Two prominent psychiatrists in Los Angeles — one of whom provided a report on Winona Ryder’s mental health during the actress’s shoplifting trial — have found themselves in a very public form of self-therapy this week after a court case exposed their sex-fixated private lives.

The case, which revolves around a claim of workplace discrimination at the Neuropsychiatry Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), has ensured that patients will never look at their therapists the same way again.

Allegations of the psychiatrists’ post-couch exploits included oral sex in parked cars, love addiction, office affairs, sexual favours and even dog murder. All of which, as the Los Angeles Times pointed out in its front-page coverage of the trial, make the plots of such supposedly controversial TV medical dramas as House and Grey’s Anatomy look rather tame.

At the centre of the case is David Martorano, a handsome opera singer turned media-friendly therapist, who now operates a psychiatric practice from Malibu.

On his website he advertises the “healing environment” of his practice and promises to tackle such questions as: “I keep getting fired, what am I doing wrong?”

The question is apt. Dr Martorano, educated at Columbia University, claims that he had an affair with his supervisor at UCLA’s internationally renowned Neuropsychiatry Institute but that when he broke off the relationship he lost a job offer as chief resident.

The supervisor, Heather Krell, who once psychoanalysed Winona Ryder in court, denies the affair and is counter-suing for slander.

After a fortnight of lurid testimony, the jury at Los Angeles County Superior Court is considering both parties’ claims simultaneously. UCLA argues that regardless of what actually happened, it had no choice but to revoke the job offer to Dr Martorano because of the rumours about the affair, which made it look as though the therapist was getting the job simply as a sexual favour.

Amid the testimony, an astonishing portrait of the LA psychiatrist has emerged.

According to evidence reported during the trial Dr Martorano spends his days away from the office driving along the Pacific Coast Highway in a two-seat sports car, and “talking about his sexual conduct”. Another witness said that he was “addicted” to having women fall in love with him.

Challenged by UCLA’s lawyer, Dr Martorano admitted that “there are traits of narcissism that I possess”, but stopped short of admitting a full-blown narcissistic personality disorder — defined as excessive self-love, a lack of empathy and a compulsion to exploit others.

Yet in his closing argument, the UCLA lawyer accused Dr Martorano of filing the lawsuit against Dr Krell precisely because his narcissistic ego could not handle the fact that she would not admit to going to bed with him.

Dr Martorano’s lawyer replied that “some lawyers want to become psychiatrists”, and accused Dr Krell of trying to ruin his client’s career by spreading rumours that he was a liar, a misogynist and a manic depressive — ultimately ensuring that he did not get the job he wanted.

Testimony was so explicit that Judge Judith Chirlin allowed several women to give evidence using code names. One of Dr Martorano’s central claims was that Dr Krell performed oral sex on him in a parked Audi in front of her apartment and that the couple watched a film called The Fluffer together.

Meanwhile, Dr Krell’s lawyer has urged the jurors to punish Dr Martorano with damages, saying that he acted like a 14-year-old boy, was obsessed with sex, and that “from the moment he arrived at UCLA, what was most important to him was to be known as a cocks-man”.

Dr Krell’s lawyer went on to accuse Dr Martorano of making up the entire story of the affair simply to help him to seduce another doctor.

Dr Krell also happens to be suing UCLA in an unrelated sexual harassment case, which is expected to go to trial later this year. UCLA has also recently been involved in a third sexual harassment case, which resulted in a $2.9 million settlement.

Meanwhile, Dr Martorano and his new wife recently became involved in a legal dispute with a neighbour, who accused the doctor of killing his dog and videotaping his children. Dr Martorano has counter-sued.

Campus scandal

- Three members of the lacrosse team at the Ivy League Duke University were accused of the kidnap, rape and sexual assault of a stripper at a party. The rape charges were later dropped

- Peter Smith, resigned his fellowship at Jesus College, Cambridge, in 2003 after it was revealed he had entertained dozens of prostitutes in his rooms and reviewed them for a website called Punternet

- In 2001 Ezio Capizzano, 68, of the University of Camerino, was charged with misusing public property: a sofa on which he had recorded himself having sex with female students. He was acquitted on the defence that he offered nothing in return but his charm

- Katie Hnida, the first woman to play Division One college football in America, alleged she was raped by a teammate while playing for the University of Colorado

- Two women at the University of Melbourne alleged they had been sexually assaulted at a 2002 party. The case was described in Helen Garner’s The First Stone

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