Anne Millton meets miserable counsellors and therapists and tries to get them talking - Nov 2nd.

The Committee Room in Westminster Hall.

“Never have I been lobbied by so many people as I have on this subject”, said Anne Milton, (Conservative MP for Guildford, and Shadow Health Minister). She had called this three-hour meeting in the Grand Committee Room, Westminster Hall to get a constructive conversation going on the future of regulation for counselling and psychotherapy. Poor old Marc Seale (HPC CEO) was forced to sit up on the stage where 60 people could take careful aim and fire their questions at him throughout the afternoon. She said it had been hard work to persuade him to come, and she only withdrew her proposal to canvass the room on the question ‘HPC or Not” when another CEO present in the room let forth a loud and heartfelt NO!

Seale was there with his Chair, Anna van der Gaag because the mail-bags of MPs have been bursting with letters complaining about the HPC. However, the only other politician in the room was Earl Freddy Howe, the conservative spokesman for health in the Lords. He didn’t speak in the proceedings.

Seale’s opening talk asked ‘in whose interest’ it was to call this conversation, which made him seem like a nincompoop, and some people got quite angry.

I was more interested in Lynne Gabriel’s talk, which came next (Lynne is Chair of the BACP). She noted that the proposed recommendations would create a very different profession from the one that currently exists. This, of course, seems outrageous to her. However, throughout the entire process of the PLG this line has been openly pushed and repeated by HPC Council members, most ardently of all by Professor Annie Turner (Occupational Therapy) who said: ‘it was only when we [OT] realised that we had to stop thinking about what actually happens in practice, and invent an entirely new profession, that we made any progress with HPC regulation.” Could it be said much more clearly than that?

Colin Walker spoke on behalf of MIND, (now at the table due to the absence of Jonathan Coe, CEO from Witness; Coe has been present throughout not only the PLG meetings for Counselling & Psychotherapy, but also for those of Psychologists). He said that there was a shocking lack of evidence of abuse by practitioners in the UK – he meant there was no reliable research in to the reality of the situation which left everyone floundering around in anecdote and hearsay.

The third speaker began by pointing out that HPC opening address had slipped rather quickly into the idea that all regulation was HPC regulation, which then enabled them to spin the argument and imply that all those who opposed HPC were opposed to all statutory regulation. “This is simply not true”, said Darian Leader (College of Psychoanalysts-UK), whose second point touched on the question of human memory. There is a long and well-documented history of argument in favour of statutory regulation, and a long and well-documented history of objection to the HPC as regulator for this field. What is absent is an explanation why people had suddenly changed their minds when the HPC had not changed at all. History has been wiped out. They had forgotten their arguments when they saw ‘the train leaving without them’ - fear had lead them to let go of their beliefs in order to preserve their political position. “This process privileges politics over the best interests of our patients”, Prof Leader concluded.

Then came questions from the floor. There was a call for a convention on the future of counselling and psychotherapy; it was noted how the HPC process had itself been instrumental in producing more and more difference in the field; Marc Seale was told to ‘keep it real’ and to take a step back. Other comments included: there’s too much use of force, authority and coercion in the process; this approach to regulation suffocates practice; I don’t recognise my practice in these standards; every organisation should be consulted; ‘we should be responsible for what our future looks like, the HPC should not tell us or impose it onto us’. There was also frustration in another direction – ‘we’ve had our chance and blown it, so now we must accept the consequences’, and one organisation said wearily, “we are happy with it, regulate us, don’t let this lot hold us back”.

Anne invited the HPC to respond but then found herself giving them advice – don’t irritate people, she said, some of this is just silly, you really have to work harder to keep people with you. And when a PLG member said he didn’t recognise what outsiders were angry with, Anne Milton had to tell him: believe me, this question is real.

(For another account of this meeting, please email info@allianceforcandp.org and request the latest newsletter).