This page has been printed from the Yarrow Place website http://www.yarrowplace.sa.gov.au

What is counselling?

Counselling is one of the ways that you can get support for yourself following a rape or sexual assault. Counselling at Yarrow Place is provided by workers who have been trained and have experience in helping and supporting people. Some people decide they want to talk to someone straight away, others leave it for months or even years after the rape or sexual assault. Other people don't want to talk about it at all. Counselling at Yarrow Place is free. We also offer limited counselling for significant others who are affected by the sexual assault. This includes: family, friends and partners.

Do I need counselling after a rape or sexual assault?

Help and support can be really important after a rape or sexual assault. Whether or not you want counselling may depend on:

• how you are feeling
• how things are going for you
• what you want to know about options available to you
• whether there is a trusted person who will listen, understand and support you
• whether you feel 'stuck' on a certain issue or on a thought that's always there.

Counselling may help you when:

• you feel confused and the more you think about things, the more confused you get
• an issue is seriously impacting on your day to day life
• you feel alone and as if nobody understands you
• most days, life seems really hard and you can’t cope any more
• you have strong feelings like anger, self blame or depression and nothing seems to help.

The role of the counsellor is to:

• believe, validate and normalise how you are feeling
• hold the perpetrator 100% responsible for the attack
• advocate for your rights
• provide a safe place to think about issues in your life
• focus on your needs
• assist you to monitor how things are going.
  

The main aims of counselling are to help you to:

• feel more in control of your life
• enable you to explore your thoughts and feelings at your own pace
• find solutions you haven't tried yet
• identify your strengths and develop others
• assist you to monitor how things are going
• find ways to nurture yourself.

Do I need to talk about details of the rape or sexual assault in counselling?

That depends on what works for you. Some people find it helpful to talk about what happened, others don't. If you don't want talk about the details, that's okay. What's important to talk about is how the rape or sexual assault is affecting you and what you would like to do to manage those impacts.

When attending counselling at Yarrow Place we ask that you:

• be considerate of the rights of others using the service - especially their right to confidentiality
• let us know if you have any special needs such as childcare, interpreter or disability requirements
• attend appointments without being under the influence of drugs and alcohol that affect your thoughts, feelings and behaviour
• let us know if you are unable to keep an appointment.

What about group work at Yarrow Place?

Yarrow Place offers a range of groups and information seminars. Please talk to your counsellor or the duty worker about what groups are available.

Group work means getting together in a safe environment with facilitators and a group of people who have had similar experiences. Benefits from becoming a member of a group may include:

• getting support, companionship, encouragement
• having a safe place to meet others who have experienced similar things
• realising that you are not the only one
• finding opportunities to explore some things you find difficult to talk about. It's likely that someone in the group will be talking about the thing you couldn't.
• finding new ways of doing things: you may wonder how to cope with something in your life right now and another group member may have gone through the same thing and offer good strategies.

Significant Other Counselling

Support for those close to the survivor of rape and sexual assault is very important for healing. Support persons such as family members, partners and friends are offered a limited number of counselling sessions at Yarrow Place. This provides an opportunity for support persons to express their reactions to what happened, to explore coping strategies and to discuss how to support the survivor.