Why Wendy Rhoades kissing her client betrays the coaching relationship

What a disappointment! For the last three years I have been following the adventures of Wendy Rhoades, performance coach extraordinaire, on Showtime’s Billions. I was fascinated by this portrayal of my profession and impressed by how often the show got it right — I even wrote an article about what a great representation it was.

That is, up until this week’s episode. This week, Wendy manipulated one of her clients into helping her out of a difficult legal situation by playing on his sexual feelings for her. After he did what she wanted, she rewarded him with a passionate kiss, prefaced by the dishonest comment, “This is completely platonic.” For some reason, Hollywood writers seem to love the idea that women therapists (and now coaches) have sex with our clients.

In movie after movie and show after show, therapists land in bed with their clients. I guess this is a great fantasy for the writers, who somehow think that we the audience will enjoy it as well. But friends, in real life this behavior is rare and wrong. It violates the ethical codes of medicine, psychology, and coaching. It is profoundly destructive to the clients and to the helping relationship. I have worked with clients who were sexually manipulated or assaulted by doctors and other professionals and I have seen the damaging consequences of this betrayal.

Sexual contact between coaches and their clients is always about the needs of the coach, not the needs of the client. As the Wendy Rhoades episode showed, it is manipulative and self-serving. I don’t know where the Billions storyline will go next, but I, for one, will no longer be citing Dr. Rhoades as an accurate or admirable portrayal of the world of performance coaching.