The data on reporting by mental health professionals, characterized as it is by frequent failure to comply with existing laws, suggest that little might be lost and a good deal gained by considering alternative approaches. Were, for example, therapists working with patients who had been abusive in the past given discretion about reporting, treatment would likely be facilitated. A positive outcome in such cases would be better for abuser and victim alike, compared with the intrusive and often ineffective techniques employed today. Moreover, the terribly overburdened child protective agencies, their caseloads reduced by elimination of some proportion of cases where the threat to children is less imminent, might be better able to concentrate on more serious cases of abuse.