'Trauma counselling' is not news

If our various news services are to be believed, South Africa is riddled with trauma counsellors. After virtually any disaster, accident, or just an unfortunate event, we’re often informed that the victims are receiving “trauma counselling”.

Where do these counsellors hide out? What do they look like? How come they’re always available and on the scene? Do they, like tow trucks, hang around waiting for an opportunity to deliver (or, like tow trucks, impose) their services?

Do the victims really want to be counselled, immediately, on the spot? Or is this prevalent news item just a sop that allows the reporter (and receiver) of bad news to feel that at least something is being done? And, by implication, we can all relax, not be too concerned, not take any responsibility and leave it all to the trauma counsellors.

Do our worthy reporters have the background knowledge to recognise a genuine trauma counsellor — and are we possibly exposed to fake counsellors?

Is trauma counselling intended mainly to comfort people in acute distress? Trauma counselling may also be referred to as “critical incident stress debriefing”. Is trauma counselling an attempt to ameliorate the impact of whatever has happened, in order to reduce the chances of post-traumatic stress disorder?

Professor Wessely, professor of epidemiological and liaison psychiatry at King’s College London, Institute of Psychiatry, says it doesn’t.

He’s quoted in a British Psychological Society newsletter as saying that talking to a counsellor soon after being traumatised can interrupt natural recovery processes, can cause retraumatisation, and that counsellors, by describing to people some of the symptoms they could suffer, may actually induce those symptoms by power of suggestion.

He quite bluntly states: “Post-traumatic counselling is a bad idea and a bad intervention. It assumes normal people are too incompetent to deal with adversity and it takes attention and resources away from those people who really do need help from interventions that work, like CBT [cognitive behavioural therapy].”

Well, exactly.

Apart from being ineffective, some studies have shown that immediate trauma counselling can even be harmful.

So next time people are hurt or injured, or otherwise traumatised, please don’t tell me that they are being counselled. It’s not only sloppy journalism, it’s not news, and it may not even be good for the people involved.