Is MFT Counseling Therapy or Harrassment?
Womyn’s Center, The Feminist Collective, The Lesbian Collective, And The Women’s Studies Advisory Board
| Revision History | ||
|---|---|---|
| • November 13-27, 1991 | Newspaper: Funded by Syracuse University students. | |
| The Alternative Orange: Vol. 1, No. 2 (pp. 5) | ||
| • August 26, 2000 | Webpage:  . | |
| DocBook XML (DocBk XML V3.1.3) from original. | ||
We are writing as members of the Womyn’s Center, The Feminist Collective, the Lesbian Collective, and the Women’s Studies Advisory Board, in order to express our concerns over the current practices of the Goldberg Marriage and Family Therapy Center which present very serious problems for survivors of rape, incest, and other forms of sexual violence.
Perhaps some limited explanation of the history of these practices is in order. Members of the University community may take advantage of low therapy costs through MFT, which as the program describes itself, is the “training and research site for the Marriage and Family Therapy Program at Syracuse University.” We know that many survivors have participated in MFT because the organization Women for Women was run through the Center until last year. Women-for-Women functions as a collaborative therapy group for survivors.
At that time, due to the work of dedicated women (as facilitators and organizers), the practices in questionÑvideotaping and research questionnairesÑwere held to a minimum at the request of particular survivors participating in these programs. Apparently due to some reorganization, these considerations no longer hold, and survivors are treated by MFT as if they do not have characteristic concerns stemming from their history as survivors. In other words, the philosophy that had previously informed those decisions that allowed for some negotiation of these practices among survivors is no longer in force. So that a survivor who seeks therapy at MFT, who seeks to resolve some of those issues that stem from being a survivor, is forced to participate in practices that are against her will in order to receive affordable therapy at MFT.
For those of you who do not know why these practices would be particularly repugnant at best and violent at worst to survivors, we will systematically articulate how these practices position a survivor against her will. We need to remind MFT that they have a responsibility to educate themselves on these issues involving survivors. They also have an obligation to make the needs of women a priority, if for no other reason than the fact that the overwhelming majority of people who seek therapy are women who are attempting to survive in a culture where the incidence of rape and sexual violence is not only staggering, but on the rise. If the survivors have to educate MFT on their own “victimization,” they are revictimized by the very process designed to "help" them.
In addition, it is important that MFT hear once again from a coalition of women that these issues are in fact not our “personal problems.” On the contrary, the problems we are discussing here are the product of a system in which women are subject, in the immediate conditions of their daily lives, to oppression. No doubt, not until MFT (a) sees itself as accountable for the needs of survivors and (b) recognizes its present complicity in this system, will the women most in need of therapy be able to voice their concerns and needs on these issues.
We hope this in some way responds to the statement that one member of our coalition received from an MFT employee who said on the topic of videotaping that although clients were initially very uncomfortable with videotaping practices, they soon grew accustomed to them. This response echoes the well-known justification by the rapist who is trying to force submission: “she resisted at first, but then she got used to it and liked it.” One must ask the question, what does it mean to take decision-making out of the hands of the survivor? What does it mean to enforce practices that are beyond her control while telling her that they are for her own good? How do these practices allow for a space where survivors can have some control, some say in their environment, a “right’ that has been systematically denied them through violence? In so far as MFT takes part in these practices, this program replicates this kind of violence toward women.
The practices in question are the videotaping of “confidential” therapy sessions and the coerced participation in a research project. To the unsuspecting survivor who walks into MFT in need, participation in these practices are not optional. However, MFT is willing to waive the research component, i.e., the questionnaire, if you protest long and hard (protest being one of the few means available to a woman when threatened with violence), and if you do not mind delays in having a therapist provided. This, however, does not erase the extremely problematic portions of the research questionnaire. Potential clients are asked, upon their first visit, to answer questions which not only ask for their name (first and last), address and telephone number, but also demand the most intimate informationÑfrom sexual preferences to estimations as to how often sexual abuse occurred in family life.
The information on this form MFT tells us is to be used both for “personal history” as well as for statistical research. Likewise, the questionnaire asks the survivor to name her perpetrator. Is there any recognition on the part of MFT of the emotional fall-out that occurs for the survivor in the identification of a perpetrator? What message do these kinds of questions communicate to the survivor about the seriousness with which she is taken, without some consideration of the real fear of retaliation that survivors will feel over identification? Is this a safe space in which to do this kind of identification? Why would this form inspire any confidence in the survivor to identify herself and divulge the nature of her abuse in a culture that equates rape and shame, by blaming the “victim”. And of course these questionnaires are administered under the auspices of research allowing MFT to argue that these questions are in fact for the survivor’s own good. In fact, she must pay for the trauma in filling out these forms, more than in emotional costs: there is a fifteen dollar fee for assisting MFT in their research project.
The second practice in question on the part of MFT is to videotape (beginning on the first visit) a client with her therapist for general instructional purposes. It is important to understand how videotaping in this context replicates the very invasiveness of sexual violence and the objectification of the survivor. No doubt, it has not escaped those who are familiar with the emotional fall-out surrounding rape and sexual abuse, that the nature of this violence perpetrated against women is inherently invasive under the worst possible conditions, i.e., against her will. Videotaping, especially if the client is not given the time to develop a trust relationship with her therapist, is necessarily invasive. What control does the survivor have over what is done with these images? What guarantee does the survivor have that she won’t be exploited through the use of these images? In other words, for a survivor of sexual abuse, this abuse always involves an invasion of her personhood, both mentally and physically, which resulted in a loss of control over her body, her self. How can the professional codes of confidentiality of the client/therapist relationship exist in this arrangement? This videotaping procedure threatens the survivor with the very same loss of control which is part of what propelled her to seek out resources of this kind in the first place. In order for therapy to work for survivors, women must be in control of their participation and they must be safe.
In this way it is imperative on the part of MFT to take survivors’ needs seriously. That means that the concerns that MFT has for research, funding and training cannot be positioned over the bodies of survivors; the agenda that MFT follows cannot be prioritized at the expense of healing processes for the survivor. If these practices are continued, MFT negates the reality of the experiences and conditions under which the majority of potential and present clients exist. Survivors meet a tremendous amount of resistance in breaking the silence over survivor-related issues, because culturally these issues are denied reality, and the survivor is blamed for the violence perpetrated against her. In this way, the survivor is systematically “individualized” which justifies the refusal to develop powerful resources for her. Because of the social stigma placed on survivors, there is an incredible amount of shame and fear in retelling these experiences; fear that no one will listen, fear that no one will believe, and fear that no one will respond. In order for a survivor to overcome these fears and the shame that is forced upon her with these violent practices, an immediate positive response is absolutely vital. The fact that MFT would require a survivor, in order to get therapy, to retell these very terrifying and painful experiences on a bureaucratic form or in an intrusive spotlight necessarily an immediately positive response and trivializes these experiences. This is, in fact, a reproduction and an institutionalization of the kind of violence which acts to silence survivors in the first place. Inaction on the part of MFT endorses these practices and places MFT in the position of collaborator.
