Complaint Review: Dr Zipora Herzberg Psy-d

Dr.Zipora Herzberg Psy-d
30 westover place Lawrence, NY, 11559
1516-239-6770
Licenses
New York — 008589

    This psychologist caused me to want to kill myself and I overdosed and went into a stage 3 coma last may of 2019 because of her unethical behavior.

     I started seeing this psychologist November of 2018. I stayed with her till April 2020. During our course of treatment she caused me to experience deterioration and retriggered my PTSD by moving quicker than I was comfortable with.

      I went in with Anorexia and PTSD but my PTSD was under control and not affecting me. I left with Depression, Anxiety, rettrigered  PTSD, a new drug addiction, and Dissociative Identity Disorder.

      In addition to retraumatizing me and causing me to have dangerous flashbacks and dissociative episodes, she behaved inappropriately and overstepped boundaries. She offered me to come sleep on her couch in her office once when I was having a very tough time I declined the offer as I felt it was overstepping a therapeutic boundary.

      I then realized I was getting worse and attempted to leave therapy many many times and she kept calling me and convincing me to not leave, meanwhile I continued to get worse and worse.

     We were doing 3 sessions a week and then she insisted we do 5, she added 2 extra phone sessions (Fridays and Sundays). I wasn't very comfortable with the idea as I have a lot of attachment trauma and I do get attached to people easily and I felt that that would cause me to develop an unhealthy dependency, but she dismissed my worry saying that I needed it then. I do not feel like I did. I accepted it tho and I definitely grew more and more attached, to the point were I couldn't function in between sessions.

     I was attempting suicide, self harming, my Anorexia which I initially went in to therapy for to start with was dangerously worse. I walked in to her office at 150 lbs and told her I had a history of Anorexia and she told me for now it was ok if I lost a little weight, which is very unethical considering Anorexia is a mental illness not about looks and I was coming in to prevent a relapse.

    With time I got worse and worse, lost my period and was 103lbs, passing out on and off and Bulimic on top of it she did nothing to help me, aside from saying you'd look better if you gained weight. Again about looks, failing to recognize that Anorexia actually has little to do with looks.

    I ignored her comments as I realized she didn't understand the nature of eating disorders and I as I did when I was younger with the condition fought it hard alone and recovered, at that point I wasn't even attending therapy as I didn't find it helpful at all.

    She still even then when I expressed that I didn't need therapy and was doing well pressured me to continue. Then when she pushed me into the 5 sessions a week I was reluctant but went along with it. Being wary I repeatedly asked her if she was going to ever cut back on me because I was growing attached,  and she promised over and over again that she would not and she would let me wean. She continued to insist we have the phone sessions on Fridays and Sundays and so I went along with it and got more and more attached.

    One day around march 2019 she spontaneously decided to tell me that she was going to be cutting back the Friday and Sunday sessions. I was in shock and since I was then extremely and toxically attached couldn't handle it and attempted suicide because I was so lost and I felt like my trust was broken to the core. I then was in a stage 3 coma and I was on life support. Miraculously I survived.

    After I came out of the hospital she offered me less support as well and was very detached and ice cold. At a time when I needed it the most. She also would tell me negative things about other clients and she once allowed a client to stick a magazine under the door during our session which startled me and triggered a PTSD reaction for me because I have been in situations where I was locked into places and just had stuff shoved under doors and I had told her that.

    In addition she would have other clients papers sprawled all over her desk, one of which I picked up accidentally thinking it was scrap paper and saw the name, which I found unethical as well.

    I should not have gone back to her after I came out of the hospital and many people warned me not to but I was still attached and struggling. I wanted to trust my gut but being that I was topically attached and had no one else at that point and also had poured out my heart with 2 years of trauma and stuff I lived through I really didndt have the strength at that point to start from scratch with someone new.

I then took a different approach assuming I had somehow offended her and that was why her behaviour has do drastically switched after march 2019 I decided to try to make her happy, I am on a community plan insurance and do not have much money but I was determined to make things well between us. I made her a very nice birthday arrangement I bought her 3 cakes balloons I made her a personal video and had my children myself and my brother who is a celebrity and people ask me to have him perform for them all the time sing for her as well. I also gave her an $100.00 gift card prepaid Visa and continued to gift her for holidays 50s, 100s, etc. 

     It never got anywhere she continued to be ignorant and even acted extremely ungrateful by not even saying thank you, one night stands out in my mind. It was New Years eve, and I was extremely tight on funds but i wanted to show my appreciation, for what? I dont even know looking back but I think it was to have her act normally again, anyways I sent her a whole happy new year's and wishing her and her family well at 12am I sent an amazon happy new years egift card of $50.00 and that for me was alot I didn't even get anything for  myself. I figured she would respond saying Thank You or Happy New Year, something so I would even know she received the e-gift card and maybe to wish me well as well. She did not respond at all.

    Worried that she may not have received it I sent her a follow up Happy New Years message wishing her and her family well again and told her I sent her a little something asking if she got it. Her response was disgusting and obnoxious. She simply emailed me back saying "not necessary". No Happy New Years, no Thank you, you too, nothing!!!! I was so so hurt by that as I had no money at all and had just wanted to make her smile and had given from my heart what I didnt even have, I was really hurt by that and I cried from my heart to my husband who in the past had to and once again after her nasty responses comforted me extensively.  I could not understand and still do not why she treated me so nasty.

     Now almost a full year  after that March night when she broke my trust by cutting sessions she had promised to never do until I was ready I finally mustered up the courage to completely end this toxic relationship. And it has been painful and frightening as she really damaged my trust which I already has issues with but never with professionals, now I am cautious and reserved even in therapy which should be a safe place.

    I am currently seeing a different dr who is excellent. I have been in therapy since I was 5 years old for various reasons and never in my life did I have a therapist cause me such toxic attachment and be so dangerously unreliable. I now am left with major depression and suicidal feelings again.

    I feel retraumatized and abandoned. I am now trying to trust again as someone who lived through 20 years of painful sexual and physical abuse and have a lot of mental health struggles some which developed in her therapy such as a drug addiction and I, who was seeking therapy to improve my life and help me,  really did not need this pain and heartache In my life.

    I paid her for some ending sessions even tho I have little money because this is extremely painful for me and she once again didn't try to reconcile any of her actions and actually had the nerve to tell me she would do that all over again (Referring to insisting on the extra phone session days) even after she saw how it put me into a stage 3 coma. She clearly never cared about my life at all, and based off of her reviews elsewhere which at this point,

    Thursday, April, 30,2020, they are still up it seems I am not the only one who she has hurt. I actually wanted to post a google review but due to corona virus currently causing havoc google has disabled all reviews however there is a review from a client of hers who seems to have also seen and felt her harsh nasty nature.

    She now has cut all contact with me saying if I cant get over her enormous unethical mistakes she cant help me, and I am left with a lot of hurt anger, confusion and anxiety.

    I shared my honest experiences and feelings via reviews and others have as well, and she told my spouse who she often called to intimidate me when I expressed suicidal feelings and she had no patience to deal with altho she was often a direct cause, and told my husband that she has hired a company to remove peoples feelings and reviews silencing them and portraying a fake image of her self so she can go ahead and do more damage potentially causing someone else to suicide.

    So ontop of doing all that damage and causing me and others, so much grief she is seriously ok with, as someone who is supposed to care about humanity and want to help others be heard and listened to, now taking away our ability as a people and a community of those who struggle with mental illness, and visited her,  to lose our voice and just suffer in silence. Like she honestly,  looking back has done to me personally many times by just telling me she wouldnt respond to me in times of serious crisis.

    Because as a child I was silenced and hurt, I refuse to let her do that to us. She is a danger and she should lose her license or take some serious refresher courses on how to show compassion and empathy to her clients and how to actually care and not give false information and make false promises,  before somebody else loses their life and hopefully it won't be me.

    I am currently trying to move past this and it is not easy!!! I am battling feelings of hopelessness and despaire now and feeling so drained by this emotionally gut wrenching experience.She has totally retraumatised me and caused me to feel the pain of the initial loss in my life that caused me attachment injury all over again the difference is she was supposed to be trustworthy and helping.

    As if I dont have enough on my plate with my kids home, and being stuck in the house with no where to go due to corona and a husband who has to go to work so we can put food on the table not to mention the emotional exhaustion of 2 years worth of disclosure of serious trauma I have gone through, I am trying and with the support of my friends and family who have stood by me all along I am learning to reach out and allow people to comfort me altho she has made me afraid to do that as well now.

   I have sent in a complaint to the licensing board on my experience asking them to pleas not let her continue to do this! psychologies motto is "Above all else do no harm" and she has done more harm in the past 2 years that I've known her, than I have ever ever experienced with any professional let alone a psychologist. As a client I seriously hope that others see this and stay away! I am writing her because I know that reviews on here cant paid to be removed and because of her attempts at silencing us as a community I want to have my voice here to warn others who may step into that dangerous web of hers. 

    Please do something about this if you are someone in power seeing this and if you are a client or someone battling mental health struggles pleas pleas stay far far away from this dr she is in my opinion a danger to the most vulnerable.