R.I.P., ‘Sexual Intellectual’

Posted on | February 19, 2020 | 1 Comment

 

Amie Harwick was a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT) in California who specialized in talking about sex. Harwick claimed to be a former Playboy centerfold, but good luck finding those photos. On her official website, Harwick described her qualifications:

She has her Bachelors of Arts in Psychology from California Polytechnic University in Pomona, California. She has her Masters of Arts in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis on Marriage and Family Therapy from Pepperdine University. She graduated from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality with her Doctorate of Human Sexuality.
Amie has worked with a variety of populations of clients in a variety of settings ranging from a private practice to community based mental health facilities. She has worked with a range of clients including, but not limited to, anxiety, depression, sexually exploited teenagers, juvenile sex offenders, children with trauma, court mandated adults, divorce, sexual identity issues, chronic pain, sex addiction, Bipolar disorder, displaced adolescents, and domestic violence.
Amie was a recipient of the Phillips Graduate Institute stipend award for her multicultural knowledge and awareness regarding displaced children.
Amie is also a member of:

AASECT (American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists)
CAMFT (California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists)
PSI CHI (Psychology Honor Society, Pepperdine Chapter)
KAP (Kink Aware Professionals through the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom)

Dr. Amie is the author of The New Sex Bible for Women available at most major booksellers including Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Years ago, I observed that the most popular form of “feminism” is really a very simple formula: Cute young women talking about sex. Not to say that Harwick lacked qualification as a therapist — her credentials were equal or superior to most practitioners, and her former clients praised her — but her stock in trade was her youth and good looks. That’s why, for example, she was a guest on the Good Morning LaLa Land program. Because the book trade depends on such programs for publicity, having a telegenic presence makes a prospective author more valuable to publishers, thus Harwick became author of The New Sex Bible for Women: The Complete Guide to Sexual Self-Awareness and Intimacy.

 

Like I said: Cute young women talking about sex. That sells, and never mind whether Amie Harwick had more knowledge about sex than you or I might have, there’s always a ready market for such a product.

Here’s a question: When did sex become so complicated that people needed someone with a Ph.D. to explain it to them? For most of human history, human beings somehow managed to do the basic deed without consulting any credentialed experts, and yet nowadays one must have a doctorate degree from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality to claim enough knowledge to dispense advice on such matters.

Just last week, Amie Harwick offered this advice on Instagram:

With Valentine’s Day coming up, many people may be reflecting on past relationships. More often than not, when a relationship ends one or both partners may feel that they have not had what they feel is closure. Moving on, moving forward, and taking care of yourself after the end of a relationship often means accepting that you may not have the ideal closure. Making peace with this takes time.

 

That seems like good advice, right? And maybe some of Harwick’s fans thought she was referencing her relationship with The Price Is Right host Drew Carey, to whom she was engaged for about a year before they split in 2018. On the other hand, most of Harwick’s fans didn’t know that she was being stalked by an ex-boyfriend she broke up with about 10 years ago. Gareth Pursehouse is a computer programmer and photographer who dated Harwick when she was in her 20s and, evidently, had trouble “accepting that you may not have the ideal closure.” Big trouble:

The Los Angeles Medical Examiner revealed the cause of death of Amie Harwick, a family therapist and the ex-fiancee of comic and “The Price Is Right” host Drew Carey.
Harwick, 38, died of blunt force injuries to her head and torso, according to the Medical Examiner’s Office. Police said they were responding to reports of a “woman screaming” on Saturday when her roommate said Harwick was being “assaulted inside of her residence.” When officers found Harwick at her home, below a third-story balcony, she was “unresponsive” and they determined her injuries were “consistent with a fall.”
The Los Angeles Fire Department then transported her to a local hospital, where doctors pronounced her dead.
Police also found “possible evidence of a struggle” and “forced entry to the residence.”
The suspect, 41-year-old Gareth Pursehouse, was arrested outside his home in Playa del Rey and booked on murder charges, the release explained.

Further details on the accused killer:

Hollywood sex therapist Amie Harwick’s alleged killer, ex-boyfriend Gareth Pursehouse, “stalked and threatened” her at a starry porn awards show hosted by Stormy Daniels just weeks before her death.
Pursehouse confronted Harwick at the XBiz adult-industry awards ceremony Jan. 16 in downtown LA, leaving her terrified, her close friend, former adult-film star Jasmin St. Claire, exclusively told Page Six. Fearful Harwick — who was at XBiz representing Pineapple Support, an org that offers mental health services to sex workers — alerted the cops, but nothing was done, St. Claire claims.
She said, “Gareth knew Amie was going to be at XBiz. He stalked her there and went bats–t crazy. He was at the awards working as a photographer, but his behavior was abusive and threatening. He was yelling and screaming. Amie told me after the incident that she was scared he would show up at her home. She went to the police, but they did not take it seriously. He was really obsessive over her; controlling.”

Pursehouse had a history of abusive and threatening behavior:

Slain celebrity family therapist Dr. Amie Harwick, who was killed Saturday morning at her Hollywood Hills home, was abused multiple times by her ex-boyfriend, according to court documents. . . .
Harwick applied for a restraining order against Pursehouse on two separate occasions, once in 2011 and again in 2012, but neither were still in effect at the time of the killing. . . .
“He has suffocated me, punched me, slammed my head on the ground, kicked me,” Harwick told police, according to the restraining order.
She said Pursehouse also broke into her apartment complex previously and “smashed 10 picture frames on my door.”
According to the restraining order, Pursehouse also texted Harwick saying “things will get worse,” which prompted her to call the police. . . .
Dr. Hernando Chavez was with Harwick when that most recent encounter happened.
“He was irate, angry, aggressive, verbally abusive, distraught, under duress,” Chavez said. “And she was trying to calm him down, she was trying to help him soothe, she was trying to be compassionate and empathic.”

Guess he didn’t have “closure,” even after all these years. Why is it that some guys just can’t move on and find somebody new? When I was young, I carried the torch a while for some ex-girlfriends, pining with nostalgia for lost love, but it never occurred to me to blame them for my pain, when obviously the fault for those breakups was all mine.

“Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” as Tennyson said, but I guess they don’t teach romantic poetry anymore, nor do guys watch the kind of movies that would teach them how to walk away from a relationship: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

 

Always act like a winner, even when you lose. If you really want revenge against the girl who dumped you, the thing to do is to carry on with your life as if you’ve suffered no pain at all. If she’s done you wrong, there are other women in the world who’ll do you right. Or such would be my advice, if any heartbroken young guy sought my advice.

Were there any other clues Gareth Pursehouse might be dangerous?

He tweeted anti-Trump comments frequently in the weeks before his arrest, including a February 12 tweet saying, “Reminder… Once Trump is not president, the FBI can prosecute him for all the Mueller report findings…”

 

Here’s some advice for you ladies: Don’t date guys who show clear symptoms of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Not that I’m a Ph.D. therapist or a relationship expert or anything, but like I keep saying, Crazy People Are Dangerous.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! And thanks to the commenter who identified Amie Harwick’s nom de nude as “Nicolette Novak.”

She was definitely not a “Playboy centerfold,” but rather a so-called “cybergirl” (i.e., web-only) whose profile had some interesting quotes:

“I grew up around Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,” she says. “It was a normal middle-class environment, like Stepford. Nothing unexpected, and I didn’t really fit in. I moved to Los Angeles when I graduated from high school, and now I really feel like I’m home.” . . . Nicolette started modeling to pay for her graduate school tuition . . . “I’m attracted to a man that is motivated and self-actualized,” she says. “And I don’t like traditional gender roles. Chivalry casts women in a ‘damsel in distress’ role — a position of inferiority.”

This was circa 2012-2013. Evidently, she got a nose job since then.

 

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