In a letter to the social services minister, Anne Ruston, women’s safety groups said counselling where domestic violence was a factor was unsafe and “not recommended by any representative specialist domestic and family violence service peak body, practitioner group, or research organisation nationally”.
The chief executive of the family violence charity the Lokahi Foundation, Rachael Natoli, said women might not be able to be honest about the abuse they were experiencing in couples counselling sessions.
“Either way it’s a lose-lose situation, because if we go to those sessions and we are not honest, we’re not going to achieve anything from it.
“And if we go, and the counsellor says something that leads to us being in any way honest about the state of the relationship, we are completely in danger when we leave that situation.”
Source: Domestic abuse survivors angered by federal funding for couples counselling | Society | The Guardian