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?

The thing about the sense that "see a counsellor" can sound abrupt, or as though someone is just asking you to be quiet:

People sometimes just need to talk. Unfortunately, sometimes the people around them just may not be able to listen or appropriate to talk to. They may be involved in the same damaging situation that the person who needs to be listened to is in. They may be abusive themselves, too close to the situation, have their own issues - all of which might make them less than ideal as listeners.

They may not have time, or feel overwhelmed, or worried about causing more harm than good.

And listening skills are - actually - skills. Some people are better at listening than others - just like roller-skating, or icing a cake.

Women have traditionally been the listeners (ironic, really, that as counselling and psychology became professions they were largely founded by men - hmmmm) and I suspect that a rise in counselling has followed a trajectory of women not really having the time to do lots of the invisible listening work they used to do.

So, in all those situations, people may say "See a counsellor" and, yes, it may have an implication of "I can't be your listener" - but it may be meant with care and concern, rather than simply being "Be quiet."

That's what I picked up from Starling's post earlier in the thread, and I thought she was very wise pointing that out.

I do think there is something a bit dismissive and abrupt about "see a counsellor" and it is really a way of telling people to be quiet

Undoubtedly there are people who don't want to listen to anything which goes deeper than chit-chat and "positive thinking" which blocks out any of the more difficult parts of human experience.

But there are also people who've been fortunate enough to benefit from finding a really decent therapist, perhaps after years of trying, and wish it could happen for the person they're recommending it to as well. It doesn't mean "shut up and go away", it means "I'm just a stranger on MN and haven't got particular experience which would help you, but there are people who do".

I get that, cat, and it is also often a way of someone signalling they feel out of their depth as a listener.

But, I remember on holiday when I was about 13 being felt up by some bloke and unusually for me, I couldn't shut up about it. I can still remember my mum saying "do you want to talk to me about it?" and I did! I didn't need counselling. I just needed to process it. I sometimes talk to myself in the car

It is a sad day if just needing to blather on for a bit deems someone in need of counselling unless you are a counsellor earning £50 ph for it

Obviously there comes a point where it isn't helpful, where it is reliving trauma or just dwelling on a negative experience - but the problem is that given that most people don't see counsellors every day, the need to talk is still there.

Counselling has helped some people, I know - I just wish it wasn't always trotted out as the go-to solution for everything from being scared of spiders to smoking to problems with DP.

I have recently had CBT and found it very helpful.

I did spend a lot of time thinking that because I had followed the advice about changing my thoughts and got better, it was my fault I had been so terribly ill in the first place. I realise I could not help my original thoughts though.

I do get what you mean OP, but any help is help. This isn't blaming those who cannot access it for whatever reason.

I've done some research with counsellors, and one of the common themes they discuss is that people are advised or sent for counselling when they're not ready or it's not suitable for them. For counselling to be effective, people need to be ready to explore some issues that are distressing to them and for some, they are not, and may never be, ready to do that.

A close relative, now 70, has suffered from generalised anxiety disorder relating to a series of incidents when she was a teenager, and has been on medication for many years. When her GP suggested counselling she was horrified, but she has since gone on to talk about what happened with a friend and it seems to have helped a bit. It seems to me (and I'm fully prepared to be flamed for this) that it's like wanting to give up smoking or drinking or drugs, or stop being claustrophobic or scared of spiders or whatever, only in that you fully acknowledge that you don't want to live like this anymore, and then you are ready to seek help.

And then there are the counsellors who aren't, and never will be, suited to the job or ready for it.

speckofglitter
I didn't mean to imply that if it hasn't worked for someone then it's because they haven't seen the right person or right type of therapy.
What I meant was that in a lot of cases people get inferior help for their needs, but also lots of people don't need to have that kind of help also. What with the other analogies

I wasn't trying to criticise anyone who doesn't want or need to go.

I just meant we are all different and sometimes it's good to explore a lot of options!

I find it impossible to talk to friends about a lot of things and my family, well forget it! So even just having someone to chat to about life was good for me!
But I understand that doesn't work for everyone

I did see a programme ages ago which suggests that going over and over again for years a traumatic event that happened in the past is counterproductive. No I don't think anyone should blame themselves if they can't or don't want to go for counselling. I think counselling can help if somebody can't get past some event but not always. I don't know what the answer is and I don't think anybody does.

But I think it's a shame when somebody says they've such and such a problem and they've had counselling CBT and the rest and it hasn't helped and they think it's their fault it hasn't. But it's not in the least bit their fault.

You can see why people think it is their fault, though, with comments like one above about it "only working if you are ready" and "only if you are prepared to work at it."

It reminds me uncomfortably of the memes trotted out by MLMs.

I agree speckofglitter.

Fully agree with that, sequence, and that's why it's important to find the right one for you (probably at a time when you're least able to do it). One suggestion is looking for a counselling or clinical psychologist rather than a counsellor, particularly if you are experiencing significant difficulties, as their training takes much longer and is embedded scientific and empirical approaches to 'what works'. Currently, in the U.K., anyone can call themselves a counsellor or psychotherapist without any relevant skills or qualifications, though most are highly qualified.

I can only recommend that if you are looking for 'a talking cure' or help, invest time in seeking out people with relevant qualifications, and expertise in the area where you want help. There are online directories where they list their expertise. Some specialise in DV, some in PTSD, some in coping with chronic illness etc. They're as varied as there are days in the year, and yes, some of them shouldn't be doing it.

I do think there is something a bit dismissive and abrupt about "see a counsellor" and it is really a way of telling people to be quiet

I don't agree with this, although I can understand how people may think that.

NOBODY wants to go into therapy. It's bloody painful, expensive and hit and miss unless you find a great therapist.

You can not recover and heal from abuse or DV without some form of therapy. It's just not possible to reprogramme yourself, you need the sanity and stability of someone who has not had their brains rewired by abusers or narc.

The way I rationalised it with myself was that I had been brainwashed into believing I was worthless, weak and deserved no better, into believing that 'they' were right and I was wrong, so I had to submit and commit to being brainwashed into a more healthy dynamic.

it's not about 'fault', it's about the fact that WE are responsible for our own happiness and we are the only ones who can get ourselves into a happier place... BUT we can't do it alone.

Even with all the above, those horrid, pathetic little loser voices would chip in at me and remind me that I had to pay someone to listen to my shit...

It's a huge thing to overcome, especially when we have been through so much, and for so long, and even then, after all that effort there will still be dents that remain, but we can become more functional, more self-healing and better at setting and policing boundaries.

You DO have to be ready, it DOES take a gargantuan effort to work on yourself.

The Freedom Programme for example, is not a magic bullet. By god it tears you to shreds in places. We could always tell if it was a hefty session if the biscuits on the coffee table got better than the usual plain.

I found the session that related to the children in abusive environments particularly harrowing.

The FP only gives you sign posts, you have to put the rest together, you have to join the dots, that takes work, when you have been though so much already.

Leaving an abusive relationship is not the end of your struggle, its the beginning of your next struggle; to heal yourself and recover. that recovery goes in clear and tangible steps. You progress, you hit a wall, you dig deep, you climb that next step and then progress along a little and then hit another.

In some ways it pains me to disagree, Hissy, as I can see that this is something you feel strongly about (in a positive way) and this is part of the problem - because if it has changed your life and if it has even saved it, it is natural to want to extend that to others.

But no one wants to go into therapy - well, yes, they do - why wouldn't they? It is the "cure", we are told, to everything. I understand what you mean, that people don't want to have something "wrong" in the first place to want to go, but throughout life most of us will suffer from stress of some description, and it isn't really accurate to suggest that people wouldn't want a listening ear. In most cases, they do. I imagine what stops most people are time constraints and finances.

You can not recover and heal from abuse or DV without some form of therapy I don't know if this is your personal view or if it is one that you are quoting from elsewhere. Either way, I don't think it is an accurate one at all. You may not have been able to, but to put it out there baldly, statements like the above are potentially damaging to the emotionally vulnerable and have the Midas touch to anyone without scruples. Would any other area claiming that something would not be able to heal without something costing at a conservative estimate £40 a pop ever be allowed to stand, let alone be encouraged? I doubt it.

What your post also doesn't mention is the thousands who won't heal with or without therapy. This is where uncomfortable comparisons to Younique, Forever Living et al, come into play. "If you don't buy this kit for £69 you will never change your life! OK, you might not make a fortune, but it's worth a try, right? Right?" Similarly, counsellors urge clients to invest in themselves, often citing themselves as examples. I am sure many are genuine but this doesn't mean they are correct. For many victims of sexual abuse, they will carry some level of trauma within them for the rest of their lives. Therapy will not touch the sides. Many do an admirable job of managing it. Often, it is still there.

Your posts about brainwashing are interesting as I find some counsellors offer a different type of brainwashing and one that is not always helpful. Being "ready" makes me uneasy too - if someone is not "ready" then why, what an interesting reason it didn't work for someone. Why, it wasn't the counselling at fault. It was the individual for not being ready.

I would have far more respect for counselling and counsellors if they were happy to concede it was not appropriate for everybody, and that while it is worth trying, it does not mean there is any sort of slur on the 'client' if they do not feel it is effective, and furthermore if blanket statements such as the one above were not routinely trotted out as assured facts..

You can not recover and heal from abuse or DV without some form of therapy. It's just not possible to reprogramme yourself, you need the sanity and stability of someone who has not had their brains rewired by abusers or narc.

Is it not possible, Hissy, that people are different and that what works and/or is necessary for one is not the best way for somebody else. After all, that is how the rest of the world of medicine works: the same ADs might make one person climb out of depression and another person jump off a bridge. Some people respond to antibiotics better at one time than another, some people respond better than other people. For some people certain types of painkillers don't work. Why should therapy be any different?

I went to see an excellent counsellor while in bad relationship with the explicit purpose of trying to gain clarity about whether it qualified as an abusive relationship. It was massively affirming when the counsellor agreed that it was. She advised me that if I didn't leave, she would feel obliged to report me to SS as a safeguarding issue (I had a 1-year old). It was fantastic. She cut through the FOG like a knife, or rather helped me to do so. I immediately put things in motion to leave the relationship, although it took a few weeks to get things sorted.

That said, I agree it's not a panacea. There is some evidence that insisting on "talking cures" in the early stages after a traumatic event can make things worse rather than better.

This is also what troubles me about counselling. It's more a belief system than anything else. If I take antibiotics, I don't need to work at it. They won't just work "If I'm ready". So suggesting counselling as the equivalent of other medical care is spurious.
Also, I think it's very wrong to say that everyone needs counselling to recover from abuse or DV. That is simply not true, speaking from experience. People have different levels of robustness, different thought processes and coping mechanisms. Talking therapy will be pointless or counter productive in a lot of cases.

This is also what troubles me about counselling. It's more a belief system than anything else. If I take antibiotics, I don't need to work at it. They won't just work "If I'm ready". So suggesting counselling as the equivalent of other medical care is spurious.

a) a lot of medical treatment these days involves physio, life style changes, exercise etc. All those will only work if you work at them. Close relative is currently being treated for stroke. It's been made perfectly clear to him that the best part of the treatment will be the work he puts in. If he doesn't, then he can't hope to regain mobility or fluent speech.

b) as mentioned before, medication does not always work on everybody in the same way. Dd;s painkillers worked wonders for her: when I took the same ones they didn't even begin to touch the pain but gave me severe palpitations.

Coming from a slightly different angle, I also have reservations about organisations exporting a Western-style individual counselling module to other countries after wars, natural disasters etc.

model, not module.

I tend to sugggest therapy to DV victims if they CANNOT do the responsible, rational thing (i.e. get themselves out of the situation) because of their psychological problems.

Or if they feel tempted to go back to the violent man.

I don't usually suggest it to women who just walk out of the door after DV and are positive that they'll never go back.

You have a very strange understanding of what therapy is and is for if you think it is victim-blaming to suggest it to victims of violence who happen to have psychological problems, which is what therapy is for.

"victim blaming" has become a bit too popular a buzzword, imho. To the point that people now call any kind of advice to victims "victim blaming".

Victim blaming is when men insist that women ought to be happy to talk to them in lonely elevators at 3 a.m. and then say "Oh, she must have wanted it, she was in his hotel room at night" when a man rapes a woman who did what she had to so men wouldn't call her "rude".

People giving advice to victims on how to be safe and happy without then contradicting themselves when talking to women who haven't been victims of male violence, is not victim blaming.

Sure, psychotherapy doesn't always work, and women have to be careful to find a good therapist, but it is still a treatment that is intended to heal.

And in the case of women who cannot keep themselves safe because of their psychological issues, that's less like getting surgery for an ugly scar and more like putting a bandage on a wound that causes you to slowly bleed to death.

I haven't yet seen a thread where someone told a perfectly happy, well-adjusted woman who got out of a DV situation and built a new life without problems that she ought to get counselling because it is the done thing, or something.

Is it not possible, Hissy, that people are different and that what works and/or is necessary for one is not the best way for somebody else. After all, that is how the rest of the world of medicine works: the same ADs might make one person climb out of depression and another person jump off a bridge. Some people respond to antibiotics better at one time than another, some people respond better than other people. For some people certain types of painkillers don't work. Why should therapy be any different?

In my experience, no.

Without outside help you only paper over the cracks that got you there in the first place.

to think differently you have to change the way you think about pretty much everything, you have to see things from a completely new perspective and it's just not possible to gain that new perspective, or remove an old toxic filter without an external source giving that new information to you.

A long time ago I was in CBT for out of control depression. the therapist was amazing, I would not be here without her.

One day she mentioned a book that would benefit me greatly. she told me the name of it 'The Feeling Good Handbook'. I went straight to waterstones from the session, a 5 minute walk, and straight to the appropriate section.

I stood there. Mind went blank.

Next session, she mentioned the book again, I said, yes.. I forgot the name of it, please remind me? 'The Feeling Good Handbook'. again.

I again went straight to the book shop, no diversions, no deviations, on a mission. Got to the psychology section.

I stood there. Mind went blank.

AGAIN.

Next session. Therapist mentioned the book again. Argh! I said, let me write this down. I forgot the name again.

She laughed.

I jokingly reminded her that it was mean to mock the afflicted, that depression is a bugger when it comes to memory and that I was pretty pissed off with the new gnat like memory I had gained.

She explained to me that this was not a memory issue, it was a Negative Filter, and that had the book been called the Feeling Like Shit Handbook, my brain would have retained the info.

Brains under stress like depression/abuse/trauma protect the status quo and develop a filter to reject everything else that doesn't gel with the over-riding thought process.

the only way to change that process is to be forced to change it, to gain a perspective that is 'alien' to you for whatever reason.

Once we are in a more healthy place, we can train our brains to reject the negative, to challenge it and use the real truth to help protect our healthy mind set.

You can't compare antibiotics to therapy. The brain is an entity about which we know very little, it can be trained to do things differently, it's more like a muscle than an organ.

Medication alleviates the symptoms of ailments, corrects imbalances, but rarely are the one sole approach. We do have to play our part in our own health and improvement.

"Without outside help you only paper over the cracks that got you there in the first place."

Doesn't this presuppose that for every single trauma or abuse victim there is something inside themselves that "got them there in the first place"? Or (at the very kindest interpretation of your post) that every single abuse or trauma victim is left with exactly the same kind of scars?

Is there evidence that every single person who has been through abuse has the same toxic filter, either as a result of the abuse, or as something that laid them open to abuse in the first place?

Is it not perfectly possible for someone to end up in an abusive or traumatic situation which nobody could have foreseen, and to walk out of it finding that once the source of trauma is gone the damage starts healing? Just like some wounds need medical intervention and other wounds heal on their own?

The cracks were not caused by us. but they are cracks nonetheless and the only thing we can do is to fix ourselves.

Addiction - our control needed to decide to drink/smoke etc, but the reasons we feel we need to are not our fault. Only we can tackle those issues/triggers/reasons, we are the only ones that can make the changes to heal ourselves.

Is it not perfectly possible for someone to end up in an abusive or traumatic situation which nobody could have foreseen, and to walk out of it finding that once the source of trauma is gone the damage starts healing? No, I don't think it is.

People who find themselves in abusive situations are there because of the choices/actions of another person. Abusers target victims, they are drawn to them and their personalityies because in them the abuser sees something they themselves need/crave. They will use little tests to see what they can get away with. a healthy self-esteem will repel most of these abusive chancers, and if not then, when a larger test comes along that pushes a boundary, then the person will be in a stronger place to put their foot down.

abusers don't start out being a bastard on day one, they cant! they would never get the 'feed' that they need otherwise! they have to be really good at appearing to be the best person their intended victim has ever met. this is why things get very nasty very quickly if a DV victim looks like they might leave. The ability to walk out of an abusive environment suggests that the person is less worn down than someone who can't get out, or who has a healthier self-esteem system in place. Once they are out, to heal from the situation requires a thinking process that breaks away from the thinking of old, or a lesson learned.

The book 'Why Does He Do That' explains what abusive men look like, what they do and how they think. The fact that a book can so accurately describe these hideous creatures in so few pages means that the abusers are on the same script, therefore the insecurities of their victims, while brought about by different circumstances, will be similar.

The filter is that the person who falls victim of the abuser is somehow not worth anymore than the abuser, that 'no-one else would have them' or they will 'never survive on their own' or they 'won't be able to cope'. its an inferiority, and inadequacy, a weakness

The scars are similar, this is why things like The Freedom Programme is able to address the issues created by domestic abuse.

Recovery from Narcissistic parents too, the scars created will be the same, but created by different insults/punishments/abuse. How the issues manifest and are expressed will be different to the person involved.

Trauma - if its violence perpetrated by a random person, out of the blue, help will be needed to support the victim in dealing with the assault, there will be a whole host of conflicting emotions and thoughts and while recovery physically is possible, our brains can't fix themselves, we have to reprogramme those thoughts, put things into perspective.

I didn't think I needed to be as explicit in my explanation about the paper and cracks, but will add more to avoid anyone taking things the wrong way:

"Without outside help, you only paper over the cracks that got you there in the first place."

You did not create those cracks, but they are there nonetheless.

Hissy, again how can you sure every single person has the same reaction to trauma?

Even with something as simple as broken bones, some need setting and plaster casts; others heal without medical intervention. Are we sure things are so very different with mental scars?

As for abusers singling out vulnerable people, I am sure that is true in a good many cases.

But I have also known cases where abuse started with the onset of mental illness or even a brain tumour. Equally traumatic for the victim, but not very plausible that either victim or abuser could have foreseen the situation years beforehand.

And then you have the people who have been abused as young children, sometimes by other (damaged or immature) children, sometimes by family members- do they have to assume there is something about their own mindset that means they were singled out, rather than the fact that they happened to be there?

Imo "cracks that got you there in the first place" is completely relevant to some kinds of abuse or trauma, only moderately relevant to others, and totally irrelevant to some.