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Child sex
abuse hysteria and the Ellis case |
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The wisdom of
Gordon Waugh - Index |
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Your correspondents Ngaropi
Cameron and Beryl Allison (October 24) ask what society wants for sexual
abuse "victims" and their counsellors. We want genuine victims
to be treated competently, compassionately and fairly. We want counsellors to
help confused, unhappy, troubled clients to achieve a sense of balance and
begin to lead happier, contented, more productive lives, instead of
persuading them they are "victims". We want their clients to accept
responsibility for their own actions instead of blaming others for their
present condition. We want honesty and open-minded discussion on these most
serious social issues. We
want counsellors working with real professionals to determine whether a
client's present condition is due to historical sexual abuse, pre-existing
trauma or psychological conditions, fabrication, or a mixture of these,
before considering compensation. We want false claims of sexual abuse
eliminated. We want equitable treatment at costs we can afford. We want
counsellors to work for society, not against it. We want counsellors who
cannot do this to vacate their seats on the ACC gravy train. We welcome G. Waugh's
letter (October 16) regarding ACC report requirements for sexual abuse. If
the ACC protocol change were aimed only at gathering explicit details of
sexual abuse trauma and its effects on the lives of victims, we would not be
worried. Our concern is that the details required appear to be aimed at directing
clients to addiction or psychiatric services as an alternative to
counselling. We believe this is a
cost-saving move on the ACC's part, and is counter-productive for clients.
Other questions which counsellors are required to obtain information about
from clients have nothing to do with sexual abuse. They are about health, or
the kind of questions social scientists use when conducting research. They are not given the
opportunity to refuse to have their information used in research nor are they
offered the opportunity to provide "informed consent", as they
would in any other research situation. Finally, counsellors
are being required to assess the client and allocate a psychiatric diagnosis in
order for the client to be approved for additional counselling. There are many other
issues involved, but because of space limitations we have confined our
attention to issues of direct concern to clients. For many counsellors
and clients, the choice will be to refuse to complete such reports as they
represent a further abuse of the victim. This means that both clients and
counsellors will be denied access to ACC funding. ACC will achieve its
goal of reducing expenditure at the expense of both sexual abuse victim and
the counsellor. Is this what society wants for the victims of the most
traumatic violence which can be perpetrated upon children, women or men? |
