Counselling

Home: Survivors: Incest & Child Abuse: It happened to me

'I have found that counselling by many psychiatrists and psychologists is like having delicate brain surgery performed by a general practitioner.'

'In terms of unhelpful experiences I went to a psychiatrist for a number of years. He listened to me but that was about it. He didn't help, in fact he intimidated me. I tried three—the first two put their hands on me and that was it for me. I was off and out of there.'

'Some professionals don't believe you or say most of them end up as prostitutes so you're doing quite well.

'A friend went to a psychiatrist and she was told, you were abused by your cousin and that is not as serious as father-daughter incest. It is important not to devalue other forms of sexual abuse.'

'I found counselling helpful but it was hard to find a good counsellor and hard to pay for it.'

'My original psychiatrist wanted me to go back to work after I started attempting to deal with my past. I felt this was an attempt to jolly me up, and it felt like he was blaming me. That was unhelpful.'

'Others say, get on with your life, stop thinking about it. That's certainly not helpful.' 'It's certainly not useful for people you know to have judgmental attitudes about how you should have handled it and what you should have done.'

'I've been seeing a psychiatrist, but I could not have done that in the past. I wouldn't have been ready.'

'I also found out that in the last ten years I have paid out over $10,000 in private psychologist fees. On overage I was paying out $50 per week.'

'I've been going to therapy with a psychologist. Counselling can be good as long as the counsellor understands, is not embarrassed, does not condemn and is not just ghoulishly interested.'

'The best thing is to be believed and listened to ---someone who will actually sit down to listen to you.'

'I don't think there is effective therapy available at the local community level. I haven't had a lot of unhelpful assistance because I've seen it coming and sent it away. I'm good at protecting myself. I've learnt to take care of me.'

'I didn't know where to go for so long. Over the last ten years I had many major crises in my life including back surgery. As part of the rehabilitation for my back injury, I had pain management. The counsellor in charge of that felt I was very angry and gave me an anger management book. When I read it, it included discussion about sexual abuse. This activated a lot of memories. I began by talking to my minister. He found a counsellor to see. It took a lot of courage seeing the counsellor.'

'CASAs are very helpful but unfortunately provide only short-term counselling and often that just isn't enough.'

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