Good psychotherapists will accept legal regulations | Letters

As a senior chartered member of the British Association for Counseling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and a chartered member of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), I believe that our profession is behind the curve (all Psychiatrists in England are must be controlled, experts say. , after complaints of abuse rose, 19 October).

The truth is that I would have created the process without following the strict procedures that these two organizations require of me. The fact that I have chosen to be responsible for two separate groups is because I know that what psychologists and counselors do is very important.

Our regulatory bodies require us to do ongoing training and have regular supervision with an experienced doctor to support and challenge us, and they also require us to self-medicate so that we pay attention to our wounds and our assets to reduce these. engaging with our customers.

In addition, both of these organizations have complaints procedures, which I have direct experience with early in my career. There was no legal requirement for me to do this, but I learned that way.

I believe we need a new regulatory body, separate and distinct from our existing membership bodies, to hold us to the highest standards and protect people from fraudulent operators . We need one organization job is to set, monitor and implement standards. This will give our work a bigger profile and give the public greater protection and trust in us. Therefore, let’s have statutory regulation and not be afraid to have it.
Philippa Smethurst
Duns Tew, Oxfordshire

It is relatively easy to control the process of psychotherapy. Almost all elective courses in psychotherapy last four to seven years and follow the same requirements. Most of those who complete this rigorous course will be licensed as a psychotherapist and able to register with UKCP or an equivalent body, so there is a well-established professional pathway.

If the title of psychotherapist was properly protected, members of the public who seek psychotherapy (as distinct from counseling) would be at much less risk of abuse or negative standards of care from people who poorly trained – or untrained – people who claim to work as psychiatrists.

This issue is very complicated with counseling. The counseling process spans many different organizations and specialties, and training varies in type and intensity. Anyone can now go on any type of “consulting” and call themselves a consultant after that. Even good counseling sessions don’t really emphasize how much individualized treatment is needed for safer exercise, and getting reasonable control over such a large field is a challenge.

In addition, the distinction between counseling and psychotherapy has been blurred in recent years by courses – including good ones offered by well-known educational institutions – in “counseling and psychotherapy”, which provide counseling training in a clear way that this gives doctors an opportunity to explain. they are psychiatrists.

Counseling management is more difficult than psychotherapy and needs to be done, ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​frontward.
Sue Lieberman
Retired UKCP psychologist, Edinburgh

Your article highlights the potential for abuse of power in counseling, in terms of professional confidentiality and client vulnerability. But the reason for this is not the lack of control of individual doctors, it is a simple training method and ease of access to psychotherapy courses.

I trained as a psychiatrist at a prestigious London college and by the end of the three-year degree I knew every theory under the sun, but I had been taught nothing about the effects of talk therapy on brain function, nervous system function, or the potentially harmful physical effects of reliving traumatic experiences.

At the end of the training I practiced for a short time before I fully understood the inadequacy of training and work. It became clear that it was more likely to cause harm than good. None of my classmates really knew what they were doing, and I was truly afraid of their customers.

It is not the control of doctors that needs to be looked after, it is the control of training providers, to ensure that what they offer is adequately researched and proven to work.

The only barrier to entry into many courses is money, not qualifications or emotional intelligence. If you can do the training, the training provider will find a way to accommodate you. Training providers and institutions need to be reviewed and entry standards raised.
Allison Alexander
Brighton

A strong system of professional regulation has been in place since 2012. It is the Accredited Registers program run by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA). Treatment organizations can apply to have their registers accredited by the PSA, which includes meeting and maintaining strict governance standards that prioritize public safety.

Each professional of such a registry is well trained, adheres to the rules of professional conduct and ethics and a strong complaints procedure is available to their customers. PSA-licensed registrars will display the PSA logo in their publications.

Since this is a voluntary regulation, it does not prohibit anyone who calls themselves a psychologist or counselor. Only legal rules would protect the title. Many counselors and psychologists would like to have their title protected, but not if it means a wide range of treatment options, many of which are non-medical and not available from the NHS, are excluded in pursuit of the conditions and guidelines that make it legal. control is easy to implement.

The last Labor Government in 2010 attempted to place such statutory regulation of counseling and psychotherapy under the Health Professionals Council. It did not survive the first legal challenge brought by members of the profession. The current government should learn from this.

Any future legal regulation needs to accept and protect different types of treatment methods, especially those outside the medical concept, that psychotherapy offers while ensuring proper social protection. This will only be achieved through constructive cooperation between the government and the psychotherapeutic professions.
John Fletcher
London