Troubled

I am troubled by how I live - in rooms wiped with lime utility paint
in houses dirty as telephone poles, with bay leaves for moth bane
glue and paper curtains, with single women who pant
like generators for their boyfriends and don't read.
Always under someone's stairs: a goblin, a fat sprite,
ugly as a bent gate but less effective.

Look at me and say      No, no Richard, I would not fool with the devil
for a clean bed, orchids at table and almond-oil rubs,
his moneyed hands on my ass

People fall in love with their therapists all the time. It's called transference. But what happens when the therapist not only loves you back, but also acts upon it?

Troubled is brutally honest and erotically frank, a no-holds-barred confession of a patient/psychiatrist relationship gone horribly wrong. With his signature mix of scathing self-analysis and volatile wordplay, RM Vaughan brazenly documents how an innocent flirtation with his therapist escalated into a dangerous sexual misadventure. When the clandestine relationship goes awry, the consequences are heart-rending and career-ending.

Based on circumstances that really happened to Vaughan and ended in legal proceedings and the suspension of the doctor's license, Troubled also includes documents from the investigation and legal cases interspersed amongst the poems. The therapist in question is currently practicing medicine again in British Columbia.

‘Troubled is at once a disturbing Elizabeth Smart–like memoir charting the turns and culs-de-sac of an infatuation and an artful literary revenge. It’s risky as Baked Alaska. What would it be like if all abused patients were endowed with such talent and courage?’ – Don McKay

‘A book by RM Vaughan is worth two by, say, most anyone else.’ – Eye Weekly