Will Couples Counselling Help Toxic Relationships?
Will Couples Counselling Help a Toxic Relationship or Domestic Violence?
Relationship counselling can help partners understand each other, resolve difficult problems, and even help the couple gain a different perspective on their situation. It cannot, however, fix the unequal power structure that is characteristic of an abusive relationship.
So, in short no. Moreover, an abuser may use what is said in therapy later against their partner. Therapy can make a person feel vulnerable. If the abuser is embarrassed or angered by something said in therapy, he or she may make their partner suffer to gain back the sense of control. Therapy is often considered a 'safe space' for people to talk. For an abused partner, that safety doesn’t necessarily extend to their home.
Couples often enter couple’s therapy to fix their relationship. Deciding whether or not the relationship is better is extremely hard for a couple if one is being abused. The abuser has all of the power and can no longer gauge if a relationship is getting better because he/ she does not see what their partner sees. The abused partner often cannot even rate how bad or good the relationship is because the abuse has affected him/ her.
Another reason that couple’s therapy or counselling is not recommended is that the counsellor may not know about the abuse, which would make the entire process ineffective. The abuser may make their partner seem responsible for the problems, and if the therapist does not realise that abuse is present, her or she may believe the abuser.
Couples Counselling requires calmness, commitment and cooperation. Sometimes, people who are prone to anger can turn on the counsellor when they are reality checked, or the counsellor suspects aggression from one party and they are challenged on their honesty. This can result in verbal abuse and threats towards the counsellor, and counsellors deserve a peaceful workplace and to maintain their reputation for being a helper.
Among the concerns from advocates is that couples counselling by nature attempts to understand both perspectives. This dynamic can fail to hold the perpetrator accountable for their actions, and puts the onus back on the victim.
Example:
Jane sat in a room across from a counsellor and her aggressor.
With the three of them almost in a circle, all facing each other, the counsellor began to ask about their relationship as husband and wife.
“I felt like I couldn’t speak,” Jane recalls.
“I’m sitting there thinking, anything I say I have to be answerable to that. So I minimised everything that I said, every word, every phrase, I made it sound like it was an argument more than it was an assault.”
“I remember leaving the third session – I think we got to three – and my husband was in the carpark. And he was so angry. He said ‘I’m never coming back here again’. And I thought, gosh, I have to go home to this.”
On average, one woman a week is murdered by her current or former partner in Australia, with intimate partner violence being one of the leading contributors to illness, disability and premature death for women aged 15 to 44.
The unfortunate truth is that expanding services which invite families to undertake couples counselling or mediation in the context of domestic violence, outside of a highly specialised environment with the appropriate safeguards and supports, will put women and children’s safety at risk.
These concerns have been echoed by Doctors against Violence towards Women (DAVTW), a group of over 350 qualified doctors, which criticised the move as 'ill informed and dangerous'.
The group maintain that studies on couples counselling in family violence, have shown almost half of the patients were worse off, suffering increased distress, violence and risk of death, and that couples counselling can stop women from leaving violent situations.
Dr Karen Williams, leader of DAVTW and an experienced psychiatrist, specialising in trauma, says inadequately trained counsellors may not question the distorted view they receive and could treat the family situation with “inappropriate optimism”.
She says women often minimise their partners abuse, to protect themselves and their partners – this is especially true when interviewed with their partner in the room. Perpetrators are often very good at presenting a charming, friendly face and frequently deny and minimise their actions or blame them on the victim.
Jane says she blames couples counselling for being part of the reason she stayed in her relationship so long. She says it is important for counsellors to realise that they are dealing with vulnerable women, and they could be giving them a reason to stay.
“If you’re trying to make a decision about leaving or staying at that time, there needs to be an impetus and it needs to be a strong one,” Jane says.
“That’s why family violence is such a difficult head wreck. That love, that bond of being together for 15 or 20 years is still there and you want the children to have a father and at times they are normal people, they are lovely and do all the nice things.
“You think, I can do this if we just both put more effort in, or I put more effort in. It’s about salvaging something that’s really special and feeling scared and alone as well, and not wanting to leave and inflame them.”
Studies have shown that the longer a victim/ survivor is in a violent relationship, the more likely she is to remain. When women finally seek help, it is often due to fear of emotional and physical harm to their children.
For this reason, best practice in working with couples in the context of domestic violence is a safety first approach. Better to have individual sessions where confidentiality is key and therefore each person can reveal the truth of their situation.
(*Excerpt from Australian Family Violence websites)
If you have any questions about the level of family violence in your relationship, please call Ghita on 0439888070 before booking couples counselling, or try a common online quiz.
Google "Am I in an abusive relationship? Better yet, book in for individual counselling – where your information is guaranteed under a code of confidentiality.
Relationship counselling can help partners understand each other, resolve difficult problems, and even help the couple gain a different perspective on their situation. It cannot, however, fix the unequal power structure that is characteristic of an abusive relationship.
So, in short no. Moreover, an abuser may use what is said in therapy later against their partner. Therapy can make a person feel vulnerable. If the abuser is embarrassed or angered by something said in therapy, he or she may make their partner suffer to gain back the sense of control. Therapy is often considered a 'safe space' for people to talk. For an abused partner, that safety doesn’t necessarily extend to their home.
Couples often enter couple’s therapy to fix their relationship. Deciding whether or not the relationship is better is extremely hard for a couple if one is being abused. The abuser has all of the power and can no longer gauge if a relationship is getting better because he/ she does not see what their partner sees. The abused partner often cannot even rate how bad or good the relationship is because the abuse has affected him/ her.
Another reason that couple’s therapy or counselling is not recommended is that the counsellor may not know about the abuse, which would make the entire process ineffective. The abuser may make their partner seem responsible for the problems, and if the therapist does not realise that abuse is present, her or she may believe the abuser.
Couples Counselling requires calmness, commitment and cooperation. Sometimes, people who are prone to anger can turn on the counsellor when they are reality checked, or the counsellor suspects aggression from one party and they are challenged on their honesty. This can result in verbal abuse and threats towards the counsellor, and counsellors deserve a peaceful workplace and to maintain their reputation for being a helper.
Among the concerns from advocates is that couples counselling by nature attempts to understand both perspectives. This dynamic can fail to hold the perpetrator accountable for their actions, and puts the onus back on the victim.
Example:
Jane sat in a room across from a counsellor and her aggressor.
With the three of them almost in a circle, all facing each other, the counsellor began to ask about their relationship as husband and wife.
“I felt like I couldn’t speak,” Jane recalls.
“I’m sitting there thinking, anything I say I have to be answerable to that. So I minimised everything that I said, every word, every phrase, I made it sound like it was an argument more than it was an assault.”
“I remember leaving the third session – I think we got to three – and my husband was in the carpark. And he was so angry. He said ‘I’m never coming back here again’. And I thought, gosh, I have to go home to this.”
On average, one woman a week is murdered by her current or former partner in Australia, with intimate partner violence being one of the leading contributors to illness, disability and premature death for women aged 15 to 44.
The unfortunate truth is that expanding services which invite families to undertake couples counselling or mediation in the context of domestic violence, outside of a highly specialised environment with the appropriate safeguards and supports, will put women and children’s safety at risk.
These concerns have been echoed by Doctors against Violence towards Women (DAVTW), a group of over 350 qualified doctors, which criticised the move as 'ill informed and dangerous'.
The group maintain that studies on couples counselling in family violence, have shown almost half of the patients were worse off, suffering increased distress, violence and risk of death, and that couples counselling can stop women from leaving violent situations.
Dr Karen Williams, leader of DAVTW and an experienced psychiatrist, specialising in trauma, says inadequately trained counsellors may not question the distorted view they receive and could treat the family situation with “inappropriate optimism”.
She says women often minimise their partners abuse, to protect themselves and their partners – this is especially true when interviewed with their partner in the room. Perpetrators are often very good at presenting a charming, friendly face and frequently deny and minimise their actions or blame them on the victim.
Jane says she blames couples counselling for being part of the reason she stayed in her relationship so long. She says it is important for counsellors to realise that they are dealing with vulnerable women, and they could be giving them a reason to stay.
“If you’re trying to make a decision about leaving or staying at that time, there needs to be an impetus and it needs to be a strong one,” Jane says.
“That’s why family violence is such a difficult head wreck. That love, that bond of being together for 15 or 20 years is still there and you want the children to have a father and at times they are normal people, they are lovely and do all the nice things.
“You think, I can do this if we just both put more effort in, or I put more effort in. It’s about salvaging something that’s really special and feeling scared and alone as well, and not wanting to leave and inflame them.”
Studies have shown that the longer a victim/ survivor is in a violent relationship, the more likely she is to remain. When women finally seek help, it is often due to fear of emotional and physical harm to their children.
For this reason, best practice in working with couples in the context of domestic violence is a safety first approach. Better to have individual sessions where confidentiality is key and therefore each person can reveal the truth of their situation.
(*Excerpt from Australian Family Violence websites)
If you have any questions about the level of family violence in your relationship, please call Ghita on 0439888070 before booking couples counselling, or try a common online quiz.
Google "Am I in an abusive relationship? Better yet, book in for individual counselling – where your information is guaranteed under a code of confidentiality.
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