"There's a strange and paradoxical feel to this election. Just at the moment when who we are and what we do as psychotherapists is going to be determined by the state, we hold an election in which individual judgement and choice will be decisive in UKCP for the first time. The idea that the future is in our hands is abroad – and at the same time, we are seeing how hard it is for some to truly accept that.
Everyone running for office says they wish to be judged on the issues and I am no exception. But the way this election is shaping up is very worrying indeed. We have seen a number of statements issued by the leadership of some sections that basically instruct their registrants on how to vote. The tone of some of these statements is not what I, for one, would have expected to see in public, as opposed to private discourse.
Equally worrying is the possibility of UKCP Central being manipulated by interests who are palpably opposed to what I am standing for. You should have received your voting papers by now but they have not been sent out. It has been suggested that the reason for this has been to allow for horse-trading between the two candidates from one section so that one would withdraw to avoid splitting their vote. The political tactic is fair enough, but not if it involves voting papers going out after the formally announced date showing only two candidates and not three, as if it were all just business as usual. Anyway, perhaps now really is the moment to focus on the issues.
HPC is not the only problem facing us but it is the one with the pressing time frame. In my position statement, which is included in Item 2 of the three items that follow this message, you will see that I am not trying to make the election into a referendum on HPC. We have other problems to face, both out there in arenas such as NICE and IAPT, and, after the way the election has gone, some pretty dire internal problems as well. I have had something to say about the whole range of issues, not just HPC.
The problem with my candidacy is that it does seek to reverse policy and hence it is an uphill struggle for me. Not least because, quite understandably you could say, the leadership of UKCP and of the sections are deeply implicated in and committed to the HPC policy. Hence they are bound to feel personally affronted if criticised and to take drastic action to stabilise their positions. I respectfully suggest that you, as registrants, do not necessarily share in the back stories of your leaderships, and I am asking you, in the secret ballot, to do your bit to restore UKCP to a commitment to some form of regulation that is more fitting to our values and traditions as psychotherapists.
For, as you will have realised, I am not opposed to all regulation. It has to be the right kind of regulation. That is why I am calling for a Convention on the Future of Psychotherapy and Counselling. There are alternative models for psychotherapy regulation, some of them having been tested in other countries. Yet I have been amazed to find, in discussion with architects of UKCP's regulation policy, that they have never even read the material.
Two ideas are worth noting. The first would be a 'Talking Heads Council', an improved version of the Psychological Professions Council that, only a few years ago, it was UKCP's policy to fight for. The other model is called the Practitioner Full Disclosure List; without going into detail, such a List would definitely safeguard the interests of the public and has other interesting features that might make it more appropriate for our profession.
I have been discussing our future with politicians from all three parties in both the Commons and the Lords. They are, by now, nearly all convinced by the arguments that HPC is wrong for us, though they do differ on how easy it would be to bring about a change. (No-one I have spoken to says a change is impossible or out of the question. They all say that a change will have to be towards a better model of statutory regulation.) There does seem to be a new willingness in Westminster and Whitehall to think again. If we send a clear message via our election that this is what we want, then, given the fact that the politicians will be thinking for a while about their own election, there is a window of opportunity. Nothing legislative that affects us is going to happen before the General Election.
This is what I am going to do about HPC if I am elected. First, I would try to bring the BACP and the BPC on board. Whether that succeeds or not, I will go to HPC and ask them to ask Government for the suspension of the process towards state regulation. Whether that succeeds or not, I will then call upon the Department of Health (and the Shadow health teams in the other parties) to back the call for the Convention on the Future of Psychotherapy and Counselling.
If this all fails, then I will assuredly work as hard as I can to get the best possible deal for UKCP in terms of how the HPC operates its register, and what the standards of proficiency and the criteria for approval as a training organisation turn out to be. I will make sure that we are adequately protected against those claims by BACP that are not sustainable (but support them where they seem to have serious grounds for complaint about the HPC proposals). I will do my best to protect the positions of those who do not wish to register, provided they adhere strictly to the rather stringent conditions of Principled Non-Compliance which are outlined in Item 3 that follows this message. It will not be enough just to do nothing at all.
You will see from this serious and detailed thought that is plain wrong for the HIPS Political Group to claim that I shouldn't even be in the election at all. The statement from this faction of HIPS is causing consternation and protest within their own section due to its defamatory choice of language, misrepresentation of the historical and contemporary facts, and authoritarian tone. Sadly, from the point of view of integrity in our professional life, the statement was distributed far and wide. I am sure it has been damaging to my chances despite the retraction of some of the wilder claims. In Item 2 that follows this message you will see my Response to what the HIPS Political Group sent out. It includes a rebuttal of their statement by a member of the UKCP Board of Trustees. When you read what Paul Atkinson has written, ask yourselves whether the HIPS statement is a reliable guide to how you should vote.
There is an election on and so everyone, including me, will tend to overstate their case. Nevertheless, I must say that the notion circulated by the Family, Couple, Sexual and Systemic Therapies Section that a vote for me will lead to people losing their jobs represents election scaremongering at its best (or worst)! Think about it for a moment. If HPC goes ahead in spite of Samuels, then no jobs will be lost. If there is another system put in place, then everyone will be in exactly the same boat. Again, no jobs will be lost. Opposing HPC won't lead to any losses of jobs. What all this shows is how invested everyone at the top of the professional tree (could we call them our Ruling Class?) is in maintaining control. Hence 'Stop Andrew at All Costs'.
Not everything that has been written is so awful, though, and I am grateful for the measured tone emanating from the Hypno-Psychotherapy Section. My reply to their statement, which is Item 1 following this message, enables me to explain why the Alliance came into being, and to remind everyone that over 850 UKCP registrants have signed the petition against regulation via HPC. No-one knows what the balance of opinion in the profession really is. Even BACP doesn't know and is at present conducting a sort of emergency poll on the HPC proposals. In my Response to the HIPS Political Group, I say it is 'amazing' that we don't know. I think I was pretty moderate in my choice of language. Maybe even after this election we still won't really know, but I will make good on my pledge to hold ballots on all matters to do with regulation in the future.
I am sure that, if elected, I will be tempted to 'go native', and to enjoy meeting with the powerful (and with the interesting) a little too much. I could well get inflated. But I will do my best to be conscious of this. I will certainly try to put a stop to the growing tendency for UKCP Central to develop a life and interests of its own, expressed in a ceaseless stream of authoritarian memoranda. As the Chair of a Member Organisation, I quite naturally get to read all the papers. Hence I feel able to say that our leaderships have got mixed up with the aims and objectives of the bureaucratic approach to civic life that is so prevalent in Britain today. I was first amused and then concerned to see that the latest papers from UKCP Central include documentation presented on forms and using language and notation identical to that used by HPC.
Go interpret!
Returning to the other challenges that face us, I think it is reasonably well known that mine was the first voice to go public about the outrage of IAPT getting all the resources from the government for its watered down version of CBT (apparently not particularly effective, according to their own research). I took a terrible hammering for speaking my mind and, though UKCP notables told me privately to keep on trucking because they couldn't be as direct in the meetings they were attending, they did nothing in public to help. What you can draw from this, in terms of what kind of Chair you want, is that I am likely to be more effective than most (in settings like the IAPT committees) to get the injustices and absurdities redressed. I would also seriously question what we are doing in the Savoy Partnership. I wouldn't advocate our leaving it as yet but we have lost our distinctive voice therein.
Similarly, with NICE, there seems to be this strange reluctance on the part of UKCP to really stick up for the kind of work we do. Either it is that, or we have not yet really worked out a concerted political strategy.
I will conclude on a personal note. I know I can be a difficult person, self-centred and bombastic at times. I am a funny mixture to myself of tough and fragile. Truly, I really didn't want to stand for this job, which is why I say in my position statement (in Item 2 below) that I was 'surprised' to be standing. At 60 years old and enjoying my clinical, academic and political work, and my personal life, I didn't need to do this. But I just felt so damn passionately that something has gone fantastically 'off' in our little world of psychotherapy. So, against my own needs for pleasure and a quieter life, I responded to requests to stand. I do so as an underdog, without the resources that candidates backed by powerful sections have. Could I really win when I have been targeted in the way I have been? We shall see. I am certainly not a 'man in a white suit', no Martin Bell – but I really think I have argued my case that it is time for a rethink by UKCP concerning its policies and its style of doing things.
I was going to say you could stop reading here but then I realised how patronising it would be to assume that you wouldn't be interested when, as they say, the future is in your hands. Please take the time (the election lasts all of October) to read through the material ....
Andrew
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