It was one of a number of confused tirades from someone
obviously having great difficulties, as the judge was later to
confirm, in coping with her psychiatric problems.
The inconsistencies in her positions went beyond irrational.
Karen had started out complaining only that shed been physically assaulted by John, but she denied under cross-examination
that shed later added sexual components to her allegations in
order to make her complaint more compelling. She said she
hadnt mentioned the sexual content earlier merely because
shed wanted to protect him. She also agreed shed lied to the
Complaints Unit about seeing John at various times after lodging
the complaint. When it was put to her that shed phoned
another patient, Rachel, complaining about John, she at first
denied it. Then, when challenged, she said she might have.
Unbeknownst to her, Rachel had already confessed that Karen
had indeed phoned her, and the pair had enjoyed lengthy phone
conversations about their complaints.
Dr Carolyn Quadrio was also called to give evidence about
Karen, and said she was suffering from Borderline, probably the
most serious of the personality disorders. She said Karen had, at
first, consistently denied that sexual contact had taken place
with John, but had later said that it had. She was asked under
cross-examination whether she considered Karen someone who
would give an unreliable answer.
Quadrio replied, I think unreliable, if that is to suggest that
this is a person who would deliberately deceive me, I think that
is different from someone whose ambivalence is such that they
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will at times present their story in one way, and at other times in
another. You could call that unreliable on a short-term basis but
on a long-term basis, as you observe this person who is constantly
oscillating between those two positions. They are reliable about
the unreliability, if you like. It is the ambivalence. So the point I
am making is that ambivalence is not quite the same thing as
unreliability, I would think, in the way that you are posing the
question.
It was an utterly baffling answer that left no-one any the
wiser.
Johns barrister John Foley valiantly tried to make sense of
it. He asked Quadrio if she were saying that the ambivalence
meant that at one time Karen could say one thing; at another
time, another. Quadrio replied, simply, Yes.
The psychiatrist also said there was a danger of transference
occurring with a doctor seeing someone with Karens psychiatric
difficulties. Foley asked whether, the same thing [would]
occur with this patient where she had a difficulty with her father;
she could transfer those sorts of problems and difficulties say, for
example, to Dr Harrison, who then was treating her, and some
sort of transference could take place? Quadrio replied, I think
that is what happened. There were very powerful feelings transferred in that relationship, yes.
At this point, John brightened. With Karens own psychiatrist admitting firstly that Karens evidence couldnt be relied on,
and secondly that transference had taken place, he felt his
patients testimony was sure to be dismissed. It wasnt to be,
however.
Quadrio went on to say that she was convinced Karens
severe abdominal painthe pain Karen said had been the reason
for seeing John in the first placewas connected to events of
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November 1992, the day of their scuffle. She also stated her
opinion that she considered bodywork a particularly dangerous
therapy to use on people who were very disturbed. Moreover, she
said if there were other women who had complained about the
sexualising of therapy, she would consider the practitioner might
be exhibiting a predatory pattern.
Johns peer reviewer, Dr Bernard Kelly, was also asked to
give his opinion of the way Karen had been treated by John. His
response was unambivalent. Unless John were able to prove his
innocence, All of these events incur my strong disapproval,
he wrote in his report, and, I believe, the strong disapproval of
Dr Harrisons peers in good standing. Under cross-examination,
however, he admitted he had no view on the kind of therapy
John practised, and had never read his book. I am not sufficiently familiar with it to form a view one way or another from
my own personal experience, he told the court.
Later, even Judge Smyth felt moved to intervene, telling
Johns barrister that Kelly knew little about the kind of alternative therapy John practised. You are asking the doctor about
a field that he acknowledges he knows nothing about, said the
judge. He has never attempted that treatment, he doesnt know
the type of clientele that your client sees and it seems to me he
has been particularly careful to say, I know nothing about that
type of treatment so [his opinion] would have no weight whatsoever. Yet Kellys lack of knowledge of his peer was apparently
no impediment to him being quoted in the final determination
of the Tribunal.
Neither was any other member of the Tribunal panels unfamiliarity with Johns practice seen as a difficulty. At one point,
Judge Smyth even admonished barrister John Foley for supplying
too many references to the Tribunal. I think you can rest assured
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we will not be very concerned about what is in the books except

what was put in formal submissions, he said. We are not going
to do our own exploration, become our own experts.
Back on the subject of Johns patients, Kelly was asked if he
was aware of research that showed that doctors and patients
routinely gave very different reports of what happened at a
surgery visit. On whether a certain treatment had been performed there was only 63 per cent agreement, and on whether
counselling had been provided the figure was lower still, at 57
per cent. In the case of Johns complainants, talking about events
in Johns rooms nearly nine years ago, nearly six years ago and
eighteen months ago respectively, Johns barrister contended the
percentage recall would be even less.
The other peer reviewer, psychiatrist Dr John Ellard, whod
written a report on Karen, was also called to give evidence.
Despite Ellards background as someone with more faith in drugs
than in psychotherapy, John felt the veteran practitioner might
be sympathetic. Hed read an article by him just a couple of
months before, in which Ellard had written of the difficulties of
treating someone with Borderline Personality Disorder.
Many of them are quite skilled in the exploitation of other
peoples vulnerabilities: Before you know where you are, you find
yourself enraged or despairing or bewildered or seduced. Those
would-be therapists who have a great need to rescue others are in
great jeopardy, for the borderline patient presents a bottomless
pit of need, and if failure troubles you greatly you are in for a
rough time. Watch yourself very carefully.
But in the courtroom, Ellard wasnt really given much room

to express his take on the situation. Instead, he was asked a very
strange question by HCCC barrister John Basten: If John had
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actually asked a patient to hold his penis, as shed said, what

would be his view of the doctor? Couched in such terms, there
was only one answer possible. There can never be an occasion
in which it would be proper for a male doctor to offer his penis
to be held by a patient, replied Ellard.
On the safer ground of bodywork, he was asked whether he
would ever consider engaging in the practice. He said he personally would not go beyond a formal handshake or perhaps a hand
around the shoulders in the case of someone being under extreme
duress, for instance weeping at a funeral. He didnt mention his
own experience of a female patient sitting on his lap.
Finally, he was quizzed about a letter he received from
Merrilyn Walton, the Commissioner of the HCCC, quoting back
at him his initial report on John, which had proved quite moderate, and his conclusion that he didnt consider Johns behaviour
was sexual. Could you please advise me, Walton wrote to him,
what your conclusions would be if you were to make the opposite assumptions on the evidence i.e. if you were to assume that
Dr Harrisons behaviour was intended to arouse sexually.
It was an astonishing request, and there was only one
answer. Ellard wrote back and gave it. If in fact I assume that Dr
Harrisons behaviour was intended to arouse sexually then his
behaviour was improper and it would then incur my very strong
disapproval and I believe that his peers of good standing would
have the same view. It was that phrase of strong disapproval
that triggered the court case, according to a former high-ranking
official with the NSW Medical Board interviewed later. Without
it, it may never have been allowed to take place.
In short, Dr Ellard, an expert witness who was pretty orthodox, very uncomfortable with Johns methods and had a very
strict sense of what was right and wrong between doctor and
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patient, had still felt John was innocent of having a sexual

motive for his actions. Walton, having decided she had asked
the wrong question, tried another tack: If he were guilty, would
you disapprove? Ellard could only answer in the affirmative and
on that basis, the case against John was launched.
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18
T h e O t h e r Wo m e n
Penny had a troubled history. On her first consultation with
Dr John Harrison six years before the NSW Medical Tribunal
hearing, shed told him her father had sexually abused her and,
at nineteen, shed been raped. She said she really didnt like
mens genitals. Between the ages of sixteen to 25, shed seen
six different therapists, but came to see John because of persistently bad migraines. He surmised the headaches were a result
of tension from unresolved anger and feelings about her past,
and began treating her with a mixture of psychotherapy and
bodywork.
Apart from Karen, Penny was one of just two other women
complaining about John. Janice had withdrawn her complaint,
and it was duly dismissed. Penny was on first, then Rachel.
On her second consultation in 1988, the session after shed
revealed the sexual abuse at the hands of her father, John
suggested that, using the technique of non-sexual physical
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holding, Penny could experience the little kid and the grownup parts of her personality. Penny agreed, and they sat on a bean
bag kept in the room for the purpose. Then he did hold me sort
of in a fatherly way which was sort of nurturing, is the way
Penny recalled it to the Tribunal, immediately evoking memories of her abusive parent. They talked as they sat there, then
Penny said John had encouraged heralthough she couldnt
remember the words he might have usedto touch his penis
through his trousers.
Another time, she couldnt remember when, she thought
he had made an admiring comment about her legs as she was
getting undressed. She again couldnt remember what he said,
but recalled to the Tribunal, I just remember sort of a feeling of
standing there and he was sitting behind his desk and the way
he was looking at me and making a comment and I remember
feeling sort of embarrassed so it is more the feeling than the
words I remember.
She admitted, however, shed never made any notes about
it until filling in the statutory declaration a few months before
five years later. She also said theyd kissed, but she was not sure
whether that was the same time as shed touched his penis. Part
of it was the same, she said. The part where he got me to touch
him through his trousers I think was the same and we could have
kissed on that consultation or another one. Johns notes say that
Penny had complained to him about mens penises several times
in the first two sessions.
Penny said she had not indicated to him in any fashion
whatsoever that his behaviour was inappropriate or unacceptable because: I trusted what was happening. She had gone back
afterwards because she felt his treatment was helping her.
Then, on another occasion, she said John had tried to
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stimulate her to orgasm. When she made her declaration to the

Complaints Unit, she admitted she couldnt remember when
that had happened, either. But now, she said, nine months after
her statement, shed suddenly remembered that it had taken
place on her sixth consultation with John. She said shed had
the general impression he wanted her to have an orgasm, but she
couldnt recall anything he said. Under cross-examination, she
was asked whether shed invited John to touch her. [I] didnt
invite him to, she replied. I obviously didnt say no, because I
think he would have stopped if I said no, but it was his sort of
encouragement and suggestion.
Penny admitted that shed become emotionally involved
with John, and had wanted to see him outside the consultations.
She was also beginning to fantasise about their relationship. I
was imagining doing things like going to the beach or doing
things that people in relationships do because that would make
it feel okay, I suppose, she told the court. She returned to him
for more treatment five months later.
John denied all her claims, and said there was absolutely no
sexual component to his relationship with Penny. He told the
tribunal that the therapy he used with her, when they were on
the bean bag, was standard and was used with most clients,
whether or not they had been abused as a child. The purpose of
the exercise for the client was to allow herself or himself to feel
feelings which come up that are associated with the grown-up
and the little-kid part of the client. Penny herself had said it
had reminded her of her relationship with her father.
John said he couldnt recall making an admiring comment
about Pennys legs either. I am in the habit of inviting clients to
regard themselves favourablythats the only context in which
I can see that that comment might make sense, he told the
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Tribunal. But in terms of making an admiring comment in the

usual sense that would describe it, the answer is no, I never
do that.
Penny further recalled that shed told a former boyfriend
that her relationship with her doctor had become sexual, and he
said he was going to report it. When he was called into the courtroom, however, he said that wasnt true: hed never suggested he
would report him. Penny would later reveal, in an interview for
this book, that she had joined a support group for sex addicts,
and that the fatherly cuddle had brought back memories of her
childhood abuse. She also said shed been told about the existence of sixteen or seventeen other complainants by a staff
member of the HCCC but, when challenged, later said she may
have been muddled. Thats the funny thing about memory, she
said. In hindsight thats how Im putting the blocks together
Maybe I got the information later, and put it in earlier
With so many critical gaps in her recollection of the alleged
incident and her own admission that she might be reformulating her memory, its worrying that John was convicted on such
shifting evidence. If, indeed, Penny had been the only
complainant, its hard to believe the case would even have
reached the Medical Tribunal. But Karen, and her reliance on
the evidence of her psychiatrist with faith in the power of
repressed memory, and Pennys splintered memory of events,
seemed, in the eyes of the panel, to bolster each others stand.
Nowadays, there are strong warnings in place about the dangers
of convicting on memoryeven good, clear memoryalone.
The worlds leading researcher in memory, Professor Elizabeth
Loftus, is very adamant about this, saying memory is now widely
accepted not to operate like a videotape that can be viewed over
and over again in its pristine form, but rather as something that
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shifts, is shaped, added to, reformed and frequently reinvented,

often without the person who possesses the memory realising,
consciously, the changes. Inaccurate memories can sometimes be
as compelling and real as an accurate memory, says Loftus. She
has found memories can become scrambled purely in the process
of retrieval. Memory is malleable. It is not, as is commonly
thought, like a museum piece sitting in a display case. Memory is,
as the Uruguayan novelist Eduardo Galeano once said, born
every day, springing from the past, and set against it.
She talks of the many criminal cases in which memory was
found to be faulty, as in people wrongly convicted on the basis of
inaccurate memory (one criminologist puts it at 7500 in the US
in 1999 alone), people confessing to crimes theyve been later
found not to have committed, and witnesses whose recall of
events was contaminated by talking to others and reading about
them later in newspapers. The sniper attacks that killed ten in
Washington in 2002 were a good example. There, media repetition of the idea thered been a white truck at the scene
influenced everyone to say theyd also seen a white vehicle, but
it later turned out to be blue.
In Johns case, the final complainant was Rachel, who had
attended John a full nine years earlier. At the time, she hoped
he might help her with her weight problems. Shed read Love
Your Disease three to five times before attending his clinic, but
said it still hadnt gone any way towards preparing her for his
treatment, since she couldnt remember the parts about bodywork. She suffered from deep-seated psychological problems that
manifested themselves in promiscuous behaviour, relationship
difficulties, compulsive gambling and over-eating. Originally, she
had said she also lost jobs, but that fact had subsequently
appeared on a later statement to look as though it happened only
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as a direct result of attending John, rather than as one of the

reasons for seeing him in the first place. If she had won her case
and sued John for damages later, that might have earned her, like
Karen, the chance of a great deal of compensation. She told the
tribunal she had a good friend, Wendy, who was taking action
against another doctor with the Complaints Unit, and who had
encouraged Rachel to write down her complaint.
Under cross-examination, Rachel admitted that she found
John attractive and said she flirted with him in her sessions, and
felt that he responded, although she couldnt remember what
made her think that. He didnt say anything particular but he
responded to my flirtatious manner, she told the tribunal. I am
not the sort of person who flirts unless I am encouraged. I will
flirt. If I dont get it back I will stop.
Rachel said in the hearing that her memory of what
happened at his sessions nine years ago was now clearer than it
was when she made her statement eighteen months before
because shed been doing some work on herself in therapy. That
statement alone would be enough to strike alarm into those
worried about the dangers of faulty memory, and of memories
being reformulated later. Her complaint revolved around one
consultation when he gave her a massage, and included massaging her breasts. It made her feel uncomfortable. She also said
that shed invited John to dinner, and hoped it might lead to
sex. She was disappointed.
In this strange patchwork quilt of a case, it seemed Janice had
considered complaining because she thought something might
happen with John, but Rachel was complaining because it hadnt.
Rachel confessed at the Tribunal that later she was rung by
Ericaa supporter of Wendysand told there was someone else
complaining, and that she should speak to the Complaints Unit
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and do something about it. Later, Erica rang a second time and
again urged Rachel to complain. Erica subsequently gave
Rachels number to Karen.
Rachel told the court that Karen had calledbefore Rachel
had submitted her complaintand they had compared notes for
two, two and a half hours. Subsequently, Rachel put in her
complaint. It would later transpire, after the case was concluded,
that a key factor in her decision to take a complaint against John
were those conversations shed had with Karen and Erica. Theyd
both talked of sixteen other women who had complained about
him. Those mythical sixteen, whose existence was denied in
court emphatically by Karen, had done their work again.
Psychiatrist Dr Peter Klug, whod been treating Rachel, said
he believed Rachel was upset by John because of the absence of
a sexual relationship, and an incident in which he had held her
like a child. Ominously for Rachel, he did not even mention
the breast massage.
All through the proceedings, John felt angry and frustrated
that he wasnt being allowed to stand up and state his case. Each
of the three women took the stand in turn, and were led in
evidence by the HCCCs barrister to talk about their background,
about the alleged treatment theyd received and their grievances,
before being cross-examined by Johns lawyer. When it finally
came time for Johns turn, however, his barrister John Foley only
asked him a few questions to confirm his details and sort out files,
statements and letters, then handed him straight over to crossexamination. John was astonished. Hed been waiting for the
opportunity to talk about his years of exploring alternative health
techniques, the many hundreds of courses hed studied and workshops hed attended, and his core beliefs about health and
healthcare hed outlined in his book, Love Your Disease.
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He wanted to talk about the difficulty of caring for patients

like Karen, Penny and Rachel, and the way hed been successful
with so many of the other women, and men, hed treated over
his 21 years as a doctor. Every time someone looked puzzled in
court about the way he cuddled some of his patients to regress
them to childhood and the HCCC lawyer suggested it was a
practice for his own sexual gratification, he yearned to be given
the time and space to outline the well-accepted principles of
body-centred psychotherapy, and try to explain what hed
been working to achieve with the women. The book had been
provided in evidence but he knew, with a sinking feeling, that
few in the courtroom had read it. He also wanted to be able to
challenge Karens assertions that theyd had oral sex, by asking
her whether or not he was circumcised. Again his lawyer had
nervously advised against it.
John knew that at the end of the hearing he was going to
be presenting statements of support from more than twenty referees, mostly from medical or para-medical people, including one
professor of psychiatry, several psychiatrists, medical specialists,
clinical psychologists and GPs. But, however well-intentioned,
he felt they would never be a substitute for being allowed to
speak up for himself. He pleaded with his lawyer to be given the
chance to speak and to elucidate his ideas of people having the
power to heal themselves and make themselves well. His lawyer
seemed uncertain and was vague about giving him some time
towards the end of the case.
That lawyer, John Foley, was a barrister extremely experienced in criminal law, even lecturing in it at university, but with
not much experience of the NSW Medical Tribunal. It wasnt
the basis of my practice, he says, ten years on from Johns case.
I didnt appear regularly there. The main part of my practice was
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in criminal law. Ive done many, many criminal trials. So going

into (the NSW Medical Tribunal) was exciting and different.
Looking back, it emerges that John and Foleysolicitor
Geoff Cahill died in January 2003 after a heart attackhad
completely different views of the same case, and thus of the kind
of defence that was required. John believed the Tribunal panel
needed to understand his methods and it would then be evident
that he had never sexualised treatment. Foley saw the task more
as about simply disproving the allegations of the sexual misconduct. Johns views on health were interesting, but that was more
of a distraction. Says Foley:
It got to the stage where the allegations of sexual misconduct
were one part of the case which, to my mind, were the serious
part. But he was so intent on proving he was right medically, and
the judgment I made at the time was that this wasnt about
medical theories, it was about sexual misconduct allegations.
If we got into the medical theory, itd be like the Oscar Wilde
trials, wed be there for the next twelve months. There was a
difference in the way we approached the case. As counsel, I wasnt
there to build up the medical theories. Thats why I didnt want to
lead the evidence. He wanted to get in there and talk about his
theories so we could have been there for three months Sometimes in court, you can be too right. You can win all the arguments,
and still lose the case, win the battles but lose the war.
In the setting of that conservative courtroom, with two

doctors sitting on the four-person panel that would decide Johns
fate, Foley surmised it could also prove suicidal to allow him to
start talking about how doctors werent the primary factor in the
health equation, and how sometimes they could even prolong
illness in their patients.
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At the time, it was a judgment call, made in good faith, but

others wonder if it was the right call, given the eventual
outcome. One lawyer much more experienced in conducting
NSW Medical Tribunal cases was surprised to hear of a doctor
accused of wrongdoing not being properly led in evidence. That,
he says, would have been the perfect time to present his case as
strongly as possible, unless there was good legal reason not to do
so. You are inviting yourself to be struck off if the presumption
is against you, says the lawyer, who does not want to be named
for legal reasons. In addition, it may not have been good advice
not to have attacked the position of the complainant. In general,
if you are appearing for a doctor who denies firmly that hes done
anything wrong, and the veracity of the complainant is an issue,
then that should be properly tested, he says.
Quite often a solicitor will engage a well-known criminal barrister specialised in the criminal area and thats the biggest mistake
you can make in administrative law cases. Theyre very different
and a lawyer needs to be experienced in them so he knows the
proper way to run a case, and knows the rules that apply. In criminal cases, youre innocent until youre proven guilty. Youre
allowed to deny everything and wait for the other side to put their
proof. In tribunals, you cant take the approach of denying it all
and waiting for others to prove it. The advice people should be
given is to be open and candid and fling themselves on the mercy
of the Tribunal.
But its one thing to be open and candid; its a different thing
entirely to lay down and die.
Without the chance to speak up for himself, and with

only the option of giving limited answers under the fire of crossexamination, John was feeling angry and restless. So when, on
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the afternoon of the fourth day of the case, the discussion

suddenly veered into the kind of territory that John had been
debating for the whole of his medical career, the equality of the
relationship between doctor and patient and the patients role to
assume responsibility for their own wellbeing, he felt his time
had finally arrived. The barrister for the HCCC, John Basten
QC, started asking him about the doctors relationship with his
patients. The court fell silent, sensing somehow that this could
be an important moment in the case. Basten looked severe; John,
for the first time, began to relax.
Basten asked, Do you agree that a medical practitioner has
the primary responsibility for the course of a relationship with a
patient?
John thought about it for a moment before replying, Absolutely not.
There was a gasp from somewhere on the public benches.
John ignored it and looked hard at Basten. The barrister appeared
to be framing the next question carefully. Who has the primary
responsibility? he asked, then added almost casually, Anyone?
John realised he was stepping into dangerous waters, that
he ran the risk of being completely misunderstood, but, at such a
critical juncture in this case, he felt strangely defiant. He wasnt
going to renounce his core beliefs now, after so many years of
putting them into practice. He took a deep breath. Nobody, he
replied. There is no primary responsibility.
There was a hint of a smile playing around Bastens mouth.
I suggest to you, he said, drawing himself up to his full height,
that it is quite inconsistent with your ethical responsibilities to
suggest that anyone other than you has that responsibility.
John was determined not to give in. I regard it as unethical
to assume that responsibility, he said, simply.
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They were nine words that were to cost him nearly everything.
And as the judge adjourned the case to take written
evidence before considering the verdict, John realised, with a
crushing sense of foreboding, that he still hadnt had his chance
to plead his case.
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T h e Ve r d i c t
For Tracey Jones, watching her husband, Dr John Harrison, return
home every day from the case, looking paler and more shattered
each time, was proving excruciating. However painful he and the
women testifying against him were finding the proceedings, she
was finding them almost unbearable. Grief-stricken at losing their
baby, her hair was still falling out, she was losing weight and she
felt exhausted all the time. Banned from entering the courtroom
since shed be giving evidence close to the end of the hearing, and
with John refusing to talk about the days eventshe was meticulously following the NSW Medical Tribunals instructions that
they should not discuss what was happeningshe felt isolated,
and absolutely powerless to do anything to help.
By the time the day eventually arrived for her to go into
court, she felt almost relieved. The really difficult thing about the
whole trial for me was, because I was supposedly going to be a
witness, I was not allowed to sit in during the trial, she says now.
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I couldnt hear any evidence of the complainants nor any

of Johns cross-examination. I couldnt be a party to any of it.
And because I was going to give evidence, John and I were
instructed not to talk to each other about anything during the
whole case. Being a witness, in a sense, was just the most
horrific experience.
I had no experience of being in a courtroom or of ever being a
witness, and I felt very nervous, anxious and numb. The barrister
didnt give me any indication about what I might be asked so
there was no preparation at all. In the week that I was supposed
to give evidence, I developed the most horrendous flu. I could
hardly speak and I had hallucinations in bed at night. For some
reason in court, my nose started running and my eyes streaming.
I wasnt actually crying, I just felt really embarrassed. With the
questions I was asked, I also felt unable to say anything in Johns
defence and I felt really bad about it. For years I havent been
able to say anything to John about that. When you are questioned
by the barrister, it just felt like whatever you say is wrong.
In fact, Tracey wasnt given much room to manoeuvre at all

by the barristers. She was quizzed about whether John had told
her Karens name, which might constitute a breach of confidentiality and medical ethics. She was asked about the position in
which John had massaged Karens abdomen. She was asked about
the letter from Karen alleging she was having an affair with John.
And she was asked about the phone calls that had come so
constantly to the house.
When, finally, she stepped out of the witness box, she felt
absolutely drained. As she started to walk towards John,
however, he motioned her away; they were still, strictly, not
allowed to speak to each other. Today he says,
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It was the hardest thing Ive ever had to do in my life. I think

that was the single worst moment of the whole case. Trace had
come in to give evidence, she was obviously really sick and
distressed that she felt she hadnt been able to help me much at
all with her testimony. And then here was I telling her to go away.
It felt like an utter betrayal.
Tracey walked through the court, past the gallery where the
women were sitting, and slumped onto a bench outside the
courtroom. She sat there for a few minutes, trying to gather her
thoughts. The whole thing felt so bizarre, she says. It was like I
was playing host to this elaborate party. All of these different
people had come along to be witnesses, they were all coming and
going, contacting us and then moving on. It all felt so surreal.
As she sat there, a woman approached her. Tracey lifted her
head at the sound of her voice. It was Rachel, asking if she could
borrow some money for the payphone nearby. Numb, Tracey
groped in her bag for her purse, took out some change and
handed it over. Rachel wandered off towards the phone. It was
like she was playing a game with me, she says. But I didnt know
the rules, or understand the aim. It was like she was coming over
to do some number on me, and I was just totally unaware of what
it was.
Other witnesses giving evidence as to Johns character also
felt as if they werent being allowed to help much. Colleague
Stephen Clifford was grilled on exactly what he meant by Johns
exceptional honesty, integrity and trust. Medical practitioner
Michael Cleary was quizzed as to what point he intended to
make when he told the tribunal that John thought of a patients
welfare to a degree that is rare in medical practice. Health care
consultant Maurie Stang was asked on what basis he made his
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statement, Dr Harrison is known for his professional integrity,

while giving evidence that Johns holistic approach was one with
a growing acceptance in NSW and internationally.
Prominent psychiatrist Julian Hafner was also happy to give
a statement to the Tribunal on Johns behalf. He was clear about
the nature of Johns practice, and the willingness of his patients
to try new approaches. In an interview after the case, he says he
had no hesitation about supplying a reference:
I thought that some of the things in Johns book were a bit overstated, but there was much in it that appealed to me and it made
a great deal of sense. But most importantly for me, John articulated his philosophy of treatment absolutely crystal clearly in that
book and anybody who approached him for treatment who had
read the book, and many of the people who sought him out in
the times when he was a very fashionable physician, sought him
out on the basis of having read his book or at least, having talked
about it with others that had read it. It wasnt as if he imposed
his treatment on anybodypeople came to him because they
knew of his approach. So although without any doubt his views
were radical, and would have been held in some disregard by
many orthodox physicians, his patients sought him out precisely
on the basis of those treatments. He never imposed his views on
anyone. People sought him out.
On day seven of the case, 29 September 1994, the judge

agreed the Tribunal members would listen to the tape with
the two transcriptsboth the correct one and the incorrect
onewhich constituted ten minutes of the 30 hours of tapes
selected and transcribed by the HCCC and withheld from the
defence. He also said they would read the written submissions
and would have a look at some parts of the books John said
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were relevant to his practice. The court was then adjourned.

It was a welcome break for everyone. John had become
extremely sick by the end of the hearing, and was later diagnosed
with double pneumonia. One of his lungs had collapsed, his
blood pressure was found to have soared and hed developed
irritable bowel syndrome. If there was ever better proof of
his theories about physical health being a reflection of ones
emotional and psychological state, no-one could possibly have
imagined it.
Hed started out in the Tribunal convinced hed win. But
every day, his confidence took another battering. Hed said to
me before it started that when the evidence came out, hed be
okay, says close friend John Emery.
But then I just watched him crumble as he took body blow after
body blow and discovered what he was up against. He didnt seem
to comprehend that, if you challenge the system, the system will
get you any way it can. And its no use fighting clean if others
fight dirty. He had a great intellect and could synthesise stuff very
quickly, but there was a corresponding naivety there. Hed gone
into the case like it was all a big debate. You presented your case,
they presented theirs and whoever had the best one, won. So he
never really looked closely at what he was saying, he never
worked out a strategy. He was just ruthlessly honest in everything
he said, whether or not it would help and at times when others
might have judged it wise to have just shut up. But he didnt
know any other way.
Another friend, health actuary Peter Carroll, sat through

the whole case, every day feeling more and more amazed at the
turn it was taking. It was Alice in Wonderland stuff, he says,
thats the best way to describe it. I couldnt believe anybody with
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any conscience would put any credibility on Karen. You just had
to observe her to see she was profoundly ill. I suppose it had a
real kangaroo court quality about it.
After sitting in court all day, every day, John was exhausted
and felt sure the case was going against him. His legal team,
however, was determinedly upbeat. They wouldnt hang a dog
on that evidence, said Geoff Cahill. Cheer up. Well be all
right.
John went over and over the paperwork. He was sure the
evidence was compellingly on his side. Karen had rambled her
way through her appearance and was quite obviously severely
disturbed. Many times, she was caught lying in her evidence
under oath. But he wondered whether that would be enough.
He hadnt been able to present all the phone calls and written
threats as hed wanted to, and he hadnt had a chance to talk
about how distressing theyd been for himself and his family, but
he believed the Tribunal panel would see that for themselves.
Often in court, hed notice the judges eyes shuttingand
subsequently one of the panel confessed theyd frequently had
to nudge him to keep him awakebut that was only a minor
irritation.
The major problem, however, was the Tribunal itself. There
were the people appointed to judge him who seemed to have
little understanding of his practice and the fact hed never
worked as a GP but, more importantly, there was the way it was
set up to run.
In a court in which the rules of evidence do not apply, no
proof is necessary to make a case successful. The Tribunal, for
instance, seemed to be relying on two pieces of hearsay evidence
alone to confirm that Karen had been attacked by John. One
was the evidence of the bruising to the face given by Karens
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friend, whod also said Karen was in perfect healtha ludicrous

proposition by anyones reckoning that should surely have
thrown into question her contention that she knew Karen well.
Besides, as the diagnostical manual said, Borderlines are often
self-mutilating. Indeed, John had said before that Karens face,
upper arms and back were covered with the scars of self-abuse.
The second was Quadrios report to the hearing which said that
Karen now had chronic abdominal pain, a feature that had been
greatly exacerbated by the assault on her and by her gradual realisation of the degree to which she had entered into an abusive
relationship. Abdominal pain had been one of the reasons that
Karen had come to see John in the first place, however, which
was evident in Johns patient notes. Indeed, the method he
found the most effective for treating that pain had been what
Karen was now claiming had constituted sexual abuse.
Further in that report, Quadrio had said all Karens symptoms indicated a variety of post-traumatic stress disorder, where
the specific stressor is a rape or sexual assault. It is characterised
by depression, anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia, poor concentration, flashbacks, difficulties with intimate relationships,
fearfulness and inability to trust. John would have said all these
were already features of Karens behaviour when she first sought
his help and, moreover, were pretty much the defining characteristics of a Borderline anyway.
A reliance on hearsay is always going to be a fraught issue.
When Karen had first gone to the police about the alleged
assault, she said they would not take up her case, as it would be
her word against that of a doctors. Yet if the attack had been as
brutal as shed described it, surely her injuries alone would have
been enough for the police to have taken action, or at least
referred her to their own medical examiner? Wouldnt she have
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doctors certificates or other witnesses to attest to her having

been beaten to a pulp? It was an obvious question to be asked
in court, but no-one raised it and when the issue was raised later
in Johns rebuttal, it was ignored.
On the issue of the other women, John felt less certain. The
fact that Penny and Rachel had waited so many years before
complaining, and then, in any case, had returned to him for
treatment, he felt certain would go against them. Also, there was
the inference that Penny had transferred some of her anger
against her abusive father onto him, and the frank admission
from Rachel that shed been disappointed when hed rebuffed
her sexual overtures. Both women were adamant hed molested
them sexually, but John went over and over their cases in his
mind. Was there any chance at all that any of his treatment had
been inappropriate? Could he remember any moment at which
any of the women had indicated theyd felt uncomfortable with
his work? Had he completely misjudged himself and them? Night
after night, he tossed and turned. Having gone through so much
self-analysis himself while training to be a therapist, he left no
dark stone unturned in his mind. But at the end of it, he still
believed hed done the best he could in exceedingly difficult
circumstances. He may not have done everything perfectly, but
hed done it to the best of his ability.
The night before the determination was due, John sat up
late. He was drafting press releases, one in the event of his being
cleared, and ten in case the charges were found proven. With
the need to put his case still burning inside him, he thought they
might give him one last way of explaining publicly what had
happenedand what hadntin his rooms. Hed imagined the
best way to do it, were he found guilty, was to give each member
of the press likely to be there a different angle on the same story.
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It seemed simple to him. He still didnt realise that, were the

case to go against him, the media would be interested in only
one possible angle: that of a high-profile alternative doctor being
struck off for sexual misconduct.
Undeterred, however, he sat up as the dawn approached,
doggedly drafting and redrafting. Dr John Harrison wishes to
thank the Medical Tribunal of NSW for having the courage and
insight to make a decision which means the public have the
right to attend a practitioner of their choice, and the right to
decide to undergo treatments of their choice he wrote at the
beginning of his first release. And at the start of the batch of the
second lot, he wrote, The Medical Tribunal of NSW has ruled
that Dr Harrison is practising in a way which is disapproved of
by some other doctors
He wanted to believe his lawyers, but feared the worst.
Neither he nor Tracey could sleep that night anyway.
The morning of the verdict, Friday 9 December 1994,
dawned warm and sunny. As John pushed his way through the
throng of TV, radio and newspaper reporters, however, he shivered involuntarily. He had simply no idea what was going to
happen. But if we lose, he said to one of the lawyers, we will
appeal, wont we? Of course, came the reply. John showed him
the press releases, and the lawyer nodded absent-mindedly. His
attention was elsewhere.
The courtroom was packed with journalists and supporters
from both sides. John took up his usual position at the front of
the room, this time with Tracey alongside him, and waited for
the Tribunal members to file in. As they walked in, one by one,
Johns heart sank; they were each steadfastly refusing to meet his
eyes. The three women, Karen, Penny and Rachel, were sitting
at the back of the court, higher up. Merrilyn Walton was closer
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to the front. John tried to smile reassuringly at Tracey, but his

face felt frozen.
Judge John Smyth stood up and his clerk distributed sheaves
of paper bearing the written determination. He read out parts,
and skipped others. Through his daze, one phrase kept bouncing
back at John. The practitioner was at all relevant times a general
practitioner, Judge Smyth said over and over again. John wanted
to shout, No! No! Thats the whole point! I never have been!
but instead stood silently. He felt like a condemned man and this
was the final nail in the coffinthey had decided to view his
actions as if he had been a normal GP, not a therapist with
radical but widely known and respected methods.
The Tribunal had found Karens case against him, of sexual
misconduct and physical assault, proven, and that it constituted
professional misconduct of the most serious kind. Although her
evidence was uncorroborated, Judge Smyth said the tape had
made it clear there was a sexual component to their relationship, as well as the affectionate tone of the letters, which hed
usually signed off with the fateful words, Lots of love John.
As for Penny, whom the tribunal had found the least psychiatrically disturbed of all the patients, the complaints that hed
inappropriately touched her and asked her to hold his penis were
judged to be true.
Only Rachels complaint was dismissed. The Tribunal had
found, because shed fallen in love with John, that it was her
perception of what had happened rather than what in fact
happened which distressed her.
But quite apart from these charges, Johns words about his
philosophy of health care came back to bite him. Hed been
asked about accepting responsibility for his patients wellbeing,
and had stuck to his guns and insisted it was up to them to take
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the primary responsibility for their own health. He knew it

wasnt the answer the Tribunal had been waiting for, but to hell
with it. That moment had felt like some kind of medieval inquisition where he was being asked to renounce his core beliefs
about health, and instead he chose to take a stand. In retrospect,
it was admirable, but it also meant if he ever had a chance of
reprieve, it was now gone.
The Tribunal is also deeply concerned about the respondents refusal to accept any responsibility about the effects of his
treatment on his patients, said Judge Smyth, and continued:
This refusal is incompatible with the duty of a Physician and
further demonstrates, in the opinion of the Tribunal, the unfitness of the respondent to remain as a Registered Medical
Practitioner.
The profession is a learned and honourable profession and
people who wish to be part of it must comply with the standards
required of its members; there can be no room in that profession for a practitioner who has conducted himself, as this
Tribunal is satisfied the respondent did, in relation to Patient A
and Patient C.
It is the Tribunals considered decision that the only course
open to it, being satisfied as it is as to his conduct, is to order the
removal of his name from the Register of Medical Practitioners
and this it so orders as from today.
John felt himself swaying on his feet, but concentrated on

his breathing. His barristers assistant began sobbing softly. It
looked as if the judge was close to the end. And so, it seemed,
was John.
The Tribunal has given consideration as to whether or
not it should fix a period before the expiration of which the
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respondent would be permitted from applying for readmission to

the Register, the judge said. In this Tribunals view it is highly
unlikely that the respondent could ever be in a position where
he could be readmitted to the practice of medicine
John felt as if hed been kicked in the stomach. He was
being struck off for life.
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On the same day that Dr John Harrison was being given his life
sentence at the NSW Medical Tribunal, another doctor was also
hearing the verdict in his case. Dr T. P. Davis, a 63-year-old GP
from Sydneys eastern suburbs, had been found to have given four
women the HIV virus at his surgery. As a result, an eighteenyear-old woman hed treated was gravely ill, a 75-year-old
grandmother had since died, an 81-year-old woman was suffering from dementia, and a heartbroken 31-year-old mother of two
was taking legal action against him.
A number of onlookers expected Davis to be struck off for
life, too. Instead, he wasnt struck off for any period at all. He
was simply reprimanded.
Sometimes, it was hard to fathom the workings of the
Tribunal. The year after Johns case, a GP had grabbed his wife
by the hair, held her head back with a bowie knife against her
throat, then screwed her nightdress around her neck, lifted his
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ten-year-old son off the ground with both hands around his
throat, and threatened to kill them both. Later, he threw his son
to the floor and kicked him, held a knife to the small boys throat
and said he was going to kill him, punched his wife, pointed a
rifle at her head, and then shot her in the upper arm. Dr James
Woolcock was sent by the Supreme Court to jail for four years.
When he later appeared before the Tribunal, however, he
received a reprimand, was told to have some supervision when
he continued to work and to attend a psychiatrist on a fourmonthly basis.
John was bitter when he compared his sentence to those
received by others. Sometimes I think I would have been better
off killing someone, he says, than trying to treat them.
That morning, when he walked wearily out of the courtroom, his barrister walking briskly beside him, he felt thoroughly
crushed. Tracey stood up immediately and went to join him. His
appearance shocked her. I was walking behind John and thinking how slumped his body was and how totally beaten he was,
she says today. It was awful. The hostility towards us
As they passed through the courtroom doors, there was a
tut-tutting sound behind them. Tracey wheeled around to see
Karen smiling and clicking her tongue in disapproval just behind
her. But as we walked out of the court, my most vivid memory
was passing Merrilyn Walton, and just her body language was
one of total contempt for me, says Tracey. Then I saw Karen. I
never kept a strong image of what she looked like in my head
because I never wanted to. But when I looked at her, she was
hissing at John. I felt then a real sense of my need to protect
John.
As the couple emerged into the sunshine, John caught sight
of a notice pinned to the outside wall of the court. In huge
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letters, it read: HARRISON HEADED FOR LONG BAY GAOL. LET HIM
TRY HIS SEX THERAPY ON THE INMATES OF LONG BAY.
His solicitor immediately ripped the poster from the courtroom wall, while a crowd of journalists surged forward and
surrounded John, jostling Tracey out of the way. John opened his
file to take out the press releases. His solicitor put his hand on
his arm. Hand those out and you can kiss goodbye to any
appeal, he said tersely. It was to be another of Johns greatest
regrets that he listened and once again, said nothing in his own
defence. Instead, he gazed mutely at the 30-odd journalists,
found Tracey in the crowd, and then walked off with her down
the long path leading from the court to the street beyond, the
media pursuing them all the way.
Later, the solicitor phoned to say an appeal wasnt possible.
The only appeal that can possibly be made against a decision by
the NSW Medical Tribunal is one to the Supreme Court on a
point of law. No re-hearing of the case is permitted by the legislation. John was told he simply didnt have the technical grounds
for a further actionalthough, if hed have known at the time
about the discussions before the case between three of the
complainants, it might have been a different story entirely.
The President of the Australian Medical Association at the
time, Bruce Shepherd, isnt surprised at how unfair many believe
the Tribunal is. A long-time critic, he feels it is terribly unjust. Its
more like a star chamber than any quasi-judicial situation, he says
today. Its a kangaroo court. And of the HCCC and its methods,
hes even more disparaging. Whereas the equivalent system in
Victoria sets out to help doctors, he believes, the NSW HCCC
would encircle people and they wouldnt even know they were
being investigated. They were obsessed with catching doctors. I
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have no problem with catching bad doctorsthat was always my

job, toobut the problem is the good ones get caught in the nets.
Medical practitioners in NSW are now the most regulated professionals in the world. Theres litigation, the NSW Medical Board,
the HCCC, our own colleges and our colleagues. It can render
some doctors scared to even practise. Theyre too scared to take
responsibility. And theres a limit to the load you can put on
someones shoulders before they stop performing.
Theres also that danger of coming across those who have a

different understanding of methods of alternative practitioners,
particularly when theyre in a position of judging those who hold
such views. Dr Phillip Knowles, whod been one of the fourperson panel of the Tribunal for the case, says today he was in
no doubt that John should be struck off. He says it was evident
that John had a completely different set of ethical beliefs to the
conventional Judeo-Christian framework. What the JudeoChristian system considered to be unethical and construed as
misconduct was, in his view, part of the essential therapy to
release people from past habits of the mind which were highly
destructive and life-shortening patterns of behaviour, says
Knowles.
Hed written several books which were immensely popular
which said in detail how he would implement that. We heard
from several complainants how he sought to release energy blocks
through fairly dramatic effects through expressions of emotion
and through their sexuality, which in his view was part of the
ethical system of the Tantric. His complainants would certainly
say that he thought it was okay for doctors to have sex with their
patients to release their blockages.
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Knowles said he was left in little doubt that John routinely

had sex with his patients, believing it would help them, despite
the fact that none of the three women who complained against
John said they had ever had sexual intercourse with himKaren
had insisted they hadnt in court, despite having accused him
earlier of rapenor, they said, had he ever suggested sex with
them. Far from recommending sex with patients, John had
always vehemently denied sexualising treatment.
HCCC Commissioner Merrilyn Walton, however, was also
saying that John believed sexual contact with patients helped
their therapy. These doctors often have predatory or antisocial
characteristics but some doctors advocating this practice are
charismatic and are even able to convince other doctors and
patients to promote their methods, she wrote in her book, The
Trouble With Medicine, clearly referring to John.
Despite Knowles view of Johns work, even he felt that the
Tribunal of which he was often a part, didnt function terribly
fairly. I would have to say, the Federal system has checks and
balances of procedural fairness which didnt appear to exist in
the NSW Medical Tribunal, with its suspension of the rules of
evidence, he says. What it essentially means is that the patients
word is taken to be true, no matter what. So it is possible to be
set up.
When asked if this does indeed happen, he says,
Not very often. Thankfully they say the system operates, most
members of the Medical Tribunal are able to sort them out. But it
takes a long time. In fact, the AMA has been complaining for a
generation about the way the Medical Board almost has an attitude of being guilty until proved innocent which turns the
ancient tradition of law on its head. That was particularly the
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case with Merrilyn Walton at the head of the HCCC I have

seen many doctors quite destroyed by the fact that errors of
human judgment are never accepted. Either you are absolutely
perfect, or youre deemed a criminal.
Some point to all the medical luminaries over the years

whove been falsely accused of misdeeds, banned from practising, run out of town, even jailed for practising different methods,
claiming advances in our understanding of medicineor simply
refusing to buckle down under the system. Dr Eddie Price,
currently working in occupational medicine after a spell as a
consultant to the Federal Health Minister, quotes legends like
Louis Pasteur, who discovered germs as the base of disease; Ignaz
Philipp Semmelweis, the champion of prophylactic handwashings in the pre-bacteriological era; and William Reich, the man
associated with orgone energy, who ended up dying in prison
for refusing to recant his beliefs.
John Harrison was always a brilliant mind, says Price. And
he saw himself as being ostracised. During the Medical Tribunal,
I could see what he meant. He was always willing to act on new
ideas, even if they were misunderstood by others. It was like he
was being slapped in the face by people who didnt like him
appearing as a guru.
Petrea King also felt great sympathy for Johns plight. I was
really saddened when things came unstuck for him, she says. Its
There but for the grace of God for so many who are innovative in whatever field. If youre going to stick up from the crowd,
youre going to get your head chopped off.
But that day, when John and Tracey arrived home, they
closed all the blinds and sat silently in the lounge room. Neither
of them could really take in what had happened. Sometimes
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I wonder if Ill ever get over it, says John now. If Ill ever stop
being angry. Tracey felt similarly. The verdict was just a total
shock, she says. It left me in total shock for years. Id had faith
in the justice system. I thought it would protect us. I couldnt
believe wed been let down so badly.
They stayed at home that evening and all the weekend.
John tried to tune out by watching cricket on TV. In what
seemed like every commercial break, however, he was horrified
to see a promo for Mondays A Current Affair: an exclusive interview with Penny and Rachel. Eventually, he switched off the TV
in despair. The pair later said theyd been paid $5000 each for
the appearance, although Rachel had tried to bargain them up
to $10 000 apiece. Her bargaining position hadnt been helped,
however, by the fact that her complaint had been dismissed.
Karen had refused to take part despite, she claimed, being offered
$50 000 for her participation.
Johns family were also shocked by the outcome of the court
case. Johns mum Maxime was aghast. It broke his heart and my
heart and everyone elses heart, she says, tears filling her eyes at
the memory of the day the verdict came through. I thought hed
never recover. I dont know that he ever will. Hes a man who
needs to do things for people. Not being allowed to its been
so difficult for him. He helped so many people, and now hes
suffered because of that. Its a lifetime sentence.
His sister Robyn had been aware that hed had problems
with a difficult patient, especially after shed taken Karens
phone calls, but believed the Tribunal would put a neat end to
them.
We all had faith in that process. I think we thought it would be a
vehicle for resolving this situation in a way that would be
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explainable and understandable and it would all go away. But it

was a poisonous process, it poisoned his life.
You know, the only thing he ever said to me about the Tribunal
was that he and Tracey werent allowed to discuss anything about
it. So they didnt! Thats what narks me so much. I think there
was so much perversion of the process outside, and yet this person
who had so much to lose inside was so trusting of the process that
he actually did what they told him to do. He honoured that
process and then it was so perverted. I found that so hard to
swallow.
He had this real outpouring of grief and anger. There was no
doubt in my mind about Johns behaviour. I know him to be
totally incapable of taking advantage of a patient. Hes handled
thousands of people. I know John would never make use of a
patient for his own ends, its just an impossibility. Ive never
trusted the legal system since. There were so many people whove
been through the same process as he whove ended up killing
themselves. He could have done that. The pressure that was put
on him was incredible.
Vicki, whod been taking her final exams to become a

lawyer at the timeand who now, ironically, works for plaintiffs
in medical negligence caseswas immensely saddened. She still
feels bad that she was unable to advise him much during his
hearing as she was working so hard at her course while it was
happening. In retrospect, she sees both John and Tracey as
extremely unworldly about the legal world. Both seemed to have
this blind faith that justice would prevail, so then they tended
not to do anything politically, says Vicki. Im sure that goes for
lots of people. They think the law is about justice but that has
nothing to do with it. She also feels angry there was no access-
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ible appeals process for John. Its a ridiculous power to be able to

take away someones licence. There definitely should be some
appeals process.
The hardest rejection to bear, though, was from a few
people close to Tracey who called her with the expectation that
shed now be leaving John, and moving out of the family home.
She was shocked at the time, and even today shes still trying to
come to terms with that reaction.
Well, it was hard for them. But theyd never come to our house
or offered their support. My usual demeanour at that stage was,
like I was hosting a party and anyone who came along I was happy
to see. I didnt want to burden people with how I really was, so I
would just say Im fine. Im managing; Im coping. So perhaps
I didnt really let some people support me in that way. Im sure
thats what theyd say, and you really have to go through something like this to have any understanding of it. I found I had to
choose those people who were on Johns side. I had no emotional
space for anyone who would question Johns innocence or insist
on us pleading his case before they made up their minds.
When youre actually in shock, you dont realise it until you
start to come out of it. So its like youre living this intense life.
Life wasnt normal, it was different, I was different, I was fearful.
I felt like I had this terrible secret that I couldnt share with
anybody. The whole process made me feel much more not like
me. I lost myself, somehow. I was terribly hurt. And, somehow, I
was unable to share it with John. He was going through his own
pain, and didnt have enough reserves to be supportive of me.
The great difficulty is when both of you are traumatised and
dealing with very difficult emotions, it is almost impossible to
rely on each other for support. I think what Ive learnt is that
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some things you just cant share. With some things, you have to
heal yourself.
Some friends were wonderful; they rallied around the

couple, called round, helped with Matthew, invited them over
to their homes. Some friends deserted them completely. That
was much harder to cope with. One close friend cut off all
contact with John during the proceedings, and hes never heard
from her since. Via other friends, he heard that she disapproved
of his conduct. Another, asked to write him a reference, wrote
one so damning, he was shocked to the core. Others, he believes,
found it all too difficult. Some just disappeared and never called
to say, Hang on in there or anything like that, says John. But
I do understand after this event in my life that one needs to
move on from friends in life. You cant keep all of them along
the whole journey, it seems.
I guess some people just cant cope and dont know how to
behave and dont know what to say. I do still feel sad that some
people never came through for us. But when something like this
happens, you tend to start mixing only with other people whove
been through similar things, people wholl understand.
He was grateful, though, for the dozens of letters that started
pouring in, from shocked patients, ex-patients and people whod
been watching on the sidelines, planning to consult with him
one day. Some were just a few lines saying how sorry they were
that he was no longer practising. Some were outraged on his
behalf. Some were long, long tracts about what a difference he
and his book had made to peoples health and perception of life,
and talking with gratitude of his contribution.
But the nightmare still wasnt over. Nine months later, in
November 1995, John received a letter that he was being
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pursued for damages by Karen in the Supreme Court. As he read

the papers from solicitors Cashman and Partners, he become
more and more enraged. Karen was suing him for injuries including post-traumatic stress disorder, rape-trauma syndrome,
somatisation disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder. She
was claiming the reimbursement of the cost of all treatments
from John, plus the cost of treatment by twelve other practitioners, including Quadrio, plus two lots of treatment in hospitals.
Then there were also the subsequent costs of medication, a
machine to give relief for back pain, interest on expenses, the
loss of two years salary and superannuation, the cost of past care
by relatives, and future economic loss. None of the twelve practitioners approachedapart from Quadriowould make any
adverse comment about Johns treatment of Karen to the court.
Quadrios own report, however, estimated that Karen would
need therapy four times a week for the next five years, at a total
cost of $155 200. She recommended Karen seek treatment from
a female psychiatrist. Karen didnt, though, engage her services.
Then there was $8487 worth of physiotherapy needed, $10 912
of Prozac, $1030 of Valium, and $2061 of Panadeine Forte.
Quadrios recommendations of Valium and Prozac for Karen
particularly surprised John, having become such an expert in the
treatment of Borderlines. The latest study by several prominent
Australian psychiatrists had recommended against prescribing
Valium to people suffering from this disorder as it had the effect
of worsening the patients agitation. In addition, many believed
Prozac, a drug which has been linked with suicide attempts in
some people, could be particularly dangerous for someone with a
disorder in which one in ten sufferers are known to end up
killing themselves. Nevertheless, the final grand sum Karen was
claiming from John was $379 641.
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Once again, John went looking for a lawyer to give him

advice. The advice he finally got was unequivocal: try to settle it
with her. Offer her $8000that should do it, his lawyer told
him. The alternative? The lawyer estimated that it would cost
around $200 000 to fight the case and, if John lost, hed be
paying all costs plus the claim shed made. It could shade
$1 million. John knew he couldnt face going through another
court case, with the risk of such a crushing outcome. It hurt him
to say it, but he did, Go ahead, he told the lawyer. Give her
the money. But it was to no avail. The lawyer came back a day
later to say Karen was insisting on $80 000, at least. John sat at
the kitchen table that afternoon, with his head in his hands.
Sure, they could sell the house to raise the money, but it would
open the doors for every single person hed ever treated to ask
for money, too. What about Penny? Rachel? The future suddenly
looked bleak.
And then John had an idea. That evening, when Tracey
arrived home from work, he put his arm around her. Hey, Trace,
he said, lets just get away from all this.
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21
Flight
Sitting in the warm Spanish sunshine, on the steps of a mansion
in the seaside town of Calafell, 50 km outside Barcelona, John
Harrison and his wife Tracey relaxed for the first time. One of
Johns patients, a man whod been given three months to live
after being diagnosed with melanoma and who was subsequently
to live for another ten years, had lent them his holiday home on
the Costa Dorada. There, theyd decided to take a break and take
stock.
It had been three months since theyd rushed through the
sale of their house in November 1995 for a knockdown price, in
order to be able to cash up quickly and get out of Australia. From
there, theyd travelled over to Singapore, then to the US to stay
with Ann, the mother of Johns son David. Finally, theyd made
it to Europe, away from everyone and everything they knew.
The feeling was one of overwhelming relief for them both.
Tracey was keen to get away, says John. She was still upset
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about the case, and was worried about Matties safety. She didnt
feel safe either. Some of her friends were finding it difficult to
support her. She felt she couldnt cope. Neither of us had had
anything like this happen to us before. We had to get away.
The Spanish mansion provided a welcome refuge. They
took long walks with Matthew on the seafront. They climbed
the hill to explore the medieval castle looking down over the
town. They borrowed their friends car to drive around the
region. And they talked about their future, and what it might
bring.
Tracey was glad, in some ways, to have left Australia, but
she still found it a wrench. She says,
The only way we felt we could manage this threat to us was to
leave the country. I really dont think we would have survived as
a family if we hadnt. And that was my main intention: to survive
as a family.
I felt very much as though, on a quiet stroll through the countryside one day, wed become aware of a rumbling sound growing
louder and louder until finally we realised a flash flood was upon
us and we had to run for our lives. We ran until we were swept
away by the torrents of water, desperately trying to keep ourselves
afloat. Then we were carried along by something that had a life of
its own, which we had no control over. Wed successfully ridden
out the threat to our lives and were hanging in there, waiting for
our chance to draw breath again. It felt like wed survived and
taken refuge in a new land to recover from our wounds.
But still I found it very difficult to manage. My identity was
very much connected to Sydney. I grew up in Sydney, Sydney was
my home town and to leave in such a wayI never thought Id
ever leave Sydney. Id lived by beaches all my life, I was always by
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the water, Id surfed. Other things were important to me in

Sydney, too, like my grandmother, my friends, my family, my
water polo.
John was still burning with anger and frustration over the
NSW Medical Tribunal case and decided he wanted to write a
book about it. Tracey encouraged him, feeling it might prove
cathartic, a way of recovering from the trauma of the time.
While Tracey and Matthew stayed on in Spain, John flew over
to the UK to another friends flat in Londons Earls Court to
make a start on the book.
That friend, Ian Austen, was shocked at his appearance.
He was a man whod had the shit kicked out of him. Even more
scary was seeing Tracey and Matt afterwards. Every structure in
their life had been taken away. It wasnt just the case itself, it was
friendships that had gone, family members who were saying
things like, Where theres smoke, theres fire. John had really
changed, too. He was hunched, older, thinner and the joy had
left him. His mirth had gone. Hes by nature a happy spirit. Any
other person whod gone through this might have gone under, to
the point of taking their own life. But he didnt. Ive seen him in
pain, but hes never allowed his optimism to be quashed.
As he settled in and we talked, then the rage came. He was
full of rage. It wasnt so much at the patients, but at the society
which he felt had let him down, had let this happen. He had
glimpsed the dark heart of society, the malevolence. I could see
him working through the issues and eventually the pain became
more of a chronic ache. It was always thereand still is.
A few weeks later Austen, whod helped him that one time
with Karen and whod been working in London as a therapist
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along the same philosophical lines as in Johns Love Your Disease,

quit his therapy practice. Hed sensed that the new mood of
political correctness was making psychotherapy simply too
dangerous to perform, and took Johns experience as a warning.
Today, he still feels thats a tremendous loss for everyone.
Its patently obvious that therapy needs to be radical, it needs to
be something that sets the cats among the pigeons of ego. But
now therapy has become just another ego device. Instead of being
about a vertical transformation, its about a horizontal change.
Its about just moving the furniture around in the room and
making the room look prettier. Its just cosmetic. I pretty well
dropped it within a month of hearing Johns story.
Meanwhile, still worried about Karens threats against the

family, John called the British immigration service and received
an undertaking that they would let him know if she entered the
country. On 4 July 1996, Karen was awarded $450 027, indexed
to inflation.
Bizarrely, the reasons for the decision werent even released
until more than two years later, on 2 September 1998.
But back then in the UK, Tracey and Matthew came over
to join John, and she found work in a cranial osteopathy clinic
in Bayswater in central London. Later, she worked in a private
clinic on Londons famed Harley Street, and as a volunteer at
the Osteopathic Centre for Children. But money was still tight.
Theyd left Australia with $180 000, but it was rapidly being
worn down by exchange rates and the cost of living in England.
John had hoped hed be able to work again as a doctor in Britain,
as he had before, since hed previously been registered there as a
medical practitioner. The HCCC, however, had written to the
British General Medical Council informing them of the NSW
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Medical Tribunals decision. John went before a hearing of the

GMC in February 1996 to ask them for permission to practise in
the UK, arguing that hed done nothing wrong and that the
complaints process in NSW was demonstrably unfair. They
expressed sympathy, but said they could not admit him back onto
the register.
When youre a doctor but you cant work as a doctor, theres
not a lot you can do, says John. You dont have any other
skills Austen also points to the problem of John having no
network of contacts in the UK to draw on. So John continued
to write his book, and to take care of Matthew, while Tracey
worked. When he finally finished the book, many of the friends
he showed it to confessed they were unable to read it. It was just
too painful. Its an outpouring of grief and anger, but I couldnt
read much of it, says his sister Robyn. But it was good that he
did it, I think it gave him an avenue to express his thoughts.
Two years later, the family moved out of Ians place, and Ian
came with them to move into a house in Chiswick, in west
London. Later, they all went to an apartment in Grove Park.
Then their money ran out. John found out later that hed been
bankrupted in his absence back in Australia
A friend in Dublin offered John a job working with a mobile
phone sales company. He took it and travelled to Ireland each
week, flying back to Tracey and Matthew at weekends. After
eighteen months, he grew tired of being away from home so
much, and when the owner offered him the chance to set up
another branch of the business in London, John eagerly agreed.
After a few months, however, it was closed down because of legal
action by a competitor. Broke and at rock bottom, Tracey and
Matthew moved into a room at a backpacker hostel in London
close to Matthews school, while John slept on the floor of the
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medical clinic Ian Austen was now running as an administrator.

It was pretty down-and-out stuff, says John today. We stored all
our stuff in a garage which leaked, and half of it was ruined. At
the same time I never tired of being in Europe, whatever our
circumstances. I found the culture absorbing and I took a lot of
pleasure in the level of public debate about health and politics.
Then a friend of Austens introduced him to a Swiss entrepreneur who was setting up a shirt business. John, Austen and
his brother David Austen all started working for him, the two
brothers making shirts in Vietnam. John also trained as a coffee
taster and became a member of the European Coffee Trades
Federation, whilst working with the Swiss company importing
coffee from Vietnam. With the injection of cash, he moved the
family to East Sussex, to a large house in the little country village
of Hamsey, near Brighton, close to a wood filled with badgers,
moles, pheasants and foxes. It was an idyllic time. I think then
he was at his happiest, says Austen.
The Swiss businessman even offered to pay out Johns bankruptcy, saying it was holding John back in the amount of
responsibility he could shoulder in the business. John made a few
inquiries; the solicitors said theyd only even consider negotiating a settlement figure if $200 000 was deposited in their bank
account. He dropped the idea.
Tracey commuted to London to work, and Matthew went
to the local school. In the backyard, there was a soccer pitch
where he and all his mates played games. John worked all day at
home with the Swiss coffee company and the Irish mobile phone
company, and walked Matthew home from school each day.
After five and a half years in England, however, Tracey was
yearning to return to Australia. Matthew was growing up, and
she wanted him to be around the rest of his extended family, to
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know his grandparents, his many aunts and uncles and all his
cousins.
For all the time Tracey had been overseas, she and Matthew
returned every year to visit her family. Johns mum made sure
she visited them every year, whatever country they happened to
be in.
When work again folded for John after a row with his
employer, they decided to go to Singapore, where another old
friend employed him in his computing software company. They
then teamed up to trade Far Eastern futures. The family ended
up staying eighteen months.
Tracey would dearly have loved to have returned to Sydney
in time to watch the 2000 Olympics, the first ever at which
womens water polo was an official event as the result of a long
campaign by her mother, Pat. But when the time came, she just
couldnt do it. The Australian women ended up winning gold.
Id represented Australia in water polo and would have loved to
have been there, she says. But when the opportunity arose to
come back, I preferred to stay where I was in Singapore. I didnt
feel like I could celebrate, I didnt think I could be part of that
celebration. I was still hurting too much.
My mother had campaigned to get womens water polo into
the Olympics and I guess I felt a deep sense of shamethat Id
brought shame on my family. I didnt know how theyd coped.
So I couldnt join in.
In Singapore, John also started work on a website setting
out all his ideas on health, refining his theories from Love Your
Disease, extending them and reorganising them. He then started
writing them out in book form. Hed never lost his passion about
health, nor his conviction that people hold the key to their own
wellbeing. Although it had cost him so dearly in his personal
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and professional life, he couldnt resist the subject once more.

And as he started writing, he felt something deep inside stir. This
book, he felt, could be the fitting sequel to his first, a practical
guide to helping people to take control of their own wellbeing.
Highway to Health, he wrote firmly on the title page.
Tracey and Matthew set off for Australia first, in January
2001, while John stayed on in Singapore to continue writing.
Once hed started, he found he just couldnt stop. The old
passion came flooding back to him, the excitement at the
prospect of people reclaiming responsibility for their own health,
the idea of a health system built on wellness rather than sickness. It was the same kind of thrill hed felt as he was drawing
together his thoughts for his first book. The difference was now
that hed had years to reflect on his early work, and a great deal
more experience in how people thought, worked and acted out
their pathologies. Hed seen the dark side of lifeand now he
was determined to draw the light from it. In once again setting
out to heal others, he knew hed be kick-starting the process of
healing himself.
It was two months before he was able to tear himself away
from his book to join Tracey and Matthew. He arrived back in
Sydney in March 2001.
It was his first time back in Australia for seven years. Tracey
had been staying at her mothers house, so John stayed one night
and then they looked for a place of their own. A friend told them
about a boatshed for rent on the water in Sydneys south so, flat
broke, they took out a lease. They lived there for six months.
His old mate John Emery remembers it well.
This boatshed was right on the water, and the water would come
up through the floorboards every time the tide came in. Winter
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in a boatshed! But even when he was on the bones of his arse,

absolutely rock bottom, hell always find something to be enthusiastic about.
Hed say, God! Look at this! We just step outside and heres
the bay! Isnt it so beautiful! But half an hour later and the bay
would be inside the room. The tide would rise with the wind
behind it.
But thats what hes like, and hes always been like. He loves
cars, for instance, he loves all mechanical contrivances. The best
he can come up with now is a 1990 second-hand Commodore,
but then hell tell you how this is the best car ever built. He had
a little baby Fiat when I first knew him and he was so enthusiastic about it, he advocated it as the best car on the road, despite
its shortcomings. He has a tremendous capacity for making the
best of whats at hand. I see it as part of his enthusiasm for life.
Certainly, even today, John remains resolutely upbeat about

that boatshed. It was a tidal bay and was never deep, so Mattie
and I used to go out in canoes, he says. It was wonderful, brilliant. We were living right on the water, as boatsheds tend to
be But there were a couple of hairy nights when there were
storms, and the waves were pounding into the wall by our heads.
A few onlookers couldnt understand why John wouldnt
take on even menial jobs to make some cash. Some interpreted
it as arrogance. He simply wasnt willing to take jobs of a lesser
nature, says Dr Michael Cleary, a GP and homeopath friend.
He seems to be very unwilling to eat humble pie, to put it
mildly. Others welcomed it as a re-emergence of a stoic idealism, and his old irrepressible enthusiasm. Hes always had his
eye on the bigger picture, says John Emery. That could be pigheaded commitment to a certain point of view, but I see it more
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that hes convinced the big schemes will pay off, and you
cant let the small schemes distract you. The line between
daring brilliance and heroic failure, after all, is exceedingly
precarious.
Tracey started work again, in the practice where shed
begun her career. John went back to looking after Matthew,
walking him to school and picking him up afterwards. During
the day, hed either be writing the manuscript, managing the
website, or doing some work for friends. He also looked through
a jobs internet site every day for the next two and a half years.
He tried for some consultancy work, but hed simply been away
too long. Many of the other jobs he knew he could do but didnt
make contact because he knew the de-registration would eliminate him. Another potential source of work yielded nothing
after the doctor in charge of the area didnt respond to several
calls. Someone else called him back after an inquiry to say No
thanks.
No one was interested in finding out the story behind the
de-registration, he says, with every rebuff re-igniting the tinderbox of his despair and frustration at the injustice of it all. My
story has never been told. There was never a chance to tell it at
the Medical Tribunal, nor since. I think the HCCC complaints
process is a very damaging process. Its damaging to everyone
whos dragged through it, whether complainants or doctors.
I tried to do the best job I could do in almost impossible
circumstances with Karen. I was doing what I believed was
required.
But that was all in the past. Right now, John and Tracey
needed to rebuild their lives from scratch. Gradually, the family
got on their feet again with the money Tracey was bringing in
and Johns consulting work. They moved into a rundown old
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fibro house in Sydneys south, and John continued to work on

his book.
And to dream of one day again being able to work towards
a medical system which he felt would heal, rather than harm, its
patients.
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22
Looking Back: The Women

KAREN
Ten years on from the NSW Medical Tribunal case that ended
up destroying Dr John Harrisons life, little has changed for
Karen. In our first conversation, almost immediately she volunteers the news that shes just visited a new GP and is thinking of
lodging a complaint against him with the Health Care
Complaints Commission. He was incompetent, she says, and
unable to read her referral letter because his English was inadequate. As a result, she walked out of his surgery without paying,
and threatened to report him.
It sounds like the same old pattern of hostility towards
doctors, although, in almost the next breath, she claims that
these days shes very healthy, is a fitness freak and is able to hold
down a part-time job. At the same time, however, she says she
has to have a blood transfusion every month. It is never clear
why.
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L o o k i n g B a c k : T h e Wo m e n
Of John, she says he sowed the seeds of his own ruin.

I was conscious all the way through, it was almostif I wanted to
be poetica classical tragedy in the sense he did to himself what
his book was about. He sabotaged his own life We are all
responsible for our own behaviour and he was unable to keep his
own self in check. He was unable to brook any criticism. Several
times I had suggested to him that the way he worked was inappropriate. Hed take that as an insult, but I actually cared about
what he was doing and I could see some of the things he was
doing, a lesser mortal than I might take exception to.
Karen says she was simply trying to help him. She says he
attacked her, and used her as a punching bagexactly the same
phrase she used when talking about her familys abuse of her
simply because she offered him a critique of his services. Then
the worst thing was that he lied about it in court. He had to come
up with the justification and he said he thought Id harm his
child. It was totally ludicrous, his child wasnt there. I was outside
on the street, for Gods sake. I was just hurt that he did that. I
found that so offensive, dragging his child into it was just about
as low as you can get; it wasnt enough that hed damaged me.
About the sexual abuse, she is still contradicting herself
about what she says actually happened. She says the issues were
far worse than the oral sex and mutual masturbation she alleged
in the Tribunal hearing. Even though in court, she was adamant
there was never actually intercourse, now she claims again there
was sex. When I say we had sex its like a two-second thing of
him rolling on and rolling off! Id call that a pathetic attempt at
sexual assaultI didnt agree to it. When asked if that constituted rape, she agrees. Yes, I felt sorry for him, I suppose. I saw
him as a child trying to buy his way out of a situation. It was like
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that male thing if this is what I call love and this is a misinterpretation and yet, I remember being incredibly hurt when he
left: that thinking doing such a thing to me would possibly be
okay with me, I felt slapped in my face again.
Yet she does concede there was no sexual attraction
between the pair. Shed previously said she found John genderneutral and says now there still wasnt any sexual spark. Id say
not, she says. I would have recognised it if there was. I was
concerned there would be initially but there wasnt at all. No,
because Ive thought about that at the time. I think there was an
intellectual respect. I think he admired what Id gone through,
because Id gone through a lot.
Bizarrely, now she has done a complete about-turn on the
existence of the sixteen other complainants. Although she
admitted in the court, under oath, having initially raised the
spectre of the sixteen in a phone call to Tracey, and also that they
never really existed, now she claims she only found out about
them in courtdespite the fact that there was no other single
mention of them there. I was really annoyed when I found that
out because [my abuse] could have been prevented, she says. A
lot of the stuff came out in court. It might have been there. I
remember being shocked that day about lots of things, I had no
idea about, I thought it was just my little complaint and my issue
with himyes it was there, because I had no idea, thats righta
lot of the solicitors brought up all these other complaints Im
not privy to what was in them. Ive got no idea.
She also alleges Quadrio misrepresented her in her report,
and in a subsequent article she wrote.
I think they [psychiatrists] hear what they want to hear sometimes. They I wouldnt say I was a fan. I guess Im a believer in
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commonsense, and I also dont appreciate people putting words

in my mouth which they tend to do She kept putting words in
my mouth, said things that were absolutely not true. I told her
they werent true, she just wouldnt have it. I think she had her
mind set with regard to sexual abuse and she placed I think it was
a simplistic view. It would have taken hard work for her to actually explore what really happened. She didnt like that.
She also claims she was encouraged to sue John by

Quadrio, something shed never really wanted to doand something that, no doubt, would be denied by Quadrio.
At bottom, however, Karen says it was Johns vanity and
unresolved emotional issues that led to the problems. I hoped,
naively, that he would recognise that the assault was the result
of his emotional issues so his unwillingness to pull into check
his feelings about his therapy with me, his dealings with me,
now, it wasnt my responsibility to do that, she says. I had to do
it eventually, but it wasnt my job to do that. I could have
forgiven him if hed said youre right, and apologised, but to turn
round and blame me is disgusting!
He had a desperate need to be validated He obviously saw himself, Ill use the word, as a bit of a celebrity or star,
I think he felt aggrieved and unappreciated for his gift to the
psychiatric health community His family were perfectionists
and so I guess to be criticised by somebodyOh I was going to
cop it, and I did! He was unable to deal with that criticism. He
had a huge ego. I think he felt he could have, and should have
been somebody. I think he felt extremely under-appreciated,
extremely under-valued? I dont think he ever recognised that a
lot of what he was doing was for him
Sometimes I think I did what he [John] wanted me to do
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because I think he wanted to be a bit of a martyr! So he could go

back to his ashram in India and see his guru. He always thought
he was massively ahead of his time, so he would have felt just
persecuted. Indeed Im sure he did during the whole thing. I
always imagined during the court proceedings he saw himself
almost as a religious assassination.
[But] I hope hes okay. I dont have any hard feelings
towards him any more, I havent for a long time. I think he paid
out for the punishment for what he did.
* Two days after we met, I received a registered letter from Karen claiming the
one-and-a-half-hour tape-recorded interview hadnt constituted an interview and
denying shed given me permission to use it for this book. She said she had
received a six-figure sum from the court case shed taken against John, which I
interpreted to be a threat that shed do the same to me. I am very unhappy that
you have invaded my privacy, she saiddespite agreeing to the meeting and
taped interview. She went on to say, I have been very content and happy lately
and I will be most displeased if you disrupt that. I will not hesitate to act
PENNY
Johns second complainant, Penny, is today still heavily
involved in therapy. Shed seen six therapists before making
her first appointment with John, and has been in therapy ever
since the case. She says shes been congratulated in some of the
group therapy sessions for having the courage to go to court
against a doctor. She now attends therapy sessions for sex
addicts, having been diagnosed as a co-sex addict. Now, she
feels John is one too, and was probably abused as a child, just
like her.
She says she still remembers John fondly, however, and asks
after him. Let me know how he is, she says.
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She went to see John originally because she had chronic

headaches several times a week.
I was a bit desperate with it too. I remember saying to someone if
he cant help me, I dont know what to do He traced it back
to some early childhood abuse which is a little simplistic but, no,
he knew. He was so onto it. The childhood stuff, the repressed
anger, the whole family dynamic, not wanting to see things It
was all in the first few sessions he got that.
John said the reason for the headaches lay in her past, in
which shed been sexually abused by her father and raped by
someone else at age nineteen. That also lay behind her behaviour of defining herself by her sexual attractiveness, she says now,
and of offering men sex because she felt she had nothing else to
offer. Johns therapy brought back memories of her father, and
stirred the chance of transferencethe process by which the
patient confuses the therapist with an earlier abuser.
Says Penny:
He wanted me to touch him. He still had his clothes on, to feel his
erection. At that point he had me lying down next to him. It was
the child part, he was trying to heal into the child part. He was like
the nurturing parent. Hello! We play dad. Fuck! I just think there
was such denial that I had about the abuse I already had, I didnt
even see it. I kind of knew it wasnt right in the level of not telling
anyone about what happened. I told my ex-boyfriend. Its all very
mixed. Thats what Dads been doing. Today, if that happened, Id
be so clear about it. Id think what are you doing, and Id go and
report him, its about repeating patterns and reliving. Ive done that
a lot in other situations, recreating the same sort of things but
unconsciously to get some kind of resolution on it. You try and
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recreate what was unsolvable at the time to try and solve it. I never
worked through it that way, but thats what happens.
She still went a few more times after she says John had
abused her, and then finally left. I cant remember why I left,
maybe it was because of that. But I remember still feeling good
about him. I still felt he had helped me and oh, he was lovely,
whatever. So I was seeing him as a good guy. Although she says
now that his therapy made her sicker, she admits writing to him
shortly after they finished their sessions, thanking him and
saying her headaches were much better. Today, she says she wrote
that because she likes to please people. She didnt mean it.
Life changed for her, she says, when she met her husbandto-be, and she started worrying about her dad giving her away at
her wedding. She felt she could not go through with it, in the
knowledge of what her father had done to her. For the wedding
to take place, she needed some kind of resolution to the matter
of her abuse. Because of my wedding, I confronted my father
about the abuse, it all came up before I got married. I just
thought I felt like I couldnt have my father give me away at my
wedding when I had all this unresolved stuff with him. The issue
of her fathers abuse brought back memories of Johns treatment.
Again, she had an uneasy feeling about her time with him when
he had urged her, regressing her to a child in his arms, to think
about the abuse from her father. Such transference is said to be
natural in cases of this sort. This is when she mentioned it to a
man she met at a yoga class who was a friend of Merrilyn Walton,
at the HCCC. He said that sounded as though John had abused
her, and put her in touch with Walton.
When Penny went in, the HCCC immediately pressed her
to make a statement.
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For some reason I think I was told there were seventeen people
whod made a complaint about him, which was a lot. That might
not be accurate. I was told that by the HCCC. At the time the
case was going, only five of us were prepared to go to court, and
that dropped down to three in the end, and then two ...
I wasnt that conscious of what I was doing. And I think thats
just as well, otherwise I wouldnt have done it. It was just like,
Oh yeah, this wasnt right. Ill do that. I dont think I really
understood what it was going to be like. Or even afterwards, I
didnt really get the implication of what Id done for years But
theres a part of me that still feels guilty that hes lost his livelihood. Isnt that just insane? And yet I do, I feel kind of
responsible.
Now she says her memory can be faulty. Asked who in the
HCCC told her there were sixteen complainants, she says she
may have reconstructed that memory.
This is the funny thing about memory. In hindsight, thats how
Im putting the blocks together Maybe I got the information
later and put it in earlier It would be good if I was clear about
that I remember there was five or seven or seventeen or
sixteen, whatever it was Its not so much forgetting something,
as redefining something. But the fact that there were others, it
said to me it was a pattern and if I didnt stop him, he would keep
doing it.
Asked if she would have gone through with it in the

absence of (the fabricated) sixteen other women complaining,
she said no. No, it would have felt more I had done something
wrong. It would have felt that I had something wrong with me
and I let it happen. It was only because there were other people
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and the strength of them saying it wasnt right. It was his

responsibility and not mine. On my own, I would have been
blurry.
Now happily marriedto a man, coincidentally, whos just
been giving evidence against an alternative practitioner also
accused of sexual misconductthe couple also have a child. But
even today, the case still comes back to haunt her, Penny says.
The other day, in group therapy, another woman recovered a
repressed memory of being abused as a child. She told Penny
shed been to see John too, but had suddenly stopped. She said
he was starting to get weird with her, says Penny. Then she
pauses for a moment, and furrows her brow in the effort of
remembering what happened. No, right, I know why she
stopped going! She stopped going because he quit his practice.
She hesitates again, and her face clears. No, it was becauseits
sinking in to me nowbecause he was struck off.
R AC H E L
One of the reasons Rachel originally went to see John, she said,
was because she kept losing jobs and had issues with her weight
and a gambling habit. The day I called her, shed just been made
redundant again. Shed seen a few different therapists since the
case. Her relationship with the one whod given evidence on her
behalf finished after a couple of cheques shed made out to him
bounced because of her gambling. She said she suffered hugely as
a result of getting involved in the case, mainly because her
complaint was dismissed, which she found depressing and
humiliating.
Looking back, she bitterly regrets making her complaint. I
got sucked into doing it in the first place, she says. I wasnt
going to do it. I come from a familymy parents are ethnic and
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are very strict in that sense and to have it on TV, it was a big
thing. (Rachel and Penny were interviewed on A Current Affair,
shortly after the verdict.)
I wasnt going to do it, I had no interest in doing it but I was
convinced into doing it by a couple of people. One was a person
[Wendy] I knew personally who had a case going against a psychiatrist. I knew her earlier through these [New Age] courses I did
back in the 80s. I had told her about my case. At the time, she
said, That doesnt sound right. When she was telling me, or
trying to convince me, what he [John] did was wrong, she was
reminding me of how I felt at the time And from there she
said shed been talking to a lot of other people at the [HCC]
Commission and been talking to other victims, and said apparently hed done it to about fifteen other people and hed beaten
up on someone.
She was telling me all this stuff, and I thought, My God! I
didnt know hed gone that far! I was seeing him in 1985/6 but
apparently hed got worse as he went on, from what Id heard.
She was saying no-one will come forward, they want someone to
come forward to put a complaint in. I said I didnt know that I
wanted to do that. I spent a lot of time absolutely sure I was never
going to do it ...
But given the kind of influence that was happening, to be
honest if somebody came to me today and asked me to do it, I
wouldnt. It was hell. It was the worst time of my life. I went into
a deep depression about it. It was horrible to be told that: were
going to get him de-registered because hes been up to no good,
and making me feel what I was putting forward was important
and then to have it rejected
I felt the whole thing was dirty, and I think they are
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dirty. They [the HCCC] do just enough to keep themselves in

business They were happy to get the publicity that the
HCCC has got another bad doctor I was saying, Im not
going to do anything about it. I was adamant I didnt want to
go through with it. I didnt want to talk about it in public. But
things escalated.
Of Karen, Rachel says,

She was pretty screwed up. She was totally a goner at the time.
She was really screwed up before he started on her, Id say. I was
just trying to deal with emotional stuff. She was dysfunctional in
a major way, Id say, before she started seeing him
I couldnt handle her. She was just too far gone for me. I didnt
like her. We were talking about some of the stuff, I told her what
he did to me. Then she got funny with me. She got jealous.
Remember, there was still transference going on for her. Her case
was later than mine. She got funny with me and thats why I
didnt talk to her again. She got defensive. I might have said
something to her about him. She got strange with me. I dont
think she liked the idea that someone else had been friendly with
him [Karen] was too screwed in the head to know what she
wanted.
Rachel said she met Penny on the day of the case outside
the courtroom. They sat and chatted about what had happened
to them both. When I came out, they said dont go near
[Penny]! says Rachel. But it was too late by then, wed already
talked. No-one asked us not to. I think we sat next to each other
in the waiting area. What else do you do? You start chatting
dont you?
Rachel says Wendy, Erica and Karen were all seeing psychi-
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atrist Dr Carolyn Quadrio. Rachel went to see her once too, but
she says she had the feeling she wasnt damaged enough.
Hearing that there were never sixteen other cases, Rachel
becomes angry. I think I was lied to, she says.
I was lied to. But once Id started the ball rolling, it was hard to
say no There was a part of me which felt bad about what I
was doing to him [John]. In my mind it was: Did he really do
that much to me? Was it really bad enough for him to be struck
off? Anyway, it wasntbecause they didnt use my case. If I
hadnt heard of the other cases, I wouldnt have gone forward,
absolutely not. Not that I thought his treatment of me was
appropriate, but I would have just put it down as a bad experience in my life.
Afterwards, Rachel says she went to a shop that stocked

Love Your Disease and told them John had been struck off, so
theyd take his book off their shelves. She said a solicitor whod
been with the HCCC and had just left also persuaded her to try
for some compensation after the case. The solicitor messed up
the papers, Rachel refused to pay, and a debt-collector had come
after her at work on Christmas Eve to demand the money.
Rachel is bitter towards Erica:
She was probably gung-ho about the whole abuse system, whatever her thing was. She had a funny relationship with the
people in the Commission. She had a case as well [against Dr
Win Childs]. Thats why she was so close to the Commission.
She was like the do-gooder afterwards. When I spoke to her, she
said, Merrilyn Walton wants to speak to you. It was like I was
the only one coming forward and they really wanted to talk to
me.
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I [once] worked for victims of crime and the competition

between them and the Salvation Army and Mission Australia
it was all about who was going to get their funding and getting
jobs rather than helping the victims. There were ulterior motives
and I see the same thing with the Commission. Its all about
keeping their high-level jobs and getting paid. And if they
happen to help people in the meantime, arent they lucky!
There was some sense of conspiracy in a way. Because it was
like maybe they did hear stories about him and maybe he did do
something wrong, but they needed people to come forward.
Did they lie to me? My friend had been talking to [Erica]. Her
role was that she was supposed to be the support person. Erica
was head of that group and thats how she got into the whole
scene of knowing people. The common thread for all of us was
Erica. She had an unofficial position with HCCC. She had an
agenda.
In a later interview, Rachel says it was Johns vicious attack

on Karen as well as the sixteen other complainants that had
persuaded her to complain. When I tell her that there were
never any witnesses and that John denied the attack, insisting
hed just restrained Karen because hed been protecting his baby
son, she bursts into tears. Im a little bit upset now, she says. I
always felt, and I feel it more now, that I was a pawn. I was one
of a number so they could de-register him. It was never about
him. It was about [Karen], and the stupid bitch got away with it.
Honestly, she was a nasty piece of work.
Of course, Rachel cant tell what really happened between
Karen and John. No-one honestly can, as there were no
witnesses. She says, however, she might have an idea. I know
what happened between her and me, she says.
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She turned on me, even before the case. She didnt like the fact,
she was jealous, that someone else had known him [John]. She
was stroppy with me about him. I didnt want to talk to her after
that. She bothered me. I dont know what her agenda was, but it
was all about getting him. And in the end, she broke him and
took away everything he ever had. I thought he would be
punished, not realising he would be crippled by it Sixteen
other cases, that was the lure.
ERICA
Erica is now happily re-married and no longer is called upon to
support complainants through the HCCC and Medical Tribunal
process. She says all that is behind her. She says Dr Carolyn
Quadrio got her involved, and HCCC Commissioner Merrilyn
Walton was always behind her. Today, Walton says Erica was a
tremendous help. She was very concerned to help with the
communications and act as a person who gave information to
others and helped them through the system, she says.
Erica says she was surprised to go into court the first day of
Johns case and to see him for the first time, after spending so
much time with Karen, and talking to Rachel on the phone
about him.
I was very disarmed when I met him. He looks like some little
choirboy. He was a pretty, blond, very innocent-looking, goodlooking, charming man. I always had this image of him being
some sort of lecherous monster, but I was staggered when I met
him. I thought, Why would you do this? Its not like hes so
desperate! He was married. [But] its a compulsion they have.
Theres no rational thinking behind it. With him, I think he was
much worse than Win [Childs] because of the assault, that was a
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vicious thing to do to somebody. And he had this natural medicine thing! It was just so incongruent with what he preached. So
I felt it very odd.
I just remember thinking he must be some sort of psychopath What is most alarming is their total lack of remorse. They
dont think theyve actually done anything wrong. Theyre just
like pedophiles.
I think he lost it with Karen. She was a bit persistent in seeing
him and she wouldnt leave the session. But what youd do is call
the police. Usually people would go then.
When its pointed out to her that the lack of remorse might
well be because he denied the assault, shes undeterred. Well,
who knows? she says. He did deny it. Thats right. But she went
to a hospital. I really dont know. I wouldnt know. He denied it.
She said it did happen. She went to hospital for treatment for
the injuries. She was in a lot of pain when I saw her. Who knows,
but she was devastated by something that happened. He was
found guilty anyway.
When asked if she ever actually challenged Karen about her
version of events, Erica said she didnt see that as her role. Karen
said it had happened, and said shed received treatment for
injuries, and that was good enough. Erica said shed found it so
tough in the witness box herself being cross-examined about
events in the Childs case, she couldnt accuse anyone of making
up a complaint. To be called a liar was so hard, I couldnt do
that to these people, she says. Nobody would go through a case
like that for fun except [another named person]. You would have
to be a very disturbed person.
Besides, she said, the fact that there were three complainants meant it was much more likely John was guilty. Of the
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allegation that there were actually sixteen complaints against

John, Erica said she couldnt remember saying that, even though
both Rachel and Wendy said theyd learnt that from her. I think
they may have got into looking at John and they found out
more, she says. I must say, I didnt attempt to find out too
much. Later, when pressed, she admits she may have mentioned
sixteen other complainants. I probably could have said it at the
time, she says. She is vague, however, about exactly who told
her that. It may well have been Karen.
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23
Looking Back: John Harrison

Ten years on from the case that has had such a devastating
impact on his life, John Harrison is sad, angry, bitter, philosophical and optimistic by turn. It has cost him, he says ruefully,
nearly everything hes ever had.
He and Tracey had once dreamed of bringing up a large
family in a home full of noise and laughter. But, unable to have
any more children since the loss of their baby during the NSW
Medical Tribunal hearing, their son Matthew has grown up
alone, without brothers or sisters.
John is today as poor as he was when he first started out
as a student back in the mid-1960s. He has no assets, no
savings, owns no property. Even though hes now discharged
his bankruptcy, hes unable to get a credit card, obtain a loan
or even run an overdraft. Once, he lived in a large house overlooking the ocean in one of Sydneys most picturesque
beachside suburbs. Today, he rents a rundown 1940s fibro in
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L o o k i n g B a c k : Jo h n H a r r i s o n
Sydneys south, and drives a second-hand 1990 Holden

Commodore.
Perhaps even more painful is the loss of a profession he
loved so passionately. Twenty years ago, he wrote an internationally best-selling book, Love Your Disease, which was hailed as a
seminal text in understanding how the body and mind work
together to help create perfect health. He travelled around the
world speaking about his ideas on the potent power of our own
minds both to create and to cure illness. Patients travelled from
all over Australia, and overseas, to consult with him.
His practice was an innovative blend of psychotherapy and
bodywork. He spurned the processes of orthodox medicine and
the work of a regular GP to work directly with clients in what
he saw as a partnership of equals, to teach them how to take
responsibility for their own wellbeing and become the best they
could. He declined to prescribe drugs. He aimed instead to
unleash the natural healing power of the mind and body. Indeed,
just as this book was being finished, ABC TVs respected science
program Catalyst heralded their latest story about a stunning new
research discovery: Sometimes, rarely, miracles really do happen.
Sometimes, a cancer patient is at deaths door, riddled with
deadly metastatic melanoma, when they spontaneously get
better. Their own body fights off the disease without drugs or
radiation. And its made scientists to wonderis it possible to
trigger the bodys power to heal itself? John wasnt surprised.
After all, hed been saying as much, and treating patients in this
way, for more than twenty years.
But along the way, John stirred the antagonism of a medical
profession working hard to defend itself against the onslaught of
alternative practitioners stealing a growing share of their traditional custom. He inspired distrust from doctors who, he said,
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generally only hindered the process of growing healthy, and

often even encouraged and prolonged sickness. He incurred
enmity among the sick and the damaged who argued they
werent responsible for their own ill-health. And some of his
methods, from those who werent fans of his book and his philosophy, aroused curiosity and suspicion.
Then it all went wrong.
Three inquiries in the last ten years have been critical of
the Health Care Complaints Commission, and the way it operates to both investigate and prosecute medical practitioners,
but to date the NSW Government has still failed to give it a
much-needed overhaul. In December 2003 the Parliamentary
Committee of Inquiry into the HCCC was so concerned that
it recommended a detailed review of the HCCC as soon as
possible. After the scandal of patient deaths at Sydneys
Campbelltown and Camden hospitals, the head of the HCCC
was sacked and the body was found to have failed in its statutory
duty to investigate complaints properly. Yet to date, no changes
to the make-up and statutory processes of the HCCC have yet
been made. University of NSW academic Dr David Thomas
believes that may never happen. The HCCCs prosecutorial
agenda survives, he says, not because the government particularly favours [it], but because putting the blame on doctors shifts
the focus away from the governments shortcomings in
adequately resourcing hospitals.
Certainly, in Johns case, actual evidence was non-existent
and the testimony of his alleged victims was dubious to say the
least. Of the four original complaints, onewho had merely
thought something untoward might happen in Johns treatmentwithdrew her complaint, another had hers thrown out in
court. Sadly, if the whole matter had gone to a criminal court,
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John would have been acquitted. In fact, its highly likely the
charges would never even have been allowed to get into the
courtroom.
There was no physical or even anecdotal evidence of the
vicious physical attack Karen claimed hed inflicted on her, nor
of any sexual abuse she, or the other woman, had suffered. Johns
barrister in the case, John Foley, is adamant that, in a criminal
trial, John would have been acquitted. You had obviously
psychologically disturbed people who were all over the place like
a dogs breakfast, and in a criminal trial their evidence would
have been thrown out, he says. From the point of view of the
Tribunal, it was, Theres probably enough smoke to cause a fire.
If that had happened before a jury in a criminal court, that
evidence would have been very dangerous to convict him on
The evidence was very weak, and he was very unlucky.
When Johns nemesis, former HCCC Commissioner Merrilyn Walton, is told ten years on that John still protests his
innocence, saying his methods were merely misunderstood, she
shrugs. Then, without a trace of irony, she asks, Wheres the
evidence?
Earlier, she asked how he is. Wrecked his life? she enquires,
nodding in anticipation of the answer. Its really sad. Im
constantly stunned that sexual misconduct cases still come
forward. Families break up and they lose their livelihood.
For, tragically for John, the HCCC took the case to the
NSW Medical Tribunal, a quasi-judicial body that is a strange
hybrid of the criminal and inquisitiorial systems, unique in the
western world.
This Tribunal doesnt follow the rules of evidence of the
criminal system, and doesnt demand proof of an offence.
Instead, it allows mere hearsay to establish an event, and has a
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legislated policy bias towards complainants. John didnt even get

a chance to stand in the dock and be led in evidence to coherently give his version of what happened, and make the case for
himself, before the verdict was announced: that he was guilty of
sexual misconduct against two of the three women, and would
be struck off for life.
Its astonishing in this day and age that such a thing was
allowed to occur. And doubtless it has before tooand will
continue to into the future as long as the mounting tide of
protest about the system is ignored by government.
Leading forensic psychiatrist Dr Yolande Lucire has long
been at the forefront of the fightback. She says the NSW
Medical Board believes that the presumption of innocence of a
doctor before hes convicted, and the adoption of a criminal
standard of proof, lies far below the importance of protecting the
public. My colleagues who have had experience of the
complaints process at any level would attest that it is indeed the
case that an accused doctor has less legal protection than a
recidivist criminal, she says. History, even the recent history of
the NSW Workers Compensation Act, and that of Victims
Compensation Tribunals everywhere, has repeatedly shown that
jurisdictions which have a bias towards the applicant are soon
discovered by those people who wish to exploit them.
Lucire says the actions of the HCCC made possible by the
various Acts are disgraceful contemporary examples of Star
Chamber Law, created in disregard of the 300 years that have
made criminal law what it is now, designed not only to convict
the guilty, but protect the innocent. Instead, the HCCCs
processes encourage spurious and trivial complaints by persons
with malice as well as those with genuine grievances. It does
not differentiate.
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Some complainants, true and false ones, may be thrill

seekers or sadists who are already planning to enjoy their
revenge, says Lucire.
Legislated procedures are needed to protect the doctor from a
lover who turns vindictive, from a compensation seeker or an
estranged spouse. Hell hath no fury like a woman spurned; everyone is reasonable during the courtship period. Erotic transferences
are also a source of danger. A Tribunal may take what the patient
has said to others as evidence of the truth. Further reform of the
Act is needed to anticipate the defence of a psychiatrist whose
patient starts bragging to her friends that her doctor is in love
with her. Such a patient may be making frequent or late night
phone calls, stalking the doctor, turning up where he is eating
out, threatening to kill herself unless he sees her after hours
The HCCC and Medical Board seem to think that this type of
patient is attractive and exploitable.
Conspiracies between patients are also eminently possible.

In Johns case, for instance, it was a fact. Yet even those involved
intimately in the process seemed to have no idea that such a
thing was happening. HCCC Commissioner Merrilyn Walton,
for instance, today says shes still convinced it would never be
possible for an innocent doctor to be wrongly convicted of sexual
misconduct. Talking of Johns case, she says, [Four complaints]
adds weight, and they dont know each other and theyve never
talked to each other before. I mean, you obviously have to be on
the lookout for conspiracies, if conspiracy is a word that youd
use, but our role was always not only to look at the evidence to
prove a case, but also the evidence to disprove a case. Thats what
you do as an investigator. You dont just look at the evidence
that suits you. In the light of what we now know of the three
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complainants and the degree of collusion that went on, her

assurances look quite meaningless.
For the accused in such cases, the area of false memory presents additional dangers. Lucire says that therapy-induced false
memories are now recognised as confabulations, yet some
medical tribunals continue unaware of the range of
psychopathologies practitioners have to deal with. False allegations continue to be a growing problem worldwide. She quotes
the nine-year ordeal of an eminent US psychiatrist accused of
offences by a former patient, later discovered to be false. She asks
whether the current system is able to discern the false allegation
from the true.
Both theory and evidence suggest not. An increasing number of
my colleagues are being convicted and deregistered still denying
that they ever did what they were charged with. Their alleged
sexual offences had no witnesses and no physical evidence was ever
presented. The accused, but innocent, doctor is at serious jeopardy
and the Board and its tribunals do not recognise the presumption
of innocence nor the associated safeguards built into the rules of
evidence The HCCC denies the possibility that a patients
borderline, histrionic and antisocial personality disorder predisposes to making false allegations, misreport, misconstrue and
misremember the past When I became a doctor, no one told me
that the Department of Health would abolish my civil rights.
In Johns case, it appears to have been simply his bad luck

that hed agreed to treat someone who was so seriously psychologically disturbed, and that she complained about him and
found people who were willing to listen, a courtroom weighted
hugely in favour of anyone taking action. The system has served
her a massive injustice, too. If there were ever any basis for her
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complaints, then the procedure as it is currently constituted

proved nothing. Truth and justice were not served.
For John and his family arent the only victims in this saga.
Karen, too, has to be seen as a victim. Desperately sick and suffering a private torment of her own, its hard to blame her for
what ensued. Certainly, she started the bandwagon rolling, but
she is a very ill woman fighting with her own demons. Even the
psychiatrist she was sent to by the HCCC had immense problems with her.
John certainly never criticises her nor her fellow complainants.
Anyone who isnt ready to take the risks required for recovery
criticises the therapy and the therapist, especially if theyre led to
believe the blame for their condition or unhappiness can be
placed elsewhere, which may give them validation and, perhaps,
financial compensation. Was my therapy perfect? Of course it
wasnt. But I always did the best I could.
With women so often in the past disbelieved when they

complained of sexual abuse, its only right they be given a fair
hearing. But sometimes, just sometimes, the eagerness to believe
a woman and discount all other evidence becomes simply ludicrous. This does all women, especially those with genuine
grievances, a major disservice, while almost irretrievably ruining
doctors reputations and lives. Mud sticks, and theres no mud as
sticky, as filthy or as feared as sexual mud. In a society that runs
scared whenever the spectre of sexual misconduct is even raised,
sometimes no rational discussion is possible.
A one-time colleague of Johns, whod cut off contact at the
time of his case, had been under the ludicrous assumption, all
these years, that the ultimate penalty of being struck off for life
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must have been levelled against him for sexual misconduct with
children. She was mortified, when informed of the real reason,
that shed jumped to such a ridiculous conclusion. A mention of
John on an internet site claimed preposterously that hed been
imprisoned for life for abusing children. An email to the webmaster had it quickly retracted, with effusive apologies.
The potential then for one loose cannon to explode in the
midst of so many well-intentioned people is a salutary lesson for
us all. It also shows how dangerous can be the common practice
for prosecutors worldwide of corroboration by volume, where a
bunch of inexact proofs gives credence to cases which would
never stand up to scrutiny alone. Many people are out looking
for a situation that provides them with the opportunity of airing
a grievance and are ripe for exploitation by authorities as bent
on prosecution as the HCCC.
It is also hard to ignore the sense of glee that prevailed
among some of the women who had worked so hard together to
bring John Harrison down. The statement of claim in the legal
action that Karen subsequently brought against him, compiled
with the help of the same psychiatrist, was astonishing, implying
far worse crimes than he had been previously accused of and
blaming him for every ill in her blighted life, including the
condition that had first brought her to his door.
With John unable to afford to defend himself in this new
action, the Supreme Court would have seen little problem in
merely rubber-stamping her claims, accepting that the HCCC and
the Medical Tribunal had known what they were doing. But it
might also have been that, having enjoyed the immense psychological high of having destroyed John Harrisons career, Karen
needed another fix: she wanted to destroy his life and his family.
With a little help from her psychiatrist, she very nearly succeeded.
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In the light of everything thats happened, however, John,

now in his late fifties, is still working hard to be positive. Does
he regret ever accepting Karen as a patient? The pause goes on a
long time. Do I regret it? he repeats slowly, almost to himself.
Well, if it wasnt for her, who knows what would have
happened? I might have been wealthy by now and close to
retirement. Now I dont have any assets and I have to work for
the rest of my life. But on balance, do I regret taking her on?
Maybe at the moment, I would have to say Yes, but will I ultimately regret it? I doubt it.
The games not over yet. And there are things Ive gained from
it. Ive lived overseas for a long period, something I may never
have chosen to do normally. Ive had so much more experience
of a much broader range of life, something I might never have
had. And I now have a rare and very valuable skill-set. For
example, I have now a great knowledge of the medicolegal
system, that I might never have hador needed to have had.
Johns family and friends see the turnaround in him, too.

His sister Robyn is happy to see that change. I can tell now that
hes re-establishing himself, she says. Tracey has been wonderful too; had he had a relationship with anybody else, I think it
might have turned out differently. Shes been a very quiet
strength. Indeed, the couples relationship is rock-solid and,
having been through so much tragedy together, they feel that
nothing can separate them now. Tracey smiles. Today I am very
pleased to say we are well and happy and resilient, she says. We
did not get separated by our ordeal.
Robyn also sees John picking himself up and getting on with
life.
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John is strong and has faith, he presents positively, hes not

walking around with a spear hanging out of his back. He went
through a period when he did walk around like that, as he was so
terribly shattered by this experience, but now he can laugh, there
are good things in his life, there are a number of avenues that he
is trying to build. He has incredible energy, he works very hard at
trying new things, and he wants to be able to turn this around.
Hes always been absolutely dedicated to his patients and his
vision of health, and he would take enormous personal risks to
create the conditions necessary for each individual patient to
move forward. He cared little for financial gain, rather his lifework has been the challenge to uncover the root cause of an
individuals disease, discomfort or psychology. It is a joy to me
that so much of what he advocated back then, and got caned for,
is now commonly hailed as good practice even by his biggest
opponentthe conventional western doctor.
If I could have one wish come true, I would wish that he would
come out of this and be able to look back on it all and say, Christ!
That was an experience and a half! To be able to look at this as a
learning experience and not bear any resentment towards it.
Whether he can or not, I cant say.
John has definitely been changed by the experience. His

younger sister Vicki sees him today as more cynical, with less joy
in his life, and one of his closest friends, John Emery, says he now
has lines of bitterness on his face, and is more resigned about the
future. He no longer believes he can change the world. For
everyone, thats been the tragedy. Says Emery:
I saw all that potential thrown away. Now you look at whats
going on in medicine. That was the time that organic theory,
drugs, finally won through, the idea that mental illness could be
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cured by drugs. Its like a Greek tragedy. This was his hubris. He
thought he could cure her. I remember him saying this case has
come to me. Im the one who can save her. He thought he could
cure her. He thought he was smarter than anyone else. But thats
not an indictable offence.
Jan Baker, the friend whos been with him since the beginning, practising with him when he first started out working as an
alternative medical practitioner, was also hit hard by what
happened to John. She says, with ones psychological state so
clearly having a fundamental role to play in ones physical
health, her greatest fear is that hell fall terribly ill. Its only been
his strength of character, so far, thats saved him, she feels.
This case has broken his heart. John really believes in his
approach to medicine. Hes put himself on the line. Hes made
himself a pauper. He works from shitty rooms. He doesnt publish
in The Lancet and all the places he could publish. He doesnt
become famous in the way he could have been as a bona fide
professorial doctor. He could have had all of that. He could have
had it all. But he gave it all away for this absolute passionate
belief in this way to do medicine: if you dont work with the
psyche then you havent even begun to address health, and everything else is a sham and a travesty. The tragedy is that hes been
made to look like a sham and a travesty, and thats really hard. It
breaks my heart, too, to see it.
If there was an error, it is that his belief system is so passionate that he puts himself at risk for the sake of the ideal. In a way
he has died for his ideal. Died symbolically as a doctor. Its not
too dramatic to say it. But, at the end of the day, if I had cancer,
I would go to him. Ive had father and brother die of cancer, and
I would find it enormously difficult to go to him. He would make
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me face up to aspects of myself, and make me do things

in therapy that I would find hard. But I would go to John. Hes
the only person in Australia I would go to. And if anything
happened to my husband or son, I would move heaven and earth
to get them to John even though hes not practising. John is a
healer. Its his fundamental core. A healer who can take people
way beyond the bounds of their expectations, medicines expectations and their expectations, and now hes been rendered
impotent.
Incongruously, the woman who drove the process to that

conclusion, former HCCC Commissioner Merrilyn Walton,
these days has a similar hobby horse to John. Whereas his
mission has always been the need of patients to take responsibility for their own healthand it was his refusal to accept
responsibility that saw him struck off indefinitelythis is the
direction she is also now taking:
Now its time for genuine partnerships. Now we are moving
towards problems to be shared by the community [of patients]
because they do have to accept responsibility for some of the
choices they make in health care, and its up to the health system
to change the environment to make that happen. Patients have
been so passive for centuries, but they havent been taught,
and think its too complex. But its our bodies and, with the
high number of adverse events, patients are entitled to know
everything.
Its this identical belief that John is still working on, writing
more manuscripts that have as their base that fundamental core
theory of health being best served by a partnership of equals
between the professional and the patient, with the practitioner
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merely guiding the patient towards accepting responsibility for

their own wellbeing. That way, and that way only, lies true, longterm health for us all.
This, his friend Ian Austen sees as his greatest achievement:
breaking the assymetry in the professional medical model
between the practitioner and patient, and turning it into a
symmetry. Usually, the patient wants to be a child being told
whats wrong and what to do, and the practitioner is an adult
and mature, telling them, he says. He [John] broke that axis. It
was his great gift, but it also turned out to be his nemesis.
For the difficulty with giving power to the patient is that
the patient might not be mentally stable enough to cope. As
friend David OBrien says, He gave a dangerous patient a loaded
gun and she blew him away.
At its heart, however, Johns philosophy is still the
compelling belief that everyone contributes to their own misfortune, and neither John nor his supporters see him as an
exception. OBrien terms it neatly: He played the martyr, going
in there and expecting to win the day. Andrew Badenoch sees it
similarly: The problem was overconfidence. But what he cant
control is what the other persons perceptions and reality are.
And thats the risk all therapists take. And that risk could backfire with anyone, anyone at all.
Psychiatrist Julian Hafner is frank. Im tempted to say that
Ive been lucky in my career that I have never ever had anybody
make any complaints about me, he says. But if Id ended up in
that situation trying to treat a terribly difficult person, I can only
say there but for good fortune Psychoanalyst Peter Bruce says,
in the long run, facing up to our own Waterloos makes us all
stronger:
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We all have to hit the wall and meet our own contradictions head
on and have our crises, but there are ways of doing that which are
helpful and progressive, and ways of doing it that are assassinatory.
Maybe thats Johns contradiction. Maybe this had to happen to
him to show him that all things arent internally generated, maybe
some things happen from outside over which you have no control.
John himself is happy to accept some responsibility for what

happened too. Reflecting back, maybe he was wrong not to have
introduced some safeguards into his practice that would have
protected him against complaint, like having a female practitioner present, or videotaping all sessions. At the time, he didnt
want to adopt such systems as he felt they would get in the way
of the patients progress. Now, sadly, he feels they would be
inevitable if ever he were to practise bodywork again.
I was accused of sexualising therapy, which is just ignorance, says John today.
But sexuality is so easy for people to distort, which is why its used
ruthlessly when one person wants to undermine another. Insinuation of sexual wrongdoing is so powerful. So doctors trying to
help their patients now, sadly, have to take into account their
own vulnerability at every turn. Thats tragic. But now weve
learned we have to protect ourselves. As a consequence, all those
people who seek a cure rather than a Bandaid for serious problems have nowhere to go.
As for the future of medicine generally, its clear that Johns

removal from the scene silenced what could have been a powerful
voice as society moves inexorably towards a health care system
dominated by the pharmaceutical companies. One of the largest
was a supporter of one of the psychiatrists called in to give
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evidence against John. Successive scandals, particularly in the US,

have revealed that the negative outcomes of many drug trials have
historically been hidden from view, and only now are warnings to
be placed on many medicines that have long been thought safe.
In the UK, the March 2005 House of Commons Health Committee report, The Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry, also
sounds the alarm about the enormous clout wielded by the drug
companies. [The pharmaceutical industry] is widely welcomed
and relied on, but it is also pervasive and persistent it reads. Our
over-riding concerns are about the volume, extent and intensity
of the industrys influence, not only on clinical medicine and
research but also on patients, regulators, the media, civil servants
and politicians. It is clear that, throughout the world, the opening
that once existed for alternative views of health has been squeezed
under the weight and power of the drug industry.
Bruce is clear:
We are definitely the poorer for John not being the influence he
would have been had he continued. If he had stayed as a doctor
and nothing terrible happened, he would have become a very
influential pole that could have been able to counter some of the
grosser claims that have been made by the pharmaceutical industry. The ownership of medicine by the pharmaceutical industry is
gross. Maybe he would have been a rallying point to have fought
it. He might not have been able to stop it, but he would have
been another pole of decision, instead of: Take this medicine or
die. We need people like John to say, Wait a minute, theres
another possibility here.
Variety of health care options is important to preserve, say

even some of the more orthodox practitioners. Hafner, for
example, gives all credit to Johns approach:
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I think that its very, very important for the profession to keep an
open mind and to remember that there are many, many disorders
that simply do not respond to orthodox treatments. To remember
also that iatrogenic, or physician-caused disorders, are increasingly common as drug interactions become more and more
complex and difficult to keep an eye on. Its very important to be
flexible and open-minded about alternative approaches, as long
as they meet those criteria. A lot of medications have unpleasant
side effects and fatal side effects, so I think that one has to
remember that relying on medications is not necessarily the safest
way to go about treating some people.
But some find it hard not to be pessimistic. Badenoch

believes Johns approach to health care is eminently reasonable,
sensible and wise, but wonders if patients are ready.
Were too invested as a society in the avoidance of accepting
responsibility. Its better to blame the doctor than accept responsibility for yourself. I dont see any evidence in Australia or in the
world outside that we have progressed greatly in terms of raising
our consciousness towards accepting responsibility. Were obsessed
with drugs and longevity and issues like DNA and cloning. Why
would we want to create another lot of us? We have enough
trouble being who we are, let alone recreating who we are.
Johns sister Robyn asks what society has gained from killing
off her brother, the doctor. She thinks for a while before answering. In this case we have lost the further development of aspects
of medicine that could save not only many individuals but also
dollars, she says finally.
This man was moving well ahead of his time. He was showing
us pathways that would help us prevent much of our disease,
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would help us take responsibility for our own recovery using techniques that avoid costly drug therapy and expensive technologydependent intervention.
He was doing the work, not in a Government-funded research
program costing millions, but alone with the resources of his own
intellect and experience, his wisdom and his insight. And he was
making exceptional progress.
But we have also shown that our Medical Complaints Unit was
corrupt, that our tribunal processes were flawed. Many others
have been persecuted, wrongly accused, unfairly investigated,
punished without undeniable cause. The cost of this is huge.
Apart from the Parliamentary investigations, there is the human
costthe people destroyed, the spirits broken, the lives taken by
suicide. And there is the legacy of faith broken, the faith in our
society to have fair, objective judicial processes. This has been
terrible enough as the death of a doctor, even worse as a death of
many other things.
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NOTES
All the names of patients mentioned have been changed to preserve their
anonymity, as ordered by the NSW Medical Tribunal.
Chapter 4
In the Australia reached its height. Adrienne Hallam, Globalisation, Human Genomic Research and the Shaping of Health: An
Australian Perspective, School of Science, Griffith University,
September 2002.
While orthodox doctors than in Australia. Anne Crichton,
Slowly Taking Control? Australian Governments 17881988,
Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1990.
unscientific and at best of marginal efficiency potentially
hazardous. The Webb Report from the Inquiry into Chiropractic,
Osteopathy, Homeopathy and Naturopathy, 1977.
Chapter 7
Annnot her real name; she has asked for her name not to be used.
Ashley Montagu, Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin,
Harper & Row, New York, 1971.
Chapter 11
The official medical diagnostical manual. The Diagnostic Criteria
DSM-III-R.
Intimidation may be of false accusations. Thomas G. Gutheil
MD, Borderline Personality Disorder, Boundary Violations and
PatientTherapist Sex: Medico Legal Pitfalls, The American
Journal of Psychiatry, 146:5, May 1989.
In regard to borderline personality disorder patients is variable.
Treatment Outlines for Borderline, Narcissistic and Histrionic
Personality Disorders, The Quality Assurance Project, under
305
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the aegis of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of

Psychiatrists, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry,
1991, 25:392403.
around 40 per cent benefit from treatment anyway. William
H. Reid, ed., The Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders, Brunner/
Mazel, New York, 1989.
Empathy is central therapy is to proceed. Treatment Outlines
for Borderline, Narcissistic and Histrionic Personality Disorders, The Quality Assurance Project, under the aegis of the
Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists,
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 1991,
25:392403.
Malcolm Brown PhD, The Healing Touch: An Introduction to Organismic Psychotherapy, LifeRhythm, Mendocino, CA, 1990.
I hate that a fucking truck. Transcript of tape of 23 November
1992, later presented to the Tribunal.
She also mentioned suicide in early 1993. Letter of 12 April
1993.
Rapid mood shifts cannot be ignored. Thomas G. Gutheil MD,
Borderline Personality Disorder, Boundary Violations and
PatientTherapist Sex: Medico Legal Pitfalls, The American
Journal of Psychiatry, 146:5, May 1989.
Chapter 12
The Webb Report from the Inquiry into Chiropractic, Osteopathy,
Homeopathy and Naturopathy, 1977.
In the beginning some of their practices. Gary Easthope, MA,
PhD, Department of Sociology and Social Work, University of
Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania.
By the early 1990s lucrative local market. Adrienne Hallam,
Globalisation, Human Genomic Research and the Shaping of
Health: An Australian Perspective, School of Science, Griffith
University, September 2002.
306
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Page 307
Notes
the practice of scapegoating at minimal cost. Ann Daniel,

Scapegoats for a Profession: Uncovering Procedural Injustice,
Harwood Academic Publishers, Australia, 1998.
Drug company influence most respected regulators. Ray Moynihan, Selling Sickness, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2005.
Chapter 13
When that original kind in Australia. David Thomas, ed., Medicine Called To Account: Health Complaints Mechanisms in
Australasia, Australian Studies in Health Administration series,
published by the School of Public Health and Community
Medicine, University of New South Wales.
In NSW, however by legal means. David Thomas, ed., Medicine
Called To Account: Health Complaints Mechanisms in Australasia, Australian Studies in Health Administration series,
published by the School of Public Health and Community
Medicine, University of New South Wales.
There was no acceptance responsible for their actions. Author
interview with Merrilyn Walton, 15 October 2004.
the controversial NSW model afforded to practitioners.
Jeff Hunter MP, Chairman of the Committee on the HCCC,
Report No 14, June 2004.
It is difficult investigation of any doctors. Brad Frankum, The
Cam Affair: an isolated incident or destined to be repeated?,
in The Medical Journal of Australia, April 2004 180 (7):
362366.
They trample all get anything done. Author interview with
Patricia Staunton, late 1985.
The closest comparison much, much fairer. Ann Daniel, Scapegoats for a Profession: Uncovering Procedural Injustice, Harwood
Academic Publishers, Australia, 1998.
There is no formal the existing legislation. Jeff Hunter MP,
Chairman of the Committee on the HCCC, Report No 14,
June 2004.
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Chapter 14
Helen Garner, The First Stone, Pan Macmillan Australia, Sydney,
1995.
From the start of the 1990s there were 84. Merrilyn Walton,
The Problem of Reporting Sexual Misconduct by Colleagues
and Patients, in Russell G. Smith, ed., Health Care, Crime and
Regulatory Control, Hawkins Press, Australia, 1998.
Between 1989 and 1993/4 being struck off. Ann Daniel, Scapegoats for a Profession: Uncovering Procedural Injustice, Harwood
Academic Publishers, Australia, 1998.
In a newspaper article sexual abuse claims. Bettina Arndt,
Sydney Morning Herald, 12 December 2003.
I said to the solicitor be investigating him. Author interview
with Erica, 9 October 2004.
Chapter 15
since we deliberately own relational self. Carolyn Quadrio,
Sex and Gender and the Impaired Therapist, Australian and
New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 1992; 26:346363.
If you are unable they werent abused. Ellen Bass and Laura
Davis, The Courage to Heal, Harper & Row Publishers, New
York, 1988.
A recent American survey almost all cases. Bettina Arndt, An
Abuse Of Trust, The Weekend Australian, 2829 May 1994.
When traumatic memories need its vigilance. Dr Karl S Kruszelnicki quoting Professor Loftus, in Mythconceptions: Dark
Corners of the Mind, Good Weekend, 18 September 2004.
In NSW both are readily clarified. Carolyn Quadrio, Sex and
Gender and the Impaired Therapist, Australian and New
Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 1992; 26:346363.
Because I was involved my published comments. Email to author
from Carolyn Quadrio, 15 October 2004.
People vary on going on to a hug Sick Doctors, All In The
Mind, Radio National, 22 May 2004.
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Notes
She didnt like She hated that! Author interview with Karen,
28 August 2004.
John was the only he would kill me. Carolyn Quadrio,
Psychiatric Report on Karen to HCCC (undated).
Carolyn Quadrio, Countertransference Problems in Psychotherapy
with Victims of TherapistPatient Sexual Abuse, Address to
the Annual Congress of the Royal Australian and New Zealand
College of Psychiatrists, Tasmania, 1994.
Chapter 16
Her interactions with have been unsuccessful. Carolyn Quadrio,
Psychiatric Report on Karen to HCCC (undated).
Rachel revealed that issue at all. Author interview with Rachel,
18 September 2004.
She [Walton] sent this wasnt right. Author interview with
Penny, 16 September 2004.
I had kind of there quick smart. Author interview with Janice,
23 September 2004.
He believed behavioural techniques five per cent of cases. Dr John
Ellard, quoted in The Sunday Telegraph, 9 June 2002, p B06.
Dr John Ellard, Some Rules for Killing People, Angus & Robertson,
Australia, 1989.
There are some departing from it. Dr John Ellard, Touching in
Psychotherapy, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 1991; 25:2730.
K. Wilhelm and H. Lapsley, Disruptive Doctors: Unprofessional
Interpersonal Behaviour in Doctors, Medical Journal of
Australia, 173, 384386.
Chapter 17
Many of them Watch yourself very carefully. John Ellard,
General Practitioners and Their Psychiatric Patients, Modern
Medicine of Australia, June 1994.
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Chapter 18
Penny would later reveal put it in earlier Author interview with Penny, 16 September 2004.
Inaccurate memories can set against it. Elizabeth Loftus,
Our Changeable Memories: legal and practical implications,
Nature Reviews/Neuroscience, Volume 4, March 2003, p 231.
It wasnt the basis exciting and different. Author interview with
barrister John Foley, 15 October 2004.
Chapter 20
These doctors often promote their methods. Merrilyn Walton,
The Trouble with Medicine, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1998.
The latest study the patients agitation. On the Treatment of
Borderline Personality Disorder, Expert Australian Committee, Australia and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 1991; 25:
392403.
Chapter 21
John also started work and re-organising them. Website: Health
in the Third Millennium, <www.m3health.com>
Chapter 23
Sometimes, rarely, miracles power to heal itself? Catalyst, ABC
TV, 14 October 2004.
My colleagues who to exploit them. Yolande Lucire, Sex and
the Practitioner: The Victim, Australian Journal of Forensic
Sciences, 34:1724, 2002.
[The pharmaceutical industry] is widely civil servants and politicians. The Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry, Fourth
Report of Session 200405, House of Commons Health
Committee, UK.
310

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Death of a Doctor PAGES

About the Author

Death of a Doctor PAGES

Death of a Doctor PAGES

A Sue Hines Book

Death of a Doctor PAGES

First published in 2005

Death of a Doctor PAGES

A real doctor can only work when society allows both

Cancel your patients tomorrow.

Death of a Doctor PAGES

Death of a Doctor PAGES

The Business of Medicine

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Death of a Doctor PAGES

Death of a Doctor PAGES

practice back in Australia. In 1984, his ground-breaking book,

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By 1993, when alternative therapies were becoming more

Death of a Doctor PAGES

little idea or understanding ofand even less time forthe kind

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That same day, a Sydney doctor at the centre of the worlds

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Death of a Doctor PAGES

Death of a Doctor PAGES

Death of a Doctor PAGES

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Death of a Doctor PAGES

The core of the problem was Johns father, Jack. He had

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At first, he tried hard to adapt. Returning servicemen were

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To his kids, it just meant he was a person who never figured

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For Jack strayed widely and almost constantly. Every time

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Maxime ended up inheriting both her mothers lack of luck

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seriously, however, and the first signs of his rebellious spirit

Death of a Doctor PAGES

He had a sharp way of examining things from all angles,

Death of a Doctor PAGES

learnt the necessity early on of being kind to his long-suffering

Death of a Doctor PAGES

encouraged Robyn and Vicki as much as John to do well at

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Like any boy, John liked to play practical jokes, slipping a

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couple of times to Saturday race meetings to pencil for him, that

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Maxime was struggling, too. One time, when John was a

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When she arrived back, Jack was delighted. Ive never

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Death of a Doctor PAGES

beginning by the attitudes and aptitude of many of his fellow

Death of a Doctor PAGES

Death of a Doctor PAGES

by his fellow students. Some really werent suited to the job at