I worked as a counsellor at a rape crisis centre AMA

[AvonCallingBarksdale]

Obviously not going to discuss individual clients but if people have questions around the referral process, the type of counselling, training required, support given to client and counsellor, general themes, then ask away.

As someone old enough to remember when there were no rape crisis centres at all I don't need a history lesson. And actually many centres offer services for men and boys.

And my question is still valid, there are vulnerable males who are being abused and raped who deserve help. Just because some men are rapists and abusers doesn't mean they are all "busy raping women".

HOPELESSLYDEVOTED - in terms of my DD we talk a lot about positive self esteeem, assertiveness, self worth, ensuring she is very clear in her own mind about her reasons for wanting to do things. Not necessarily around sex - she’s primary aged - but hopefully the grounding and knowing that she is valued, loved and important will help her. The only person responsible for rape is a rapist, you cannot make someone rape you. Re my DS we have similar conversations and talk about consent. They both know there is nothing that could shock me and hopefully feel they can talk to me.
When they were younger I always said where I worked by name and talked about helping women to feel better about things that had happened to them and give them tools to be able to cope with their lives. Now we would talk openly and in a non vague way, no euphemisms.
Funding is tricky - all the counsellors are volunteers, so unpaid. We might counsel out of the office if women can’t come into the main office so that depends on volunteer accessibility. The helpline is not manned 24/7 but a worker would check messages regularly and call people back. Volunteers have done bucket collections before outside supermarkets and got hardly any money . It’s easier to raise money for more “palatable” causes c

I'm not really sure how it all works tbh. The only thing I was offered was one meeting in a public place (cafe) with a councillor. For obvious reasons I didn't feel comfortable discussing it in there and so I never met with them again and nothing else was ever offered. Is this a standard practise?

How does the specific counselling work?

How are you able to 'hold' woman after woman, story after story so well?

What affects you most?

How do you deal with the guilt and self blame from clients?

Are any clients unable to be helped?

Oh I assumed you were in a paid role. What a very very kind thing to do as a volunteer.

Do you get much funding from 'official' sources eg council, govt?

Do you think you can carry on volunteering long term or will it get too much emotionally at some point?

What are the NHS/ police resources for victims in your area? If your organisation wasn't providing counselling via volunteers what would women be able to access?

SHARKIRASHARKIRA - here’s how it would work from my experience: you’d make the initial call to us (or someone would on your behalf). The referral would be picked up and you would then meet/speak with a staff member to give an overview of your situation and what you were wanting - 1-to-1 or group or just info. Your case would then be allocated to a counsellor who would do the first session with you. This would be an hour, largely made up of agreeing “a contract”, arranging future session times and hearing your story. The contracting is important - explaining confidentiality, when it might have to be broken and how, what happens if you see each other outside of sessions.

Thank you, they're my first flowers ever on here.
I'm going to call them tomorrow (child free day so I can talk).
Thank you for this thread too, I wouldn't be calling without it.

DRAGONLIGHT - we practice person-centred counselling so very much client-led. I would have maximum 7 service users at any one time, partly for my own personal boundaries. The shortest was 1 session and the longest 2 years. Supervision is crucial and you can’t practice ethically without it.
Hands down situations of rape and sexual abuse of children within a family setting affected me most. I now volunteer for group facilitator - for me I risked burning out otherwise.
Fundamentally I don’t think there’s anyone who can’t be helped - for me a good counsellor should always be looking for the way in. There were definitely clients who moved forward more than others and for some the progress may have been getting out of bed and getting washed and dressed. For progress to be made the client needs to engage with the process definitely but personally I don’t think anyone’s hardwired beyond help.
Guilt and self-blame are recurring themes and very common and form a large part of the work. Nothing a service user can do encourages rape. It’s always the rapists fault. A sense of worthlessness is common especially in survivors of child sexual abuse.

HOPELESSLYDEVOTEDTOGU - there are, I think only 4 paid roles - everyone else is a volunteer. However, as I said upthread as part of counselling training you need to fulfil a certain amount of face-to-face hours, so both parties are gaining something. It just so happens that many volunteer counsellors choose to stay as they believe the work is vital.
Funding from government and other fundraising sources, but it's always on a v v tight budget. I volunteered to get Christmas presents for service users one year and had a budget of £60 for approx. 50 people.
I couldn't have carried on counselling there longer-term, so I volunteer for groups. You have to have a certain amount of supervision depending on hours spent counselling per month, but I got to a point where I was finding it harder to detach. Burnout is more common in this type of counselling, but there are many wonderful women who'd been there for 10+ years.
Other services would be the Samaritans, although, of course, that's not counselling as such and there are some SARCs too (Sexual Assault Referral Centres.)

NEWNAMEFOR - you're welcome. Remember, too, that if you decide to go down the counselling route that you need to feel comfortable with your counsellor. Sometimes people just don't "fit" together and there's nothing wrong with that, so don't be afraid to ask for someone different if you want to. And, equally, for many people it's incredibly painful bringing everything up and may make things much worse but that's a completely normal part of the process. good luck.

Thank you for answering :)

Is it common, in your experience for women to not remember until years later even if they remain in close contact with their abuser? For example a child abused by her father remembers nothing until her 30s? Or a teen abused by a family friend and goes on to a long term relationship with him but blocks it out the incident until her 40s?

Is it comon for memories to come back in dribs and drabs?

If I wanted to become a counsellor too, how would I go about it?
Do you think most people being volunteers affects the dynamic, and do you think more people should be paid for their jobs?
Why aren’t people doing your job being paid?

DRAGONLIGHT - sorry, bit of a delay in coming back to this thread. Is it common, in your experience for women to not remember until years later even if they remain in close contact with their abuser? For example a child abused by her father remembers nothing until her 30s? Or a teen abused by a family friend and goes on to a long term relationship with him but blocks it out the incident until her 40s? I haven't been in either of those exact situations, but to take your first example: I've had clients who've had DID - dissociative identity disorder - whereby someone has one or more different personalities, to put it crudely, often as a response to severe trauma, very, very relating to abuse in childhood. It can be used as a defence mechanism, literally to dissociate yourself from what is happening. Things can be buried very, very deeply semi-successfully until some sort of trigger - a smell/song/noise/particular date/facial feature means bits of memory start trickling back up to the surface which is often when things start to unravel. So, although I've not had the exact examples you give, I can't see any reason why either of them couldn't happen.

And, DRAGONLIGHT, someone wouldn't have to have DID in order for memories to be deeply supressed - it's definitely common for people who've experienced abuse, especially at a v young age to "package" things up in a box, which can, over time, turn into a sort of pressure cooker.

ISTHERAINEVERCOMINGBACK - if you wanted to become a counsellor, you'd need to find a course, depending on the type of counselling you wanted to practice. Some people might do an Introduction to Counselling, followed by Counselling Skills, followed by a Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling. At the end of this you'd be qualified and could register with the BACP - British Assoc of Counsellors and Psychotherapists. As you build your counselling hours up, you can then become Accredited, or you might do a course that, once you've finished, automatically gives you BACP Accreditation. I practise person-centred therapy, but there are many different types of therapy - CBT, psychoanalysis, Gestalt. The training for psychotherapy or counselling psychology is different. You might chose to go somewhere like Metanoia Institute in London or you might look up your local further education college and see if they run counselling courses, and what sort of qualification they offer.
I was thinking about the pay - at the RC office, I'm pretty sure there are 3/4 paid posts only. There just isn't the funding to offer paid work to everyone. As I said upthread, it works both ways as trainee counsellors need to "up" their hours and places like rape crisis need counsellors so it helps both parties. Of course, if you want to carry on as a volunteer counsellor there - or at one of the many other organisations where the counsellors aren't paid - you need to be able to afford to do that financially, and not everyone can. There aren't many professions where you'd expect to train for 3 years or more, only to accept not being paid for what you do at the end of it! The paid work comes from being a school counsellor/private practice and agencies where you take on other roles as well as being a counsellor. So at rape crisis, you might be a paid ISVA (independent sexual violence advisor) and an unpaid counsellor.
Yes, I think counsellors should be paid - I think it devalues the role not to be. BUT I was lucky to be able to counsel at rape crisis without being paid - not everyone can do that. I think the work is vital, and I know I have saved at least one woman's life. I'm saying that in a matter of fact way, not fishing for compliments. And I'm not going to be as cheesy as to say "the job satisfaction is all I need" but it's extremely rewarding work. It's a chicken and egg situation - if all counsellors refused to work for free, would that force a rethink or would vulnerable people in need just end up with fewer places to go for help? It's a recurring argument

Does it matter if the woman struggles to label her situation? I ask because I'm dealing with some old memories of a situation I thought of as having got myself into a situation I can't handle but when I think back the issue I felt coerced or lacking choice and it's giving me flashbacks. Does it matter if you couldn't prove it was legally rape?

Don't want to waste people's time

whenlifegetshard . I think it would be a really positive thing if you called. Hope you find some peace x

@RickOShay thank you for responding - and making the effort to understand my post as it didn't make much sense!

I just worry that I'll wait the 8 months for rape counselling and then they'll think I'm making a fuss about nothing.

And take up time they could be spending on another case

You and your feelings are just as important as anyone else’s, they really are. You are worthy of time and care.