Counsellor didn't recognise abuse

[Superlambaanana]

I have recently come out of a 9 year relationship with someone I now believe was emotionally abusive. We did counselling last year and I recorded the sessions on voicememos on my phone. (Not for any sinister reason, and mever told anyone I did this. It was just so I could listen back later to fully absorb the points). At the time we felt the therapy helped. The relationship went on for another 15 months before we broke up finally.

At one of the sessions I said I sometimes felt afraid of him and he blew up in the therapy room. The therapist then suggested we do solo sessions for the next two weeks. I just listened back to my solo session and it is so glaringly obvious to me now that I was in an abusive, controlling relationship.

I told her numerous stories in that solo session about how he went mad if I didn't immediately agree to what he said. That I had made massive changes in my life as a result of him making nasty comments about me (I stopped drinking and smoking, lost weight, moved because he wanted to etc etc). That he shut me down by shouting in my face in a really scary way if I tried to talk about any issues. That once he'd calmed down I was always expected to never mention the issue/ row again.

And I told her I was afraid of being alone and that was pretty much the only reason why I stayed with him, but I also felt he pushed me to be a better person by forcing me to do things to improve myself.

She asked me why I said I was scared in the previous session - did I feel he would be violent? and when I said no, I'm afraid when he shouts in my face and I'm afraid I'll be trapped forever in a miserable relationship, she said "well he and I assumed you meant violence when you said you are frightened. That's why he blew up. You should have put it differently last week and you need to think about how you say things' FFS!

This wasn't some two bit, barely trained counsellor. She owned a large counselling company and we paid a premium to have her as one of the most experienced relationship counsellors in the area.

I know that doesn't mean she's not useless. But honestly aren't these people trained to sniff out abuse. I honestly think if she had probed a bit more perhaps I would have woken up to the bleeding obvious and got out far sooner!

I feel like reporting her! But obviously I can't reveal I have it all on tape!

Advice?

Yep fully agree there.
Also sometimes people aren’t able to verbalise they are afraid their partner might become physically violent because that opens a huge can of worms they might not be able to deal with just then

Fear doesn't need to be of a specific, nameable thing. It can just be fear. It's also utter nonsense to say that when a woman claims her partner makes her feel afraid, that she is implying that he has previously hit her. She can just be afraid because he is screaming in her face.

@yellowsmileyface You are allowed to disagree with me, that’s fine, but the reality is that when someone says to you they are SCARED of someone, your first worry for that person in that moment would not be that they might get shouted at, your immediate worry would be of physical violence. If I told my mum I’m scared of my partner, she is not going to sit there thinking that I’m scared incase he shouts at me, her immediate thought is going to be that I’m scared he is going to harm me. That’s not to say being shouted at isn’t horrible, it is, but when someone uses the phrase “scared of him”, the inference is that they are scared of physical violence. And it’s not just OP’s ex that thought this, it’s the counsellor as well. You can agree or disagree with whether that’s fair or correct, and I don’t disagree that emotional abuse is also abuse, but that particular word “scared” does carry violent connotations.

And with regards to your “her partner wouldn’t have gotten so defensive if he wasn’t abusive anyway”, if DH and I were in counselling and he felt I was strongly suggesting he had been or would be physically violent towards me, when both of us know in our situation that could not be further from the truth, he absolutely would be defensive as well as probably hurt, and so would I if the roles were reversed. Again, that’s not to say that OP’s ex was not abusive, from what has been said he was, but it’s not fair of you to say that ONLY an abuser would be angry and defensive if they felt someone painted a picture of them that wasn’t true.

@Mrsttcno1 so you only worry if someone has already been physically violent? you wait for someone who is aggressive to actually hit you before you say you're scared of them?

Recording your counsellor without her knowledge is an extremely underhand thing to do.

Not RTFT but I work on non-mols a lot and would say - not all violence is physical. Violence can be emotional and psychological without involving any physical contact at all. Also there are ways of abusing someone which don’t involve hitting or even shouting at someone (eg gaslighting, financial abuse etc). I agree it’s rather worrying if an experienced counsellor is unaware of that.

Not all violence is physical, but if there's not an immediate physical threat, you don't always go in immediately with all guns blazing - that can be a great way to rupture the client - clinician relationship if the client isn't ready to hear it.

OP has lost all credibility for me with the covert recording thing

Recording people without their consent is really dishonest.

Who do you want to report the counsellor to?

What wrongs will you put in your report?

What do you want to gain from reporting them?

What modality is your counsellor working within?

You write about counsellors "sniffing out abuse" were you hoping your counsellor to directly reflect back "you are in an abusing relationship" or swoop in and safeguard you?

You recorded without consent you were wrong no matter how you or others try and justify it

@Mrsttcno1 Ultimately I still stand by the opinion OP did nothing wrong in stating she felt afraid, because that's how she felt. In therapy, a person should be able to speak freely and use whatever words feel appropriate to communicate how they feel. It's not their responsibility to first consider the many different connotations of some words and how they might be misunderstood.

Perhaps counsellor and partner should have asked her what she meant by that before jumping to conclusions. If it's such an unfair and serious accusation, maybe they should have checked that she was actually accusing him of that, not just assume based on connotations.

I wonder if we heard all sides of this would the answers be the same

People only have have the op's side of this

@WandaWonder Yes, I imagine we probably would hear a very different story from her abusive ex.

If you were a friend of mine and I texted you while I was walking home from work alone, and I said to you “There’s a man walking right beside me, I’m scared”. What would your immediate fear for me be?

Would you be worried I was going to be spoken to, or shouted at? No. Which means that you also agree with me that your IMMEDIATE reaction to the word scared, is a fear of harm.

What OP has been through is horrible, and all kinds of abuse are horrific, nobody should have to live through that. I’m not disputing that, I don’t disagree with that. My only point is that the word “scared” does first and foremost lend to fear of being physically harmed, the knee jerk reaction to hearing someone is scared is not to think they are scared of being shouted at.

I am afraid of people who shout aggressively in my face. That's scary. It's also not possible to predict in the future what shouty aggressive people yelling in your face might do in the future, which is why they are frightening, even if you think or hope they won't actually physically hurt you.

There is a whole crime called 'coercive control' which is about instilling fear and coercion into relationships without physical harm (although the threat of harm is very real).

Trying to justify the counsellor's position is, well, unjustifiable and suggests a lack of understanding of male aggression and coercive control at the very least.

Fucking hell this whole thread demonstrates the complete lack of understanding of DV in society even amongst women.

yes shouting in someone’s face is violence. Coercive control is now a criminal offense.

you should absolutely report her op. I agree counselling with abusers is not recommended, but counsellors should absolutely be properly trained to spot the signs and sign post to proper support services. Surely that is a key point of a relationship counsellor?

I'm appalled by the counsellor and by many of the posters.

The op has every right to say she is scared. This didn't mean she was implying she was being hit. It doesn't justify the reaction that it did. It just means she was scared and had every right to be.

Shame on many of you.

@Mrsttcno1 so you agree you dont need to have experienced violence from an individual to be scared of potential of it?

Have you ever heard of intimidation?

There doesn't need to be actual physical contact for someone to be made fearful by another's actions.

You can be afraid of being yelled at, confrontation, insults, silent treatment, a terrible atmosphere, your kids having to witness their mother being verbally abused.

Your given example doesn't make sense because the man in question isn't a stranger in the street and the only common factor that tallies with OP's experience is that it's a man and a woman involved.

You have a very blinkered view of what is scary and why, so I can see why you agree with the therapist and the abusive ex.

@yellowsmileyface I agree in general that in therapy a person should be able to speak freely without worry of misunderstanding, HOWEVER, when you are in couples therapy, with your partner, of course you should want to ensure you are on the same page, and avoid misunderstandings, as couples therapy is to work together as a couple. That is the base line any couples counsellor is going to take from the off- that both are here to resolve their issues and improve their relationship. This is why as others have said, couples counselling in an abusive relationship is not a great idea.

You could argue it either which way, in a healthy relationship (which of course the OP with an abusive ex was not, but that’s not a conclusion a couples counsellor can jump to) both partners have equal responsibility for ensuring clear communication. In a healthy relationship it is not for one person to speak freely and without worrying about miscommunication, and for the other to then cross check anything to ensure there’s no misunderstandings between them.

Violence takes many forms - not just hitting someone.

@Mrsttcno1 OPs ex must have been an idiot then because he would clearly recall that he has not physically abused her, so raging that she is scared of him in relation to physical abuse seemed a bit off - unless, of course, he knew something we dont

The counsellor may well have spotted it. Risk comes in degrees. If there is immediate risk of violence, that indicates an immediate response. However, this often breaks the therapeutic relationship.

If you have a little more time, then it's far better to work through things slowly. This takes weeks or months, but is often better in the long term.

I don’t have a blinkered view of what is scary and why, my ONLY point throughout is the knee jerk reaction of the word “scared”.

Of course you can be scared of any of the things that you have mentioned, I’m not disputing that. My ONLY point, is that if I said to you I am SCARED of someone, your instant reaction would not be that I’m scared of being shouted at, or that I’m scared of a bad atmosphere. Your knee jerk instant reaction if I said I was scared, is not that.

You can flip my scenario any which way you like. If you were my friend and I texted you to say my husband has just got home and I’m scared, your instant reaction would not be that I’m scared of being shouted at.

What an absolutely idiotic comment to make. Of course we only have the OPs version. It's not a fucking tv show.

To all those who say that it was obvious she meant physical violence, nobody heard of "threats with menances" ?

*A demand must be accompanied by menaces in order to be classed as blackmail under Section 21 of the Theft Act. The menaces can be express, or implied. The term 'menaces' means that there must be some high degree of coercion in order to force a person to take a certain course of action.

Sure that is about blackmail, but even the law accepts that violence can be implied rather than actual 🙄

Not all violence is physical, but if there's not an immediate physical threat, you don't always go in immediately with all guns blazing - that can be a great way to rupture the client - clinician relationship if the client isn't ready to hear it.

This.

Had the counsellor said "you are in an abusive relationship and need to leave right now", how would that have landed? would that really have helped? maybe it would, I don't know.

It sounds like you were doing a lot of work in your solo session to unpack the relationship, and you did in time arrive at the answers, but it can take time to really see the picture clearly, and it's best that the client arrives at this themselves rather than the counsellor spelling it out.
It appears the counsellor had ascertained that you were not in immediate physical danger, and was exploring with you aspects of the relationship you weren't happy with (feeling unsafe, feeling threatened etc)

I don't think they did anything wrong.