There is a common occurrence within counselling in fundamentalist
churches, in which a lay person, often someone with some experience or some
qualifications, but not truly qualified, opens a client-therapist relationship
with a fellow church member. Depending on the community, it could be a member
of another church, who comes highly recommended by other church community
members.
In the case of families with undisclosed
or unacknowledged abuse, this situation can be highly damaging. A situation
like this occurred within my own family on several separate occasions, with
several different people who attempted to perform as lay counsellors to my
parents.
In the first situation, the lay
counsellor, a woman whose education was in nursing, and whose experience was
working with teenage mothers, attempted to work with my father as a lay
counsellor. This was after I had moved out, at 17, which bizarrely, after many
years of involvement with that church, was the first sign the church noticed
that there was a problem in my home. When the church began to acknowledge that
there was a problem, they recommended that my father see her for counselling.
She tried to work with him by setting some proposed limits on his abusive
behaviour. To my knowledge she never reported his abuse, although she was aware
of it. She didn't experience much success with him, and when he
eventually left the
family home (he was convicted of three counts of child abuse in a plea
bargain) and was no longer open to seeing her, she moved on to act as a
counsellor to my mother. My mother was also abusive (although not to the same
degree as my father) and neglectful, and this woman was aware of this but to my
knowledge did not report it. I can state that she was aware of my mother's
abuse and neglect because I had knowledge of her attempts to help my mother
change her behaviour.
She made repeated attempts to help my
mother by helping her clean up the house, which was extremely unhygienic. This
was a highly unsuccessful venture. The house would simply become extremely
unhygienic again, shockingly quickly. My father had maintained a high degree of
control over the day to day running of the house, and without him there, my
mother was not forced to keep the house clean and was not motivated to do it,
on her own, or for the sake of her children who were living there. When trying
to help my mother keep the house clean did not work, and trying to teach her to
keep the house clean did not work, this woman turned to the children. I was not
living at the house for most of this, but after my father was no longer living
there I spent time there frequently (eventually I returned to live in the house
for another year). During this time this woman also became friends with my
mother, and it always remained unclear what part of her involvement was due to
the friendship and what part was considered lay counselling.
She started out by requiring the children who remained in the home
to clean the house with her. When this had no lasting impact on the state of
the house, things became more tense. She had originally tried to help my mother
mend her abusive and neglectful behaviour, but the tension in the house
continued to increase. My siblings and I had placed the blame for all the abuse
and neglect at my father's feet, in court, since he was the more abusive parent. However, this came with the
expectation that when given a chance, my mother would be a better parent. This didn't
work out, as she continued to spiral out of control. While I have empathy for her position as
a fellow victim as well as an abuser, she continued to spiral for several
years, at the expense of the quality of life of my siblings.
My siblings and I became frustrated with her inability to take
over responsibility for the running of her home. She couldn't coordinate
comings and goings, budgeting, meal planning, household hygiene and food
safety, and she wasn't able to parent her children.
The lay counsellor attempted to change tack again and be a family
counsellor for the whole family. However, she had gotten to know my mother
quite well, and for whatever reason, was convinced that my mother was being
re-victimized by her children. At that point the 9 children ranged in age from
20 to 5. Other people from my mother's church got involved in the lay
counselling as well, and the original lay counsellor became less involved. My siblings and I, not months after sitting in court telling our story of
abuse, were told by the church and the religious lay counsellors they brought
into our lives, that our mother would be a better mother, if only we were
better children.
The older children were accused of usurping the parent role, for
parenting the younger children when my mother failed to do so. Our offence lay
in helping them get through their daily lives, insisting on a certain level of behaviour, routine, and hygiene. These people enabled my mother to continue a
highly dependent lifestyle, simply substituting church community figures to
submit to, instead of my father. As these people remained in denial of the
abuse and neglect that occurred, their input into our lives was heavily centred
on how to make my mother's life better, sprinkled with advice regarding
continuing to respect our father. My mother depended on the lay counsellors for
advice and financial assistance and parenting, to minutiae. My siblings and I
repeatedly requested that the church and lay counsellors become less involved
but that was treated as a disrespectful and ludicrous suggestion. It also
seemed to us that the lack of success caused emotional distress to those
involved, and that their efforts became more about experiencing the
gratification of achieving some recognizable success, than it was about
actually helping anyone involved.
There was another woman, also loosely affiliated with the church, became
involved in the lay counselling in a scenario that was almost a perfect replica
of the situation I just outlined, except that she was never involved with my
father, and she was a counselling student with a Christian distance education
program, and claimed that my mother was her senior project, apparently filling
out reports on her work with my mother. They also claimed a friendship, and
that situation also evolved into her coming into the home and claiming that my
mother would have been a better mother if my siblings were better children. She
took part in trying to clean the house, but again to my knowledge, never
reported the abuse and neglect she observed there.
In the third situation, a pastor of a church that was loosely
affiliated with our church, worked as a counsellor. My understanding is that
unlike the first lay counsellors in this post, he had some education and some
standards for his work, including confining his counselling to his church
office rather than entering the home. It started out quite similarly to the
first situation, with the counsellor coming highly recommended. He also heavily
relied on religious materials and ideology in his work, which was to be
expected. He also experienced no success in counselling my father, and also had
a failed attempt to do to marriage counselling with both my parents. To the
best of my knowledge, he was also made fully aware of the abuse and never
reported it. In my parents' marriage counselling, as described to me by my
mother, he did emphasize that my father should treat my mother better, but he
was always oriented towards full reconciliation as the goal, rather than on
changed attitudes and behaviours as the goal in a situation where there was
significant abuse and neglect.
When this counsellor experienced complete failure in facilitating
reconciliation, he moved on to trying to counsel some of my siblings. However,
he actually brought my parents' files with him to those counselling sessions
and relied on them to inform of him of the presenting issues for my siblings,
rather than allowing them to present their concerns to him directly. His
counselling sessions with my siblings were prematurely broken off as well, and
my siblings expressed dissatisfaction with their sessions with him. All of
these failures were openly understood by our church to be based in some moral
deficit on the part of my family members, which only added to the othering that
my family faced at the hands of the church.
I have referenced the Canadian Association of Social Workers
"Guidelines for Ethical Practice", to explain the problems that
happened in those three scenarios. I chose a social work code of ethics because
that is my educational background, and also because even though those three lay
counsellors were not responsible to any association in their role as lay
counsellors, I feel that is still reasonable to look to a code of ethical
behaviour when discussing their actions in a position of power, that
affected my minor aged siblings.
On page 8 of the PDF in the above link, 1.6.1 states that those
who are aware of child abuse and/or neglect, need to report this to the proper
authorities. There is no evidence that any of those lay counsellors ever made a
child protection report, and certainly none of them claim to do have done so.
Items 2.1.1, 2.3.1, and 2.3.3 outline the responsibility of a social worker to
look out for the well-being of vulnerable persons, in this case my siblings,
and to take care in situations involving clients who are related to each other,
and when personal friendships are involved.
This is not to be a generalized statement against lay counselling,
and surely some lay counsellors must be able to provide counselling among
family members without this kind of harm being done, but the lack of protection
for children in such situations is deplorable and should be shocking. When lay
counsellors are recommended to families in distress, they should be held to
some kind of standard and care should be taken not to harm children in the
process - which shouldn't even need to be said! but clearly it needs to be. There is no escape or protection for a homeschooled, isolated child who is put
in contact with an incompetent lay counsellor, with the full knowledge and
agreement of the church.
