2nd Letter to Marc Seale from IPN Women

A few weeks ago, four women from the Independent Practitioners Network went to see Marc Seale, Chief Exec of the HPC, to discuss their concerns about the process. They found the trip a deeply unsatisfying experience and wrote to him saying why (see blog entry for 10 February). Interestingly, their letter crossed in the post with one from him inviting them back for another bite at the cherry. Below is their response, which they have kindly agreed to allow me to post here:

Dear Marc

Thank you for inviting to us for a second meeting to discuss the idea of state regulation by the HPC.

We have decided not to take you up on this offer, however, we would like to take this opportunity to appraise you of our views.

They are as follows:

. Counselling and psychotherapy are not health professions. Regulation by the HPC is therefore inappropriate.
. There is no evidence of widespread abuse by practitioners.
. There is no evidence that state regulation will prevent abuse.
. State regulation, together with other developments (IAPT, Skills for Health, Proposed Change in Guidelines for Depression) will reduce availability and choice of therapy for people who need it. We are not convinced by your assertion that there is no relationship between these developments.
. We propose self regulation as an alternative, particularly if a non adversarial/mediation process is adopted for dealing with complaints in the first instance. Such a process is far less costly, both in terms of finances and of human misery.

Lastly - we read the report of your meeting with Darian Leader and others. It made us feel that you are unlikely to take on board anything we say.
If you have read this far we will feel that we have achieved something.

Thank you.

Irene Galant
Barbara Hacking
Jenny Nicholson
Els van Ooijen

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Dr Els van Ooijen
Psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer
Nepenthe Consultancy
www.nepenthe.org.uk