I'd suggesting counselling shifting responsibility to the victim?

[shivermytimbers]

This is just a thought so all and any opinions welcome!
It occurred to me that when someone has been through trauma that has been inflicted upon them by someone else (DV, rape, abuse...) they are often recommended to seek help from counselling to deal with this.
I understand that this can be very helpful and have no problem with people using counselling services to cope during very difficult times.
However...
If the person doesn't want to go for counselling or can't go due to e.g. childcare commitments, work, finances... but still feels affected by what has happened to them, does it give them an unnecessary sense of personable responsibility for a situation that they didn't create thereby shifting blame from perpetrator to victim?
Any thoughts?

Bloody autocorrect
In not I'd

I don't think that counselling is the panacea that it is often held up to be.

Yes. I suppose my question could also cover people who have had counselling and not found it useful. They are often told to try again or find a different counsellor which gives them more stuff to do as a result of what has happened

Are you looking for personal experiences in this? Are you feeling blamed for not doing therapy for some reason, or is this hypothetical?

Agree with max; it is pretty much what I would have said word for word.

I think a lot of counselling is snake oil and can be ineffective at best, harmful at worst. But people who have had it and found it helpful will often refuse to hear of the possibility it might not work.

Therapy is just one tool for dealing with the shit life throws at us. Lots of people use other tools - work, social support, spirituality, family, art etc etc.

Who is doing the blaming?

No.

You can tell this isn't the case because in serious cases of harm having been to a counsellor in no way affects the rights to justice of a victim.

I guess you're thinking that seeing a counsellor might make an individual take on responsibiity for stuff that wasn't their fault. Well, surely a good counsellor wouldn't let that happen? They might look at why an individual has a tendency to blame themselves for stuff and help them get past that. Or they might help a person look to see if there are repeat patterns, and how to change and thus avoid bad situations. But getting them to blame themselves? Doubt a good one would do that.

If you'd been physically injured by an assault would having a bandage applied count as victim blaming? Should you just sit there with your broken arm untreated because it wasn't your fault? Because doing physio to regain function would give you as the victim "more work"?

Obviously, not all medical treatment works, and not all ills can be cured. Counselling is perhaps more hit and miss than lots of other treatments. But it has nothing to do with whose fault it was: it is meant to help the victim recover.

If I am injured- physically or mentally- by another person, I would want the perpetrator punished. But I would also want my life back- whether physical or mental ability to function- and I would accept that, unfair as it is, that may involve doing some work.

This is not the same as recognising that counselling may not be working, or that a certain type of counselling may not be working. A certain type of medicine may not be working either: the meds that were meant to calm me down and lower my blood pressure had the opposite effect because they made me anxious. I was right to point that out and stop taking them. But the unfairness of my having to take them in the first place when the medical problem was probably due to circumstances caused by others was neither here nor there.

I think a lot of counselling is snake oil and can be ineffective at best, harmful at worst. But people who have had it and found it helpful will often refuse to hear of the possibility it might not work.

cool have you ever had counselling that didn't work for you?
Because it seems obvious to me that those who have found it helpful would want that experience for others who are struggling emotionally.

Often though it is as much about 'right person, right time'... finding the counsellor who feels a good fit for you and can explain things in ways which you can understand but also that the client is in the right place and frame of mind in which to make use of the help offered.

A good counsellor can be a life saver. But a bad counsellor can be incredibly harmful - I had a counsellor who set me back massively by basically refusing to discuss the abuse I suffered and reacting to some of the things I said with blatant disgust. The lack of a guarantee that a counsellor actually knows what the fuck they're doing makes the whole thing very risky IMO.

My experience has also been that I have supported other people with very difficult issues in their life but when I wanted to talk about things that I felt/experienced I got 'see a counsellor,' which to me meant 'I am not interested in helping you, I couldn't give a shit.'

If you have a terrible car accident with horrible injuries chances are you'll tell the story to many many people who will listen, rapt, and offer sympathy, ask questions, etc. If you experience something 'shameful' like rape, no one wants to know so you're forced to keep it to yourself like some sort of dirty secret.

Often, all victims of these things want to do is to talk about what happened. They don't want specialist help. Being totally unable to express something so profound, having to hold it up all on your own, can be incredibly lonely and disappointing.

well... it is going to be partly down to the victim how well they recover from whatever has happened to them. Doesn't mean it was their fault it happened in the first place, but someone who is willing to try counselling or whatever else is on offer may recover better than someone who refuses all help.

I can see how in some situations it could end up making the victim feel worse if they thought there was something they could do to help themselves that they couldn't access due to time/finances. However short of not offering the counselling to anyone, I can't see how it would be avoidable. Perhaps people/NHS need to prioritise counselling in the same way as other treatments - you wouldn't say that you couldn't have your broken leg operated on due to childcare commitments.

I agree (very much) with what Sparrowhawk has written.

I've had therapy for abuse.

It's been life-changing.

It's VERY hard work. This shit was given to me, I didn't ask for it.

But what's done is done.

The way I saw it is I had two choices:

• carry on being a dissociated, anxious mess who couldn't relax without alcohol; or

• deal with it and make sure I didn't pass on the abuse my parents passed down to me on to my own children.

I guess I don't really understand the question...I work with people who rehabilitate after accidents and ilnesses that aren't their fault.

Should they not bother trying to get better because it wasn't their fault?

But, on the other hand, many people chug along ok enough after abuse and therefore wouldn't seek counselling.

I was like that for 20 years until a mental health crisis that had been building up since I left home at 18 hit me, and then I had to seek help.

Before that I didn't and was ok with that (or thought I was).

I came to say what Cory said.

Self care isn't victim blaming.

If I'm hurt or injured I seek to help myself get better. No one can do that for me.

Thanks for the responses.
It's just a hypothetical question and there's a lot of things that people have written here that make sense. I particularly liked the analogies between this and physical injuries which still need treatment.
I think what sparked my question was a lot of threads on here about DV where the OP is directed to seek counselling (an absolutely reasonable suggestion). But then I thought of the position of the person who is having to flee danger, look after children, hold down a job, relocate etc etc and I thought, in that position, I'd really resent having another thing to feel obliged to go and do (I'd probably feel the same way about having to go for physio if I'd been involved in a car crash).
It also struck me whether, as a society, we have an assumption that people can be 'cured' of the baggage associated with surviving any sort of abuse and that this minimises the responsibility of the abuser.

And maybe (and I might be having a mental ramble too far here) we expect people to take individual responsibility for dealing with their negativity because we don't want to be bothered by other people's problems

that people can be 'cured' of the baggage associated with surviving any sort of abuse
I don't think people think there's a cure, they just know that there's a therapeutic way of trying to alleviate some of the effects of abuse. Doesn't work for everyone, doesn't completely help those it does work for, but it's something and for some people it holds hope.

and that this minimises the responsibility of the abuser
It doesn't, because the abuser doesn't have any responsibilities IMO. The abuser cannot help the abused.

Sparrow that was kind of the message I got from your post.
I hope you're surrounded by lovely, caring people now!

Thanks shiver. I have lovely people in my life but in general it is very hard to find anybody willing to talk about difficult things. I have had very good counselling and it has been helpful. I sometimes think I should have counselling again but there's something really sad about having to pay someone to talk to. And that's all I need really - someone to talk to.

I actually know what you mean about abusers thinking it minimises their role..

My family seem to think that I can just toddle off into counselling and then come back and be fine with them.

When they either dished out or turned a blind eye to my abuse.

But abuse is a bitch whether you deal with it or not. So get on and deal with it, is my motto.

Some counsellors/therapists do sessions by phone, email or Skype/FaceTime, for people who'd find it hard to attend in person.

It's certainly true that you have to find the right person to fit what you need and are looking for. Many will do a free consultation session or phone chat, as they want to know you can work together successfully too.

'We don't want to be bothered by other people's problems'
Okay I'll bite.
I have a lovely lovely friend with BPD who is also an alcoholic. Due to her illness (which was potentially triggered by childhood trauma caused by her remote, cold father - although she has also suggested he physically and sexually abused her) she has emotionally abused her one child, and has a sporadic relationship with counselling. She is the poster girl for your thinking. She truly sees herself as one of life's victims, and believes that her husband (shortly to be Xh) dd, and all of her friends and relatives, should be responsible for her wellbeing, to the detriment of their own health, because she is ill.
Both her dh and dd have been suicidal because of her behaviour. Seven of her friends are now in counselling because of the stress experienced in trying to keep her alive and well. And throughout this, she is still maintaining that everyone else's life is perfect, and that we should all suck up being called 78 times a day, to talk to her for hours, because she is the one that is ill. And if we don't, we are subjected to abuse, told we want her dead, and she makes more suicide threats.
Whilst I agree it isn't her fault - she is absolutely mentally ill (as a result of perceived trauma) - she does not want to do the work associated with developing coping techniques for her illness, she believes that everyone should just accept it because she didn't ask for BPD - it was something that happened to her.
I agree it's shit. I agree that it is desperately unfair that victims of abuse have to schlep out to counsellor's to deal with their pain.
But if that pain is severe enough to cause other victims, as here? Her dd lived with me for 18mos because her mama was unable to care for her. The dd's counsellor has thankfully helped her move past suicidal ideation. The dh has tried desperately to care for her for many years and is now unable to as his own mental health is declining in tandem. She has been telling him she wants a divorce for years but now he has filed for separation she is threatening to kill herself if he doesn't take her back.
In the grand scheme of things, while I appreciate the theoretical approach that counselling is victim blaming, the practicalities of not accessing the help and support you can just create more victims, and can actually worsen the situation for the original victim, leading to them taking their own life.
From a coldly academic viewpoint, of course, it's a shame that victims have to seek help.
From a practical viewpoint, I'm extremely glad that help exists and can save some lives. Nothing is perfect. Counselling doesn't always work. Sometimes it's shit. That's a very different issue to suggesting it's very existence is victim blaming.

There's a phrase for that exact scenario theancient; don't set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm.

If someone is negatively affecting your own mental health and using you as therapy it's reasonable for you to expect them to seek some sort of help to alleviate their own stress and thus the stress they're putting on you.