There has been a real rise recently in student protests against sexual violence. This shouts the message loud and clear: it’s real; it happens here! We need to keep our angry racket up of course, but let’s also start talking about listening, really listening and responding supportively.
Perhaps you think you know it all already? Well, you might in theory, but actually in practice those experiencing abuse rarely disclose to anyone, never mind provide a C.V. reference confirming your good ‘people skills’. So it really doesn’t hurt to be better prepared.
Now, you don’t need to read anything on rape culture to recognise that brushing ‘unpleasant’ subjects under the carpet is pretty much the norm nowadays. So much so that a student has to carry the mattress on which she was raped to class before being listened to. So just consider for a moment how invested you may be – and have been encouraged to be – in disregarding or changing the subject. This is the first useful thing you can do to help a peer in distress.
We know sexual violence can happen anywhere. But university institutions still seem to ignore its existence and refuse to properly record internal allegations. After all, rape is no different from football, apparently.
To affect change, you can of course join groups and campaigns – your university feminist group, for example, will hopefully be both active and intersectional – because if you haven’t already guessed…it’s very unlikely for disclosure to occur in an environment that doesn’t explicitly stand against sexual violence.
So where do these concerns leave us? With an individual and institutional call to stand publicly against sexual violence, for starters. But also, we need to think about acting supportively in our immediate environments and looking at what being supportive actually means.
Response
Abuse offers a framework or language which few people want to apply to their own experiences. Don’t worry about understanding or applying this framework to someone else’s experience – always take the other as your starting point instead: what do they want? how do they see it? what words do they use to describe it? You may be feeling confused, furious even, but it’s more important to give them the space to think, question and be confused or furious themselves. Try to suspend your opinion and stay with theirs.
Don’t panic; no one is expecting you to remain absolutely neutral or to be an expert at this. Listening actively requires gently reflecting back to them their mood, comments and choices, by saying things like ‘it sounds like you’re feeling pretty hurt’, or ‘so you feel it might be best for you to…’. Whilst people need confirmation that what has happened/is happening is not okay, you are helping them realise this for themselves. Not just telling them.
Format of disclosure
Remember, it may not be a five-minute-two-teardrop conversation. The disclosing of abuse is often a longer process rather than a one-off event. The person disclosing may use allusions, seemingly irrelevant details or a mixture of actual and hypothetical examples in order to gauge the response, trust and support of their listener.
Therefore, try to let go of any preconceptions you might have of how the ‘perfect’ victim or the ‘perfect’ disclosure should be. In particular, your interest in sensational details and clear chronological order ought to be put aside. As a friend or peer, you are aiming to create a space for them to talk and ‘try out’ how their experiences sound and feel; there is no ‘right’ way to disclose. So, again, suspend your opinion and stay with theirs.
Safety
It may be that you find yourself asking them ‘do you think it might possibly help to have a GP take a look?’ or ‘is there some place nearby where you would feel safer?’. Certainly, Judith L. Herman (1992) talks about the importance of first establishing physical safety. So it could be that the content of your conversation relates more to practical considerations. In this context, extensive discussion about emotional well-being or the actual experience may be neither appropriate nor immediately pressing. But still, consider the tentative tone suggested in the above examples: it says this is you; your body; your choice. This respect for choice and autonomy – whether it pertains to accessing medical treatment or using certain words – should inform any response you give.
Avoiding blame or disbelief
In counselling there is a concept called unconditional positive regard (UPR) , which it might be helpful to keep in mind. It reiterates much of what has already been said: try to create a space where the other feels safe from judgement (and, needless to say, from having their words repeated without permission). This UPR ties in with one of the key principles of support: the speaker needs to feel you believe them. UPR shows the importance of avoiding any suggestion of blame or disbelief. If you find this hard to apply, try to avoid ‘why’ questions or appealing to ‘circumstantial evidence’. That sounds more like your own reluctance to face the subject. You don’t need to see the ‘grey areas’, or give a ‘balanced view’; your friend will most likely already be battling with thoughts such as ‘but he is stressed at the moment’, or ‘I shouldn’t have drunk so much’.
Referring and resources
There are places you can both go to anonymously for advice and support, both within the university and elsewhere. If ever in doubt, check the confidentiality statements of your welfare officers, counsellors, mentors, advisors etc.
It may also feel appropriate to ask if your friend has contacted the police, a local Sexual Assault Referral Service or perhaps university counselling, but do so tentatively. Your respect and demonstration of belief in them will do more to encourage reporting abuse than any pressure or suggestion of some sort of ‘moral responsibility’ ever could.
Yourself
Active listening can be demanding. It’s therefore understandable that you may feel overwhelmed, so remember that your primary responsibility is to yourself. That’s not acting selfish or weak, but is simply being fair to you both by recognising what your own needs and limits are. Certainly, there is no harm in asking them whether they have confided in anyone else: tutors, friends, or family, and suggesting that outside advice may help.
Tentative suggestions can help, but remember what Deborah Barker CEO of Rape Crisis in Durham and Darlington says: the policy they follow is ‘no decision about me, without me’. You are there to listen, not impose, and to support, not decide. So, as always, suspend your opinion and stay with theirs.