Protecting the public from the intellectuals

In each PLG meeting the BACP Director of Regulatory Policy has cast aspersions on some other training organisation. For the most part she has been content to leave the accusation vague and nameless and just convey that 'those people out there are doing bad things and we need to police them, and to know what they are up to'. Yesterday however, she actually named one. She named Middlesex University. Middlesex University run a Masters in Psychoanalysis which has no clinical component - 'and we don't know what these people go on to do once they've been given their certificate' she said, with her eyebrows shooting high on her head. The implication was clear.

We don't know what these people go on to do? Well, I suppose they go to Mornington Crescent.

In this month's BACP magazine, Therapy Today, Sally Aldridge responds point by point to the Statement of the Alliance for Counselling and Psychotherapy against State Regulation. One of these points is that the HPC is a symptom of a suspicious state that increasingly grants itself privileges to intrude into its citizens' lives. Sally's response there in writing, was, yes, we do live in suspicious times, and yes we do need to know what these people are up to. "Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?", as they say on the MA at Middlesex University.