Counselling a Christian Member Who Has Been Gang-Raped

Contents

Introduction        

Overview        

The Steps to be Followed        

Conclusion        

Bibliography        

Introduction

Jesus Christ loved the outcasts with passionate love which finally led to his cruel death on the cross by his opponents. He brought revivals to those flickering spiritual lives, the disheartened who felt rejected, ignored, abandoned, and the marginalised. He rebuilt their faith, strengthened and refreshed their hope and through his boundless and immeasurable love made them absolutely acceptable to God through his triumphant death on the cross and resurrection from the grave (Beer Dominic 1995:172). Those people who had been stressed and depressed, and in deep loneliness, and felt detached from God’s community, once again, they were renewed and restored back into the Godly heavenly fellowship. Here is Pilira (fictious name) a lady in her 30s who through an extremely traumatic, disappointing and sad experience suddenly has cocooned herself from full and active participation in the Church activities. She is very discouraged as she feels that her life has been embarrassed, humiliated, disgraced and completely devastated. Is there any hope for her considering the situation in which she is? Yes there is hope through our role model Jesus Christ who did not reject or condemn the Samaritan woman but gave her the power to change (John 4:1 ff). Therefore this essay seeks to provide a guide to anyone – be it pastors or lay persons who are involved in counselling Pilira whose problem is narrated in the overview below.

Overview

Pilira was raped by gangsters and left pregnant. As if this was not enough, she later tested HIV+. In this scenario Pilira is facing problems of the aftermath of rape and how to cope up with pregnancy and being HIV+. Due to this incident surrounding her she is in isolation, self denial, fear and anxiety due to lack of security. She is also undergoing depression, hopelessness and worthlessness. Because of the situation she is in, she is in need of help. In this process of counselling, we will use the Bible as the main source of counselling and other materials available. As counsellors we suggest the following steps to be considered in helping her regain her dignity.

 The Steps to be Followed

 Before getting into counselling, it is important to realize that the purpose of counselling is to provide a space to help the counselee gain a clearer understanding of her situation; hence the observance of all skills is of paramount importance.  

First, a counsellor should seek to build a good and sound rapport with Pilira. This will help the counsellor to build trust and confidence in the counselee bearing in mind that Pilira is downcast, hopeless and obviously shunning public activities because of her status. The situation shows that Pilira is experiencing a lot of pain together with xenophobia.  At this point, it is very important to listen carefully and attentively. Pilira may not be able to immediately tell the whole story as the counsellor may wish because she may have been scared of the counsellor’s reaction. She may have felt ashamed or embarrassed to tell her story. She may have thought of talking to people of less dignity or anyone else but not a counsellor (assuming he/she is a pastor). Affirmative listening is the best to be applied at this point because it gives the counselee confidence that they have found the right person (2006 Rape counsel.com)