Issues for Counsellors

Margaret Nelson Agee is an NZAC-registered Counsellor and a Lecturer in Counsellor Education at the University of Auckland's School of Education.

As counsellors we are called upon to recognise and respond to developments in a constantly-changing world that affect the lives of our clients.  The Internet presents our clients and ourselves with challenges as well as opportunities that we are required to comprehend, if we are to be effective in our work with both young people and adults. 

Whether or not we are old hands at using the Net, inexperienced with it and somewhat out of our comfort zones, or regard ourselves as technological Luddites, it is nevertheless essential that we understand the influence the Net may be having on our clients' lives and relationships, including their personal safety.  We need to educate ourselves about the resources that are already available to assist them, which we can help them to access.  A further task is the application of counselling skills and strategies to engaging with clients regarding their experiences with the Net, as well as initiating exploration of Net-related issues.

What are the issues?

What are some of these issues, and how might clients be affected?  For counsellors in schools as well as those who work in the community with young people, the "Girls on the Net" survey (see this website and also Butterfield, 2001) confirmed not only the widespread use of the Internet by girls 11-19, but in particular, the ways in which they are at risk on the Net: role playing in chatroom conversations with others who may deceive them about their gender, age and intentions; arranging face to face meetings with people they have met on the Internet, often males who are older than themselves; giving out personal information on the Internet, potentially compromising their personal safety; feeling unsafe or threatened while using the Net, experiencing harassment or bullying; and the low level of effective adult supervision and monitoring when using the Net. 

Internet relationships

Net-based relationships may become romantic attachments for young people and adults.  Although these can develop in positive ways, it seems particularly difficult for adolescents to grasp the real risks involved - that being on the Internet can be as dangerous as being on the streets.  While many young people maintain boundaries to safeguard themselves in their everyday or 'real' lives, a number seem to compromise their own safety when relating to others on the Internet.

Although the Internet Safety Kit was developed and distributed to all schools in March, 2000, the significance of the issues it addresses may not have been fully recognised by adults as well as young people.  We may be confronting similar difficulties to those faced by sexuality educators attempting to reduce  teenage pregnancies and encourage safe sex - the belief, "It can't happen to me!"

As counsellors we have valuable opportunities to educate young people and adults about these issues.  In addition to fostering the use of the Internet Safety Kit, opportunities can be taken to discuss with young people their use of the Internet, who they talk with on the Net, how they safeguard themselves in Net-based relationships, and how they handle tricky situations that arise. 

With clients of all ages, we need to be alert to clues they may give out with regard to Internet related issues in their lives.  These issues may include excessive use of the Internet, and difficulties are arising in adult relationships around partners' use of the Internet.  Relationship counsellors also report that relationships developed on the Internet have increasingly become a factor in the breakdown of partnerships and divorces.  The widespread availability of pornography on the Internet has been well publicised, and both the use of pornography on the Internet and trauma associated with exposure to it are issues that counsellors are encountering across the age span.

In creating this page on the website, we can enhance our awareness of these emerging issues together, and share our experiences in addressing them with our clients.  Let me know your response to the issues raised here, and perhaps share your experiences in working with Internet related issues with clients, so that our collective knowledge can be enhanced.

If you have any questions, please email NetSafe at queries@netsafe.org.nz