Counseling for Rapists and Molesters

Introduction
As a future counselor, the area of discomfort with sexuality that would be problematic for me is the issue of child molestation/rape. For me, I regard molestation and rape as equal to murder, because it is such a violation of the person’s self and identity—and though the person’s life may not be taken in the physical sense, the trauma that the victim experiences can be quite substantial and this can harm a person indefinitely especially if no help is obtained. However, as a counselor I would not feel comfortable supplying that help or giving the right intervention because of the severity of my feelings with regard to this issue. I become completely overwhelmed by the thought of sexual abuse—so much so that it paralyzes me and makes me unable to communicate in an effective manner.
My discomfort stems from multiple reasons—personal, professional, cultural, social, and spiritual places that I will attempt to explain in the self-reflective essay. I will begin by explaining my personal reasons for why I feel that counseling in this area would be especially uncomfortable for me. Then I will discuss my professional reasons, followed by the cultural and spiritual reasons I have for why I my comfort level for counseling sexual abusers and victims would be very low.
Personal Reasons
One personal example of what I mean can be seen in a relationship that I am currently in. I have been seeing a beautiful woman for about half a year. We very much enjoyed each other’s company—but one day she told me that she had been molested by her mother’s boyfriend when she was just a teenager. They tried to press charges against him, but nothing ever came of it. My girlfriend never received treatment or counseling for the trauma I assume she experienced. This bothered me deeply and I have been unable to be sexually active with her ever since she told me this story. I keep thinking that she is almost certainly in need of counseling—yet I am unable to effectively communicate this to her. In fact, I now have trouble communicating any of my feelings to her and I make up excuses as to why I cannot achieve an erection with her when she wants to engage in sexual activity. This example shows the extent to which I am bothered and deeply troubled by thoughts of molestation and rape. I am physically overcome by these thoughts and know that I would never be able to counsel a person who was in need of therapy for these issues.
I would also never be able to counsel someone who committed rape or child molestation because of the physical revulsion I feel for these acts. They would be beyond me and my ability to help. I simply would not know what to do or what to say to help them in their condition as my personal feelings on these issues are so strong: they would interfere with my ability to be a professional. That is why this area of discomfort is one that I would have to address.
Could I ever get to a position where I would feel comfortable giving counseling to a rapist or molester or to a victim of molestation or rape? That is hard to say—but in the place where I am currently, I would have to say that the answer is no. For me, growing up I always viewed the human body as sacred and anyone who should violate it in any way was, to me, a monster. Whether that person sought to kill the body or to use it for his own abusive pleasure—in either case, that individual stopped being a human in my mind and had become something else entirely—an animal, a demon, a monster—anything but certainly not human.
How then do you counsel a monster? How do you counsel an animal who has acted insensibly and without sensitivity to the personhood of others? In the act of counseling there is the assumption that the person being counseled has a willingness to listen, to be open, to express the needs of the inner humanity. Yet for a person who has been sexually abused, or for the person who has sexually abused others, the aura of the monster hangs heavily in the air. It may be possible for me to counsel at some point a victim of sexual abuse, as the victim is not really the monster but rather the object chosen by the monster to be used; I could I think find sympathy for this person, though it would be hard for me to navigate the issues and feelings that would arise inside of me regarding the person’s abuser. I would struggle with these feelings and would not be confident in my ability to arrange them or to order them properly so that they did not interfere with my professional and academic knowledge of how to approach the situation. Perhaps with some growth and even counseling of my own, I could reach that point—but for now I foresee it as a difficulty, especially in the wake of my own experience with my girlfriend, whose admission of being a victim of sexual abuse has overcome me physically and filled me with dread regarding the conversation that I know we must eventually have with respect to why I cannot perform sexually for her. All of this fills me with tension and fear and I do not know how I could ever cope with these feelings were clients to come in and expect counseling from me for their own issues of sexual abuse. I definitely doubt that I would be able to counsel a rapist or a child molester, as I would simply see them as the monsters that they are and find nothing worth saying as their humanity, to me, would be in question.
To counsel someone effectively, one has to feel that the patient or client is capable of meeting you halfway, of coming to a place where the humanity can be touched. For a rapist or child molester, I do not believe that I would ever have a sense of such humanity within them. For a victim of rape or molestation, I feel that I would be too afraid of that place where their humanity had been tainted or victimized by the abuser to even be able to meet it halfway. I tremble at the thought of having to look at the place, to see it: for me it is like a horror story—a nightmare from which one cannot escape. I know that it is possible for people to heal and that victims of sexual abuse can obtain the counseling they need to move forward, but I do not feel comfortable being the type of counselor who can provide that level of assistance. It is just not something that I find within my character, within my abilities or skill level. I feel that I am a very sensitive person, and believe strongly in counseling—but for certain areas I am just not going to be very effective—and this is one of them.
Professional Reasons
Another reason why I feel that as a future counselor I would have a high level of discomfort when it comes to counseling someone who has committed rape or child molestation is that because of my personal feelings towards these crimes I do not imagine I would have the necessary professional decorum to appear unbiased and non-prejudiced. Being aware of my strong feelings towards these crimes, I know that I must limit myself in my professional capacity as a counselor. Some patients and clients I must refuse or turn over to other colleagues who are more comfortable treating them—just as they would do in turn for me with clients for whom they experience discomfort. All people have limitations and it is important to know them, to be honest about them, and to be open and upfront with oneself about them. This prevents problems from arising in the future with respect to trying to treat a person for whom one feels nothing but disdain. For me, I know it would be problematic and that my personal disdain would get in the way of my professional duty and responsibility to act in the best interest of my client; therefore, I would have to refuse these patients and transfer them over to another case handler who would be more able to demonstrate the professional demeanor and decorum needed to ensure that the patient’s interests are satisfied.
Another professional reason that I have is that I would not like my career to focus on these types of clients as I feel it would be too draining for me. If I become viewed as the counselor who is willing to work with rapists and molesters, I might be pegged as this type of counselor and only receive these clients in the future—much in the same way an actor is type-cast into a role and is never allowed to pursue other acting possibilities. I want to be able to counsel a wide variety of patients and clients, but I would hate for my career to be spent having to deal with these issues that arise in the case of sexual abusers and their victims.
Cultural Reasons
Additionally, aside from my personal and professional reasons for not feeling comfortable treating rapists or molesters, I have cultural reasons. I believe that culture is very important for guiding society, and that society must respond to violators of its culture with strong assertions of what is right and what is wrong. When a person violates our culture by killing or by raping/molesting, a message has to be sent that this type of behavior will not be tolerated or accepted at any level. I do not feel that as a society, we have an obligation to provide counseling for such criminals. I know that counseling may be provided and I am not saying that I opposed counselors giving counseling to these people; I am just saying that as a society, there is a cultural obligation to ensure that these types of crimes are not tolerated, and to that end I feel that capital punishment is a just response.
For that reason, I would view myself as providing counseling for these people who have perpetrated these crimes as a cop-out in the sense that my own sense of culture and the needs of a healthy culture are being put in the back seat so that this criminal can receive time and attention that was never given to the victim or that was taken from the victim by the criminal. This does not seem to me like justice and because of my cultural sense, I would experience a very high level of discomfort with regards to providing counseling for this type of person.
Spiritual Reasons
I am not a particularly spiritual or religious person, but I feel that there is a spirit that we are all part of and that our actions impact this spirit and in turn we impact one another. I feel that attempting to counsel someone who has experienced sexual abuse or who has been a sexual abuser would put me in an unstable position spiritually speaking. I do not feel that I would be spiritually capable of connecting with these individuals in a meaningful way or that we would be on the same page. I would be sensing too much negative energy because of the overall issues being discussed and would not have the spiritual strength to counter this negative energy with positive energy and contribute something good to the discussion. I have seen this in my own personal life and do not expect it would be any different in my professional life.
Could I arrive at a stronger place, spiritually speaking? Perhaps I could with some training—but I am not sure how to receive this training, as it appears to be somewhat psychological as well. I feel that I would have to train myself to be able to rise above just about the most horrific things that human beings can do to each other; I would have to become almost superhuman in my strength to be able to turn such negative energy and feelings into a spiritual positive and thus have a good effect on my patients and clients. I would not know how to begin to engage in this process, but perhaps by focusing myself on the transcendental—the one, the good, the true, the beautiful—I might be able to begin the ascent of the mountain to these ideals. It would be quite difficult to perform, but as with all things that are worth doing, there must be some pain involved in accomplishing the task, otherwise it is probably not that meaningful anyway. So I would like to take up this challenge—but I would definitely look for a guide to help me on the way.
Conclusion
For me, providing counseling for sexual abusers, rapists and molesters would be a serious challenge, as I view them as like murderers—and even worse than murderers in one sense, because their victims are scarred and left with internal issues that must be carried around inside for as long as they live. My own personal life has been impacted by a woman who was sexually molested as a teenager, and this has disrupted our love life, and I find it difficult to cope with this experience just in my personal life alone. In my professional life it would be just as a difficult and I do not think that I would be able to find the words to give counsel to an individual who has raped or molested, as I would look at these people like monsters who had robbed me personally of my happiness. Culturally and spiritually speaking, I also have reasons for why counseling sexual abusers would make me highly uncomfortable, as I feel that culturally we have a responsibility to punish these people, and spiritually I simply do not feel strong enough to meet them in a positive way.