Advocates restore agency - they do not create dependency or attachment

Good advocacy should make itself progressively less necessary.

I have worked across multiple sectors where survivors often have advocates as part of their support system: domestic violence, human trafficking, cult recovery, and sexual abuse recovery and even in academia.

Advocates can be one of the most supportive people in a survivor’s life.

And at the same time, many people have shared experiences where advocates slowly began taking over, speaking for them rather than standing alongside them.

Sometimes survivors describe it beginning to feel competitive, as though the advocate’s voice starts to drown out their own. In those moments, the dynamic can unintentionally replicate familiar power imbalances.

The relationship can then foster unrealistic expectations of the advocate’s role, blurring the line between support and responsibility.

This is often where I see the relationship begin to break down: either the advocate takes over, and dependence grows, or the survivor distances themselves in order to regain autonomy, sometimes leaving the advocate feeling hurt or resentful.

People enter helping roles for many reasons, including their own lived experience.

This can be incredibly powerful for survivors. Seeing someone who has lived through harm and is now functioning, working, and helping others can bring hope.

But it also carries risk.

One of those risks is counter-transference.

Counter-transference occurs when a helper’s own past experiences, unmet needs, or unresolved emotions quietly shape how they respond to the person in front of them.

It is not bad or shameful; in counselling, we expect it, prepare for it, engage in personal development, and use supervision so that when these reactions arise, we respond in ways that do not harm the client.

However, when it is unexamined, an advocate (or counsellor) can begin trying to repair their own past through someone else’s story, filling a void they never had the chance to have filled and fighting for their own cause through someone elses story.

At that point, advocacy becomes less about the person and more about the advocate, and control begins to present itself as care.

For survivors, dependency can feel like safety, especially when autonomy has previously been taken. However, control is the very thing most survivors are trying to recover from.

Good advocacy should make itself progressively less necessary.

You should leave an advocacy relationship with:

• more capacity, not more reliance

• more clarity, not more confusion

• more ownership of decisions, not fear of making them alone

Healthy advocacy hands power back. An advocate comes alongside you and speaks with you, not for you. With your consent, they may use their voice, but only to carry your concerns, your story, your wishes, never theirs.

What advocates should NOT do

A supportive advocate does not:

• Judge you

• Decide your next move

• Run your case

• Argue for what they personally think is best

• Pressure, persuade, guilt, or subtly steer you

• Use passive-aggressive communication (“I’m just worried you’ll regret that…”; “I think you should do…..”; “I don’t think I can support you if you don’t do what I suggest”)

• Withdraw support if you choose differently

• Position themselves as the expert on your life

• Preach their beliefs at you

• Centre themselves in your story

• Speak publicly without explicit consent

• Share your story for awareness, credibility, influence, or audience building without yourconsent

• Capitalise on your story for financial gain, especially outside a formal professional role

• Recreate the same power imbalance you were harmed within

• Leave you feeling like you have done something wrong for making your own decision

• Make you feel responsible for managing their emotions

• Create a sense that you need to appease them to keep their support

• Pressure you to remain in, return to, or reconcile with a religious community, partner/spouse or organisation when you do not feel safe

What advocates DO

A supportive advocate:

• Believes the survivor

• Prioritises safety and supports safety planning

• Listens without judgement

• Asks what the survivor wants (goal setting can be supportive)

• Checks consent before speaking, acting, or touching

• Brainstorm options with you, without directing decisions

• Supports informed choice, even when they disagree

• Respects pace

• Gives control over decision-making

• Tolerates ambivalence and changed decisions

• Communicates clearly without emotional takeover

• Maintains confidentiality

• Stays beside you without taking over

• Expands options rather than narrows them

• Strengthens your voice rather than replaces it

• Recognises the survivor holds the expertise in their own life

• Provides choice even during mandatory reporting processes

• Supports autonomy, including the freedom to stay, leave, question, or rest

• Maintains emotional regulation and composure in power-laden environments while advocating with you

• Can feel and express emotion without becoming overwhelmed by those emotions

• Recognises limits and refers when outside their scope: Advocates need more than lived experience. They also require education, reflection, and accountability; otherwise, they risk guiding survivors toward what worked for them, rather than what is right for the person in front of them.

Advocates do not replace your voice; they strengthen it until you trust your own voice again.

If support disappears when you choose differently, it can hurt.

But sometimes regaining control and making your own choices reveals which relationships:

• depended on the advocate’s voice rather than your freedom to choose

• were comfortable only while you agreed

• needed you to stay the same

• felt safe only when you didn’t change

• offered support only when you complied

• walked ahead of you rather than beside you

• required you to fit inside their expectations rather than your own space

• preferred their version of you over your own voice

Advocates should help you gather information and understand your options, so you feel safe enough to make your own decisions, even when those decisions are slow, uncertain, different from what they would choose, or change over time.

If something feels off, you’re allowed to listen. Learning to trust your instincts is part of recovery.