The Tuesday night incident in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, when a therapist was stabbed to death, possibly by one of her patients, shocked the New York City therapists. The suspect, who apparently said he had an appointment before entering Kathryn Faughey’s office, is still at large and little is known about him.

Therapists across NYC admitted to the high risks they submit themselves to when they are face to face with a patient, not knowing what to expect. Sometimes the most normally looking guy could turn into an attacker: “Often as not, it’s someone who’s talking around like you and me, and the psychosis is well disguised, and I realize they could be dangerous,” Dr. Robert H. Reiner said to the New York Times. “And I look at the window and I think, ‘How quick can I get out?’ Every psychotherapist in an urban area knows this feeling.”

According to a survey, more than half of the therapists across the country have had to deal with violent behavior from their patients, but only half of those said they had actually been attacked, while the other half said they only had to deal with threats.

Many of the New York City therapists have turned to increased security measures so as to avoid deranged behavior from one of their patients, but at the same time, the attacker often needs just one split of a second to go on with his plan. In Kathryn Faughey’s case, one of her colleagues from a nearby office tried to intervene and stop the attacker, but ended up in the hospital, with severe injuries.

The conclusion is that there is nothing that can offer full protection to any psychotherapist when consulting a patient, and even though cases of violence are rare, they do happen, no matter the problems of the patients. Kathryn Faughey’s specialties were couples therapy, and that apparently was no reason for one of her patients to go mad.