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?

@Mrsttcno1 if someone shouts in your face you'd be justified in thinking they will hit you even if they have not done so yet

No one is saying that she doesn't have a right to feel scared. No one is saying that intimidation is OK. However, actual physical violence demands a very different response from the counsellor, because it changes the risk assessment. If OP has implied physical violence when it didn't exist, it alters the assessment.

@Superlambaanana

To whom and for what are you going to report her? The relationship has ended .You should be moving on. You are fairly glib and dismissive about recording others without their knowledge and permission.

@fantom You are absolutely correct, of course it wouldn't have landed! Most people would storm out and never come back.

No, I have a much more nuanced understanding of domestic abuse it seems.

I mean why would you presume to know my reaction to anything? That is what I mean by blinkered. You can't even contemplate that I might not have the same response as you.

I have both seen and personally experienced the kind of intimidation op describes.

So if you called me and said you were afraid of your partner, I would first invite you over, and then when you are calm ask you to describe the situation in more detail, so I can properly understand how I can help.

What I would not do, is tell you off for saying you're scared of someone who explodes in anger and yells in your face, because they've never hit you.

We clearly as a society still have a long way to go before we properly understand what relationship abuse is really like.

But you still didn’t answer my question, if I told you I’m scared of my partner, yes or no, is your knee jerk reaction that I’m scared to be shouted at? Or is the first thought that pops to the front of your mind, however fleeting, physical violence?

That is my entire point.

You, nor anyone else here, can possibly claim to know better than what the therapist did or didn’t do because the fact is we here do only get 1 version of events. The professionally trained, and as the OP said themselves highly regarded, counsellor was there, heard both sides, both in couples therapy and solo sessions. So there is actually nobody here who can say whether the counsellor acted correctly or incorrectly, because that counsellor had a much fuller picture and much better training than anybody here.

My therapist was very clear to me that verbal abuse was domestic abuse. It didn’t need to be physical.

In the same way we realise that a sexual assault isn’t something that’s just short of actual rape, but can encompass many many things.

The fact that some people still think that it’s only physical violence that constitutes abuse shows there’s still a long way to go.

The fact that a trained therapist didn’t spot this is truly appalling, you are justified to be upset.

As stated by others, couples therapy not work.

I am divorcing after years of verbal abuse. I have moved out locally, yet my first reaction if I see him passing my house is to run indoors. He has never physically abused me, but I’m still scared of him.

@Superlambaanana I understand entirely why you recorded the sessions. After years of verbal abuse you get so used to being told black is white, then later that you misheard/misremembered when they say white is black. You need proof to yourself that you are not going crazy.

I don’t know if it’s wrong to record. I’d suggest transcribing it and use that. If you do complain tell them that you made notes immediately after each session.

I understand your angst. It is devastating when you realise you have been with someone who systematically abused you by lying and manipulation. That it was deliberate on their part and their game plan to always be a winner. It’s like thinking you have been in a fair fight and finding out that you’ve had one hand tied behind your back all this time. You think that you are their equal but realise they thought you were their subordinate who could be bullied, bullshitted or bollacked into submission.

I have been reading The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans. Please get a copy I think it will help you.

Perhaps the takeaway other people can learn from this thread is that you can be legitimately scared of a partner who has never hit you. Please take that on board. If it hasn’t happened to you, you are blessed.

A quote from the book “sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts “.

@Isheabastard No one is saying that verbal abuse is not abuse!

We are just saying that a counsellor's response to verbal abuse should be different to abuse that has escalated to physical abuse.

Of course recording without consent is a major breach of trust. How would you feel if someone did that to you?

It’s fascinating to see that some people feel that the only way one can be harmed is through physical violence….

Even more worrying, is the fact a counsellor reacted that way too.

@LifeInTheUK No one is saying that!

It's just that the treatment approach is different. And if physical violence is implied when it doesn't exist, then you run the risk of getting the wrong management plan.

We are just saying that a counsellor's response to verbal abuse should be different to abuse that has escalated to physical abuse.

Why should it be automatically different?
Is physical violence always the worst that can happen to someone?
Are other types of violence not as harmful?

fwiw I believe that an act is harmful when it damages my integrity. It can be my physical integrity (as in physical violence or rape), it could be my emotional integrity (gaslighting etc…), it could be my spiritual integrity.
Whatever way, it leaves marks, deep marks on the person. The fact they are not visible doesn’t mean they are less important.
For me, it’s similar to disability. It’s not because a disability isn’t visible that it isn’t as serious or affecting the person less than a very visible issue.

And then, ofc, you can get scared. Scared of anything that is damaging your integrity is pretty normal. And that means, you can easily be scared, and just as badly scared, of a screaming match than someone lifting their hand to you.

Surely, you simply ASK THE PERSON?
Regardless of whether you think you know what’s going on, you don’t rush into a ‘treatment approach’ wo clarifying what’s going on?

And you don’t tell the person off ‘for not being clear enough’ because you jumped to conclusions (which shows your bias, not an issue with what the OP said)

I've already stated upthread.

I'm not saying that verbal abuse is less important.

I'm just saying that with physical abuse, the counsellor needs to takr emergency action, because you need to keep people alive in order to work with them.

This type of intervention, however, breaks the therapeutic alliance. People don't like being told that their partner might kill them, and they they need to leave now. They tend to blame the counsellor, even just on a subconscious level.

If there's not an immediate risk of death, then you have time to work through things, which is usually better in the long term.

No disrespect OP, but maybe your counsellor experienced these sessions very differently to you. Keep in mind that she was in a far more objective position than you. I won’t lie: I think your decision to secretly tape the sessions makes me wonder what your mindset was when you decided to do this. I don’t believe your rationale for recording them and I think that this was a very strange und unethical thing to do.
You might be better off moving forward instead of obsessing over this.

@LifeInTheUK You CERTAINLY DON'T ask the person with the potentially abusive partner present, no. It's a fair guess that that's one reason why the OP was asked to come back separately.

If the OP did actually imply this, then it's important for the counsellor to address. If the counsellor feels mislead, then she needs to address that, too.

why are some of you defending the therapist who:

1. allowed one patient to go off at another in the therapy setting
2. made a wrong and exaggerated assumption of what the patient was saying instead of taking it at a face value
3. failed to deescalate the situation
4. failed to ask the patient to clarify there and then if physical harm was being involved - even if it meant asking the raging patient to temporarily leave the room
5. failed to safeguard the patient (if OP was in physical danger then asking her on the following session was too bloody late!)
6. blamed the patient for all the above by saying it was the patient who was not clear enough when saying she was scared of her partner who then proceeded to rage in front of the therapist.

Scared means fearful or frightened. It doesn't mean "fearful of physical violence" it just means fearful.

I can't believe people are calling the op a liar for accurately using the word "scared" to describe the fear she was experiencing.

@PaintedEgg Because I'm appalled by the recording thing, and I think that that behaviour puts the rest of OP's account in a different light?

@LameBorzoi how does that work? sure, she was wrong to record without letting the therapist know, but that does not cancel out the many mistakes the therapist has made. she should still report her

Why? Because someone has to have behaved with saintly perfection their whole life in order to be believed when something bad happens to them?

If so, there's no hope for any of us.

People are allowed to record conversations if they so wish. What they're not allowed to do is share the recording without consent.

This.
It was a very strange thing to do and also made me question the OP’s intentions.

I don’t believe this “profession” is regulated, so how do you know this person knows what they are talking about?

I'm not sure that the counsellor did make mistakes. Those are all complex decisions, and some are very open to interpretation.

The whole "blamed the patient" thing, for instance, is very subjective. It may just have been the counsellor putting in boundaries.

The whole recording thing indicates that there is no trust in this therapeutic relationship, that the therapeutic relationship is irretrievably broken, and that any recounting of any interactions from within this therapeutic relationship are likely to be highly biased.

the therapist pretty much pushed the blame for her misunderstanding onto the patient - even though the patient didn't say anything that would imply physical violence, just that she was scared

if the therapist was unsure - she should have checked in with OP. Not least because at that moment she suspected actual safeguarding issue

@aspirationalflamingo Covertly recording a therapy session isn't a minor mistake. It's a very deliberate, very aggressive thing to do.