Dear Tessa Jowell, MP
I came to West Norwood library towards the end of last year to see you, and spoke to one of your very helpful and friendly staff. The upshot of that meeting was that I would write you a follow up letter (in addition to the one I wrote earlier in that year). At last, this is that letter.
I have created a blog: HPCwatchdog.blogspot.com based on a whole series of visits I have been making to the HPC as a member of the public. If you read the case of Mr R (part 1, part 2, part 3), watch the video of Richard Gombrich explaining Popper's Nightmare, and consider the questions raised by Max Weber, this will give you a quick insight into my concerns and my orientation.
I am very worried indeed about the centralisation of power and the destruction of local knowledge that is the unintended consequence of the kind of regulation that is practiced by the HPC. From what I have seen it is already causing harm to ordinary decent people, and I truly believe that this harm has a pernicious quality that will be exponentially increased if the HPC draw the psychological practices within its domain.
Onora O'Neil has publicly voiced her concern about the destruction of trust that will follow the state regulation of psychological practices (especially of psychotherapy and counselling, but the psychologists are also very much in this domain). Michael Power has been writing about the way our audit culture ends up emptying the meaning out of words and practices, and leave us vulnerable to the collapse of the resulting empty shells, and Marilyn Strathern has also pointed to the hostile and aggressive undercurrents at play in moves under the banner of transparency. Aggressivity will increase where real meaning decreases – this is a lesson learned many times over throughout history.
Each of these great British scholars has been working away quietly revealing the otherwise hidden 'mechanisms' that hold our society together. None of them pretends to have the answer, nor the whole truth, but each of them is shedding very helpful light in very careful ways on things that we need to be very aware of.
I don't believe there is one answer to the situation we are currently in, but I am trying to find a way of approaching the questions without fueling aggressivity nor unduly increasing levels of anxiety. I suggest that a space be created which makes it possible to think. The rapid expansion of the HPC is not conducive to thinking. When I attended the Investigating Committee meeting last week (blogged on 12 Feb 2009) I was chilled to learn that the Kent Police had been invited in to train staff how to deal with escalating aggression. A much more sensible approach would be to ask why the aggression is escalating. From the hearings I have observed, and from comments I have received as a result of my blog, I can see a very strong argument that the orientation and mechanism of the hpc (the grounds on which it is empowered) actually fuels aggressivity - this creates a spiral which echoes Popper's nightmare and adds to the idea that this is what is being created.
It is difficult to know how to intervene, but I very strongly believe that we need to slow the process down, and give ourselves more time to think. How can I help to postpone the process of the Statutory Order that would pass the psychologists onto the HPC register? If you can advise me of this, I would be extremely grateful. If you would like me to explain my ideas in more detail - I am easily contactable. I would be happy to respond to a call and very receptive to any help you can give in shaping a parliamentary question on this issue.
Yours sincerely
Wednesday, 18 February 2009
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2 comments:
Hello Janet
A brilliant letter, which I was really thrilled to read. I wanted to comment because this post brings up the matter of the involvement of politicians in the blog’s preoccupations and concerns. Some time ago I approached my local MP Emily Thornberry, and found her very receptive to our predicament following the harm inflicted principally on my child but also on myself by an HPC-registered music therapist, harm that was compounded by the HPC’s failure to seriously and fully address the issues I raised in my several complaints. Emily wrote to the HPC on my behalf. It was a very good letter, excerpts of which I would dearly love to share. It was particularly good because I asked some very specific questions about the consequences of the HPC’s FTP processes and procedures (how I would like to be able to use the term shenanigans). I have just opened the letter containing the HPC’s reply: it is of course fully in the tradition of the HPC’s closed-off, impermeable, unassailable mode, with obfuscation thrown in for the more awkward bits. In her covering letter, my MP renewed her commitment to this case and offered to respond to the HPC if I so wish. You bet I do. I live and breathe the consequences of the music therapist's mistakes and
failures. In the meantime, the HPC-registered music therapist remains determinedly insulated from the trail of devastation that she has left behind. As a member of the public who has direct and extensive experience of what it is really like to be at the receiving end of the HPC’s claim to exist in order to protect the public, I have reflected on many other aspects of the HPC’s disastrous record, and I hope to be able to contribute as and when the particular angles arise. This comment is meant to cheer your involvement of one of our politicians and to put on record my MP’s expression of willingness in principle to continue to engage the HPC about our particular case. Do let’s write to our MPs and involve them in this important debate.
Hello Paola, thank you. It was good to hear of your success with Emily Thornberry, but less good to discover that it had the same blank effect that others are experiencing. Is there something else you can try, do you think? What did your MP say then? Janet
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