- James Buck
- Emily MacKenzie
A well-respected therapist who has worked with trauma victims for decades in Vermont has surrendered his license after two women came forward with evidence that he pursued inappropriate relationships with them.
Bob Wolford, a clinical social worker who retired from the Howard Center in 2017 after nearly 30 years, met the two women through the Center for Trauma Recovery in Essex, where he ran a group therapy program. He later transitioned their care to his private practice, which is where the alleged behavior occurred.
One of the women, Emily MacKenzie of Waitsfield, told Seven Days that she had been attending virtual therapy sessions with Wolford for only a few weeks last year when he started to send her unsolicited presents, for example, paying for her to have a massage. She said he also routinely said he loved her, wanted to hold her and thought of her as his adopted daughter.
The comments continued even after MacKenzie — who was in therapy in part to deal with childhood trauma — expressed discomfort, and she said she eventually felt as if she were being "groomed."
The other woman, who was in therapy as a condition of her probation, declined to be interviewed but gave a close friend permission to speak with Seven Days on her behalf. The friend said Wolford began making sexual advances in the winter, leading to a brief romantic relationship that has severely damaged the woman's mental health.
Wolford encouraged that woman to keep quiet about the relationship, according to investigators at Vermont Secretary of State's Office of Professional Regulation, which received separate complaints earlier this year. Investigators interviewed the women at length and summarized their findings in a charging document that accuses Wolford of six counts of professional misconduct.
Rather than contest the charges, Wolford, 73, voluntarily surrendered his license last week. He did not admit wrongdoing, but he acknowledged the state has evidence that may prove the professional misconduct allegations.
Reached last Friday, Wolford said he had resigned from the Center for Trauma Recovery and had closed his private practice. He said "not all" of the allegations were true but declined to elaborate, adding only that he chose not to fight the charges "because of the trauma" it would have caused the women.
Wolford was hired at the Howard Center in 1987 to oversee all of the mental health agency's correctional programs. He spent years working inside the state's only women's prison, the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility, where he developed a social skills program and held groups for serious and violent offenders.
He's worked closely with people addicted to drugs and alcohol and is credited with helping launch treatment programs meant to help people who commit crimes because of mental illnesses or substance-use disorders stay out of prison. He's also taught social work classes as an adjunct professor at Champlain College. In a statement last week, the college said it had never received any complaints about him and that he was not scheduled to teach any courses this fall.
In 2015, the Turning Point Center of Chittenden County gave Wolford a lifetime achievement award for his long support of people battling addictions.
In November 2021, Wolford was hired as a psychotherapist at the Center for Trauma Recovery. The center, owned by Jackie and Charlie Corbally, opened that fall with a wide range of therapeutic offerings, including a five-day-a-week outpatient program meant for women in need of intensive treatment.
MacKenzie, 36, enrolled in that program in March 2022 after realizing that weekly therapy wasn't enough for her. Every weekday for nearly a month, she attended three-hour-long virtual group sessions, which included a behavioral therapy skills class run by Wolford.
MacKenzie was informed that she would be assigned an individual counselor who would conduct one-on-one sessions to complement the group work. She was initially told it would be someone else, she said, but at the last minute learned from the center's owner that Wolford had "taken an interest" in working with her. Soon after, he began texting her to set up their sessions.
MacKenzie's first few weeks at the center were helpful, she said, especially the class taught by Wolford. But in late April, he left for a monthlong vacation in Mexico and the group "went to hell" from there, MacKenzie said. Five of her fellow clients quit.
After MacKenzie voiced frustration about how the group was going, Wolford encouraged her to switch over to his private practice, she said.
Wolford began to say he loved her around that same period. He delivered the comment in such an offhand way the first time that MacKenzie almost didn't notice at first. When the words finally hit her, she felt deeply uncomfortable. "But I was so desperate for someone to tell me that they loved me, I didn't care," she said. "I looked past it."
Wolford would offer to come to Waitsfield and spend time with her whenever she was struggling. Their only plan if she were to find herself in a serious crisis was to contact him. When she reflected in sessions on difficult moments, he would often say, "Why didn't you call me?"
She told Seven Days that Wolford insisted on calling her his "adopted" daughter and would describe "fantasies" he had about teaching her to ride a bike or introducing her to his own children. MacKenzie had become estranged from her family after Christmas in 2021. Wolford's gifts and his comments about her "adoption" made her very uncomfortable, she said, and yet he seemed to be the only person in her life who cared enough to want to have that type of relationship with her.
MacKenzie's boyfriend at the time warned her that Wolford's behavior sounded unethical. But she found ways to rationalize it. Maybe this is just how trauma therapy works, she told herself. Maybe it is a little more personal. Maybe it has to be more personal.
"When you've gone through trauma, you're vulnerable and you're malleable, and you know better than to bite the hand that feeds you," she said. "What Bob was handing me on a silver platter was just too delicious to turn away."
Last Christmas, she said, he sent her flowers. She had already received a number of other gifts from him by that point, but most seemed at least somewhat related to mental health: art supplies, essential oils, therapy workbooks.
This gift felt different. "There was no wiggle room," she said. "It was just wrong."
She sought advice from a former therapist, and the therapist said she was obligated to report Wolford to the state. Investigators with the Office of Professional Regulation contacted MacKenzie and spent three hours at her house in January, interviewing her, photographing the gifts and reviewing messages from Wolford.
MacKenzie, meanwhile, emailed members of her former therapy group to see whether others had had similar experiences with Wolford. One woman sent back screenshots showing that he had given her gifts, too. MacKenzie later heard from investigators that an official complaint had been filed about a third woman.
That woman, whom MacKenzie does not know, also met Wolford through the trauma center and also noticed a shift in his demeanor after switching to his private practice.
And she, too, began receiving unsolicited gifts last summer, including flowers that also arrived on Christmas. Wolford told her one day that, even though he knew it would be crossing a boundary, he wanted to make love to her, according to charging documents.
The charging documents describe how Wolford's behavior escalated from there:
In January, the two began meeting in person. During one such meeting, Wolford remarked on the "tightness" of his pants, a comment that, according to investigators, the woman took to mean he was getting an erection. Another meeting ended with Wolford walking the woman to her car and kissing her. Their sessions became largely romantic in nature from there, the woman told investigators.
"There was lots of touching over clothing and lots of kissing," she told investigators, adding that she would sometimes go to Wolford's home and he would sometimes come to hers. Wolford also allegedly touched her beneath her clothing, the charging documents say.
Investigators found a number of explicit messages that Wolford sent the woman describing his desire to have sex with her, though it does not appear they ever did.
When Wolford learned he was under investigation for his conduct with MacKenzie, he confided in the other woman about it — and at one point, investigators allege, the therapist told his client he was thinking about killing himself.
In February, the woman told Wolford that she was "really messed up" by their relationship and wanted to end it. At about the same time, the woman called a friend, Taya Mahony, seeking help.
Mahony, who recalled the incident to Seven Days, went to the woman's house and found her distraught but unwilling to say why. Eventually, the woman admitted she was afraid of getting in trouble with her probation officer because she was having a romantic relationship with Wolford.
The woman called Wolford on speakerphone, and Mahony recorded the call.
"I was like, 'Enough is enough,'" Mahony said of Wolford. "I don't care how supposedly respected you are. These are the most vulnerable people — they're in court diversion, they're in recovery from substance abuse, they're people who've been sexually abused, and he was taking advantage of them. It just made me sick."
Seven Days listened to a recording of the call, during which the woman can be heard telling Wolford that she wants an attorney present at their future sessions. She said she did not know whether Wolford planned to turn her in. "I would never do that," Wolford said. "I would worry about you turning me in."
Wolford continued to serve as the woman's therapist during this time, state investigators wrote, "in part to address the significant mental health issues that her sexual relationship with him had caused her."
In late February, the woman cut off communication with Wolford.
Soon after, she mentioned the relationship to her parole officer and another therapist, according to Mahony, who figured that would be enough to spark an investigation, since both professions are required to report apparent misconduct. By late April, however, Wolford was still listed on the Center for Trauma Recovery's website. So late one night, Mahony sent a complaint to the state.
By June, the Office of Professional Regulation deemed the separate allegations against Wolford serious enough to warrant an emergency suspension of his license.
It is unclear whether the Center for Trauma Recovery plans to perform any reviews in the wake of the allegations against one of its former therapists. Last Friday, co-owner Jackie Corbally refused to say whether Wolford ever worked there. Informed that he was still listed on the website as a senior clinician, Corbally finally offered, "If there was a person here by the name of Bob Wolford, they are no longer employed with us." Twenty minutes later, Wolford's name had disappeared from the website.
Wolford's two former patients say they are still grappling with the aftermath of his conduct. Mahony said her friend's life has been "completely disrupted," to the point that she can barely function.
MacKenzie's depression has been so severe that she does not get out of bed most days. She tries to use the coping skills she learned from Wolford, but the reminder of him sends her into a panic. She's on edge when she logs into sessions with her new therapist, wary of being taken advantage of.
She hopes her decision to speak out will help other women do the same. But while she is glad to know Wolford can't practice anymore, she can't help but feel that he got off lightly. The loss of his license "does not provide those of us who have already been harmed with any justice or feelings of wholeness," she said.
"He used his license and his position of power to mess with our minds and capitalize off of our trauma," she said. "And the fact that all he has to do now is stop practicing, when he's in his early seventies anyway?"
"It's really shaken my sense of justice in the world."
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August 16, 2023 at 09:04PM
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A Clinical Social Worker Surrendered His License After Clients Reported Inappropriate Behavior - Seven Days
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