‘Prozac Doctor’ Launches Defense Before State Board Wenatchee Psychologist Denies Using Vulgarity In Treatment

A psychologist dubbed the “Pied Piper of Prozac” testified Saturday he never discussed his personal experiences in Vietnam or used vulgarities while treating patients in his Wenatchee office.

James D. Goodwin also denied making clinical diagnoses on the basis of observations outside his office, although he did say he came to conclusions about people he knew and people he was seeing for the first time on the basis of their attire, grooming and facial expressions.

A woman who testified earlier that Goodwin frequently used a vulgar term for womanizing was not even his client, he insisted. The woman has said she considered herself to be under treatment by Goodwin.

Goodwin finished testifying for a second day before the state Examining Board of Psychology, which is considering whether he should be barred from further practice because of an alleged mental disorder. The hearing was the first of four two-day sessions the board plans over the next six weeks.

Goodwin is a leading advocate for the use of Prozac and similar antidepressants along with therapy to treat depression, which he believes to be present to some degree in practically every human being.

Goodwin has said he has taken Prozac since shortly before he set up shop in Wenatchee in 1989, a year after he tried to slit his wrists in a bout of depression. He testified he has prescribed Prozac for virtually all of his more than 700 clients over the years.

Assistant Attorney General Gerald R. Anderson said state experts who examined Goodwin will testify later that he has a bipolar disorder with chronic hypomanic symptoms and a cognitive mental disorder.

Goodwin said Saturday that financial and professional rivalry in Wenatchee was the real reason the case was brought.

“I’m not so sure it reduced their practice or their income. I just think they got frightened of the success that I had,” he said.

On Friday, Richard R. Thompson and his girlfriend, Dixie A. Dringman, testified that Goodwin frequently used a vulgar term in describing his sexual experiences as a Marine sergeant during the Vietnam War.

“I would say they misperceived,” Goodwin said Saturday.

“I never used that word,” he insisted. “I’m a nice Jewish boy. Nice Jewish boys don’t use phrases like that.”

He said he never discussed what happened with him in the military in any detailed way.

“I never talked about my sexual experiences in Vietnam,” he said. “We talked about soldiers generally in war.”

In fact, Goodwin said he did not have sex at all while in Vietnam.

“I was rather impotent. I was rather depressed. I was rather frightened,” he said.

Both Thompson and Dringman said they believed they were receiving therapy from Goodwin for sexual tensions in their relationship. Thompson said he benefited from completing a treatment program with Goodwin, while Dringman said she left in disgust after the fifth of 13 sessions.

“This lady was told very clearly she was not my patient. This lady did not sign the consent forms,” Goodwin said. “Rick Thompson … that was our chief issue.”

He said he saw them together because “a relationship is kind of formed between two people,” he said. “I don’t look at things as a relationship problem. I look at it as a people problem.”