Looking sideways at the problems of today:
Back in the 60s writers of the day were confidently anticipating that ours would be the Leisure Society: we would only have one day’s work each week because our technology and economic position in the world would be doing it all for us.
Few foresaw governments reluctant to let us enjoy our leisure. First they funnel us into never ending target led education, then they encourage us to audit each other by filling in more and more forms that make less and less sense, and now they plan to recruit half of us to therapize the other half and create a kind of smoke screen to conceal the real scene (Observer, 8th March).
Who will ask you how it feels to be all alone and without a home now that the bubble has burst? An army of newly recruited form filling government trained ‘therapists’ whose own good character will be policed and guaranteed by the hpc.
Sunday, 8 March 2009
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2 comments:
I coodnt spel therapiss but now I is one. Fanks to the guvermint.
Hello Scunnert, here's a copy of the letter I sent to the Observer with Andrew Samuels
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/15/letters-recession-therapy-mental-health
The government's attitude to counselling and psychotherapy gets more dysfunctional by the day. This bizarre version of true therapy is supposed to deal with the emotional situation of those affected by the credit crunch. Moreover, the therapy on offer will be under the auspices of the by-now discredited Improving Access to Psychological Therapies scheme. This offers a watered-down version of cognitive behaviour therapy to clients who have not been properly apprised of the overtly economic agenda of the therapy - to get them back to work. Therapists are all too familiar with the syndrome of "blaming the victim" and here it is - on a massive, collective scale.
All of this is enveloped in the master plan to "regulate" the therapies under the state's health professions council. It is not surprising that thousands of counsellors and psychotherapists have started to protest by signing petitions, attending rallies, writing letters and participating in the newly formed Alliance for Counselling and Psychotherapy.
Professor Andrew Samuels,
Janet Low
Alliance for Counselling and Psychotherapy
London
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