The sex scandal shrink of NDG Park - pervert or martyred visionary?

André Larivière greets client at his home in an artistic collage

   André Larivière popped onto the scene in the early 1950s and grew a thriving practice as a psychoanalyst to the wealthy folks of West End Montreal.
  He also banged out dozens of books on psychology, explained in laymen's terms.
   Some were translated into other languages but there is little trace of them now.
   His little book industry that was so successful that he owned his own printing press, Editions Psychologique, in Berthierville.
   By the mid-60s Larivière was best known for tackling the anxieties of his wealthiest  through sexual pleasure, which rubbed some people the wrong way.
   Larivière, it was often noted by possibly-jealous rivals, was not officially recognized by any order of psychiatry.
   Indeed he had dropped out of the U of M and then went to study in Paris where he dropped out again.
   It does not appear that he ever claimed to be a formally-trained psychologist.    
   In his early days Larivière was considered respectable enough to be invited to give speeches on the rubber chicken circuit, speaking, for example, to the Youth Chamber of Commerce on the subject No Man is Inferior, on in February 1957.
  Then the real fun began.
  Larivière became emboldened in embracing sexuality, notably giving a speech criticizing Quebecers for being afraid to sin.
   His therapy included what he called gratifications affectives maximales. Patients were instructed to carry out sex exercises.
  Authorities took note and in 1965 police and charged him with a litany of misdeeds, as he was suspected of corrupting young women, and procuring abortions.

A younger André Larivière

   He was acquitted.
   But a prosecutor was so enraged by the judge's acquittal that he denounced the judge publicly, leading to some discussion of a possible contempt of court charge.
   Meanwhile psychiatrists criticized the prosecution for allegedly putting private patient files in the public realm.
   But prosecutors tried him again on charges of mishandling his patients, who he encouraged to learn to relax through sex.
   One expert said that one might indeed relax through sex but said it was a transitory state, like taking an aspirin.
   It was noted that one of his patients tossed herself off the Eiffel Tower to her death.

	An older André Larivière

   Other testimony was sealed and later destroyed, as women would have hesitated to testify had it been a public affair.
   He was found guilty and Judge Omer Cote of St. Jerome sentenced him to 20 years in prison in June 1966.
   His lawyer, however, noted that all of his patients had participated willingly in all of his sessions.
   An appeals court judge later reduced his 20-year sentence to just two years.
   A new batch of charges were produced, including a charge that he helped a young women get an abortion in 1965, and his sentence was raised from two to four years in prison.
   Four dozen police, including the chief of police, came to his house to arrested him during this second arrest episode.
     Larivière was back on the scene before long, however and relocated his practice to 423 St. Joseph W. where he declared bankruptcy in June 1969.
   His troubled times were not yet over.
   Provincial tax authorities charged him with tax evasion in 1978, as he had failed to fully declare his entire, rather significant, income between 1971 and 1977.
    He was given a choice of paying $188,000 or going back to prison in 1982.
    The trail gets washed out after that and we're assuming that he is now dead or else around 100 years old.