New Guidance Restricts Use of Counselling Notes in Sexual Assault Cases: If You’re a Man Who Was Assaulted, This Changes Everything. You Can Now Speak Without Losing Control. Your Therapy Notes Are No Longer Open Season
If you are a man who has experienced rape or sexual assault, there is a good chance you have kept it locked away. I could be wrong though.
You might have told yourself to get on with it. To put it in a box. To carry it like a quiet injury and not let anyone see you limp.
And if you ever considered going to the police, or even just speaking to a counsellor, one fear may have stopped you in your tracks.
What if what I say in therapy gets dragged out into the open
What if my private thoughts end up in a courtroom
What if I lose control of my own story
For years, that fear was not unreasonable.
In January 2026, the Home Office introduced new rules which change how police can request counselling notes during investigations. The changes were announced publicly by Jess Phillips and are part of a wider effort to improve how victims are treated in the justice system.
Historically, police investigating rape cases often requested counselling records as a routine part of their enquiries. Almost 30 percent of rape investigations included requests for therapy notes. Men and women alike were left feeling that after being violated once, they were being exposed again.
In some cases, counselling notes were even used to question credibility. Men who had spoken honestly about their mental health found that honesty turned into suspicion.
Imagine going to the gym to rebuild strength after an injury, only to be told that the weights you lifted are now being used to judge whether you were injured in the first place. That is how it felt for many survivors.
The new rules raise the threshold significantly.
Police can no longer routinely request counselling notes. They must show that the request is necessary, proportionate and genuinely relevant to a clear line of enquiry. It must have substantial evidential value. It must be approved at Chief Inspector level. It is no longer a fishing expedition.
The public messaging around these reforms has focused heavily on women and girls because the wider strategy is linked to the Violence Against Women and Girls framework. But the law itself is gender neutral. It applies to victims. That includes you.
If you are a man who reports rape or sexual assault, these protections apply to you in exactly the same way.
Now I want to speak to you directly, not as a policy document, but as a male counsellor who works only with boys and men.
My practice, Male Minds Counselling, is based in Reading on Castle Street, opposite Sweeney Todd. It is an ordinary building on an ordinary road. But what happens inside that room is not ordinary. It is a place where men take their armour off.
When you sit in front of me and tell me what happened, that space is confidential. By law and by ethics, what you say stays in the room, except in very specific safeguarding circumstances such as serious risk of harm to yourself or someone else. Those limits are clear and transparent from the start. There are no hidden traps.
Therapy is not a witness box. It is not cross examination. It is not about catching you out.
It is more like bringing a car into a private garage after years of driving with the warning light on. We lift the bonnet together. We look at what is really going on. We do not hand the engine parts to strangers unless there is a lawful and necessary reason that meets strict criteria.
You are in control of your narrative.
You choose what you share.
You choose the pace.
You choose whether you involve the police.
Seeking counselling does not mean surrendering your story.
For too long, some survivors were advised to delay therapy during police investigations because of fears that their notes would be disclosed. That put men in an impossible position. Justice or healing. Speak or stay silent. Fight or fix yourself.
No man should have to choose between protecting his case and protecting his mind.
The reality is that many men already struggle to come forward. Shame can feel like a heavy rucksack you have been carrying since you were eighteen. Or twenty five. Or sixty five. Some of you are grandfathers still carrying something that happened when you were a boy.
You might worry that if you speak, you will lose control. That once the words leave your mouth, they no longer belong to you.
But healing is not about losing control. It is about taking it back.
When you talk about what happened in a confidential counselling setting, you are not weakening your position. You are strengthening your foundations. A house does not become less stable because you inspect the cracks. It becomes safer.
If you never report to the police, you are still entitled to support. If you do report, you are still entitled to dignity. The new rules exist to reduce unnecessary intrusion and to focus investigations on the actions of the suspect, not to turn the spotlight unfairly onto you.
As a man, you may have been taught that you should handle things yourself. That talking is indulgent. That real strength is silence.
But silence is not strength. Silence is pressure. And pressure, left long enough, finds a way out. Sometimes through anger. Sometimes through addiction. Sometimes through withdrawal from the people you love.
Coming into counselling is not waving a white flag. It is more like stepping into the ring to do the real work. Controlled. Supported. Purposeful.
At Male Minds Counselling, you are not a headline. You are not a statistic. You are not a problem to be processed.
You are a man whose story matters.
If fear of losing control has kept you from speaking, know this. The legal landscape has shifted. The threshold for accessing counselling notes is far higher than it was. Your privacy is treated with greater seriousness. And in my practice, your dignity is not negotiable.
Your story belongs to you.
If you are ready to talk, the door on Castle Street is open.
Questions You Might Still Be Carrying
Before you walk through my door on Castle Street, there are things you may still be turning over in your mind. Let me answer them plainly.
What if the police still get my notes anyway?
Under the new rules introduced by the Home Office, counselling notes can no longer be requested as a routine step in an investigation. They must meet strict criteria. The request must be necessary, proportionate and genuinely relevant to a clear line of enquiry. It must have substantial evidential value. It must be approved at Chief Inspector level.
That is a much higher bar than before.
If you ever chose to report and a request was made, you would be informed. You are not bypassed in the process. You have rights. It is no longer open season on therapy rooms.
Exceptional circumstances are just that. Exceptional. Not standard practice.
What exactly gets written down about me?
This is a common fear.
I do not write a transcript of everything you say. I am not a court stenographer. My notes are brief, factual and focused on themes, progress and risk. They are not detailed accounts of every word, every image, every emotion.
They are stored securely in line with data protection law. They are not public. They are not casually accessible. They are kept for a set retention period required by professional and legal standards and then securely destroyed.
The therapy room is not a surveillance room. It is a workspace for healing.
What if I talk to you and then decide not to report?
That is entirely your choice.
I will not push you to go to the police. I will not judge you if you choose not to. Some men want to report. Some do not. Some are undecided for years.
My role is not to steer your legal decisions. My role is to help you process what happened and strengthen you psychologically so that whatever decision you make, it is made from steadiness rather than fear.
You remain in control.
Will you believe me?
Yes.
Male survivors are often met with doubt. You should have fought harder. You are a man. How could that happen. Did you lead them on.
That will not happen in my room.
You will not be cross examined. You will not be subtly blamed. You will not be told you should have reacted differently. Trauma responses are not moral failings. Freezing is not weakness. Shock is not consent.
You will be met with seriousness and respect.
If I talk about depression or anger, does that make me look unreliable?
No.
Struggling after trauma is human. Depression, anxiety, anger, numbness, intrusive thoughts. These are common nervous system responses. They do not invalidate what happened to you. They do not make you unstable. They do not make you less credible.
If anything, they show that your system has been under strain.
Talking about your mental health in therapy is about strengthening you, not undermining you.
What are the limits of confidentiality?
I will always be clear about this from the beginning.
Confidentiality stands unless there is a serious safeguarding issue. That would include an immediate and credible risk of serious harm to yourself, a serious risk of harm to someone else, or information that a child or vulnerable person is currently at risk.
Even then, the process is handled carefully and proportionately.
There are no hidden clauses. No surprises.
What if I have been falsely accused?
If you are reading this as someone who has been accused rather than as a survivor, therapy can still be a space to process what that has done to you emotionally. My work is not about influencing investigations. It is about supporting the psychological wellbeing of the man sitting in front of me.
Whatever your situation, the room is about clarity and stability, not legal strategy.
Does talking about this make me weak?
No.
If anything, it is the opposite.
Keeping everything locked down might feel strong in the short term. But long term pressure builds. It leaks out sideways into anger, distance in relationships, drinking, overwork, or shutting down emotionally.
Walking into a counselling room is not surrender. It is taking ownership. It is like finally addressing a shoulder injury you have been carrying for years instead of pretending it does not hurt. Real strength is built through repair.
You do not lose your masculinity by facing pain. You deepen it.
What if talking makes it worse?
This is one of the biggest fears.
Men often worry that if they open the door, everything will spill out and they will not be able to contain it.
Therapy is not about ripping wounds open and leaving them exposed. We go at a pace your nervous system can handle. We build capacity first. Grounding. Stability. Control. You do not have to relive everything in graphic detail.
You are in the driving seat. If something feels too much, we slow down.
Healing is not a flood. It is more like carefully strengthening a muscle that has been guarding an old injury.
How much will this cost and how long will it take?
I will always be transparent about fees before we begin. Some men come for a short focused period. Others choose longer term work. There is no fixed script.
We discuss what feels realistic financially and practically. Therapy should not feel like another burden.
Why you?
I work exclusively with boys and men. I understand how men minimise. How they joke. How they deflect. How anger sometimes sits on top of fear. How shame often sits underneath silence.
I can sit with detail. I can sit with rage. I can sit with numbness. Nothing you say will shock me or make me flinch.
Male Minds Counselling exists because men deserve a space where they do not have to explain what it feels like to be a man carrying something like this.
If you have read this far, something in you is already considering change.
You do not have to carry it alone.
The room on Castle Street is private. It is steady. And your story remains yours.
Cassim