Tag: Person Centred Counselling London Bridge

Child sexual abuse

siobhantoner

Ex-school governor who imported child sex doll is jailed

This case really brings home to me how pervasive child abuse is and the ingenuity of the perpetrators.

It has no limits in terms of social economic class and position. Yet there is still I feel a belief amongst some people that it wouldn’t happen in their society or peer group.

In some of the reporting on the allegations against Ted Heath (former PM) one of his friends was quoted as saying something like “I knew him for 50 years and didn’t get a hint of anything like this”. But isn’t that the point! Why would you get a hint if you aren’t part of it?

Abusers are skilled and able manipulator who can hide their crimes from all around them. To assume because you didn’t know about it, then it can’t be true is nonsense.

Abusers do not all fit a stereotype, nor do their victims. Sadly, though by the time the victims do report the damage that has been done to them can make them less credible as witnesses and their lifestyle gets used against them.

I was at a conference a couple of weeks ago which was on trauma and adversity in childhood. Not all relating to abuse admittedly but a great deal of traumatic events children and young people experience are from some sort of abuse. There was a snip-it of info that shocked me, if the adverse experiences were addressed when the victims were young it is estimated that the prison population would be halved and the mental healthcare system would also see a huge reduction in diagnosis.

So when the people do finally disclose what they have suffered why is there a section of the media and our communities so quick to judge them as unreliable? 

It’s time to help them find some healing, not re-traumatise them by attacking them again.

Social Anxiety

siobhantoner

This article has some interesting points on social anxiety. I’m particularly pleased to see mention of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) as I did some training on this years ago and I found it helpful. 

Even though I am a person centred counsellor and ACT is a variant of CBT I found some elements of the training really useful.

Firstly, as the article say “The fundamental premise of ACT, then, is that you don’t try to squash your feelings but are able to notice and accept them while committing yourself to a pathway toward change.” Acceptance of ones feelings is very compatible with the Person Centred Approach (PCA). The more aware we are of them the more we can accept them and ACT has a strong element of mindfulness and self-awareness. 

The other part of the training I had that I found very useful was to focus on what our values are. For each of us as individuals, we have the values we are expected to have but don’t always focus on what is truly most important to us. For an individual with social anxiety, they may realise that it isn’t interfering in what they hold most dear, only with what they think they “should” hold most dear. 

Noticing our true feelings and accepting them can be hard, yet it can also be liberating if we can avoid the “should’s” that we tend to carry with us. 

Family estrangement, scapegoating and siblings

siobhantoner

Family estrangement is becoming talked about a lot more which I am very grateful for. I’ve been working with it a long time and have an older blog post here on scapegoating.

Estrangements are complicated and happen for many reasons.

Let’s focus on siblings.

In an ideal world your sibling is probably your first friend and playmate and the one who as you age knows all your history. Once parents pass away, they may be the only people in life that you can remember your childhood with who shared it.

In a lot of cases though things are not ideal. For some reason the sibling relationship doesn’t work well and in adulthood becomes distance.

It can be that the siblings just have very different lives as adults and drift apart, especially when there are no parents left acting as a bond.

In families with more difficult dynamics though it is probably more complicated. 

This can be due to unresolved and unprocessed jealously from childhood which can fester. Children are very good at spotting and remembering injustice and different treatment and this can happen even in health families.

However, if the parents are dealing with unresolved issues these are likely to be passed down to the next generation.

I work with the golden child and scapegoated child dynamic a lot.

One or both parents will have a favoured, golden child who can do no wrong and/or another child who can do no right. This will create long term complications and severely impact the relationship between the siblings.

Contact between the siblings can be limited or non existent in later life due to it which can be a loss to both, but it can also encourage abusive behaviours as well. 

Processing these experiences is painful as it can mean facing into and dismantling what was perceived as a happy family. Breaking the myth of the happy family can meet a lot of resistance; from others within the family unit and also outside observers.