A colleague from Scotland has done some hard work on the statistics of the HPC and has offered them for circulation. He asks that if you want to reproduce them, please do so in full to avoid misrepresenation:
For the period 2007-2008:
• The HPC’s operating expenditure was £11.58m, of which payroll costs amounted to £4.08m (35.3%), legal expenses £2.27m (19.6%), facilities management £1.13m (9.8%) and “partners” (assessors and other professionals) £1.11m (9.6%).
• The HPC employed 105 full time equivalent staff, costing £2.82m in wages and salaries, representing an average salary of £26,770.
• Considering allegations about the fitness to practise of registrants cost £3.76m (32.5% of overall expenditure).
• Of the 424 total allegations made against registrants, 108 (25.5%) came from the public, compared with 171 (40.3%) from employers and 63 (14.9%) from the HPC itself.
• 299 allegations (70.5%) of the total were considered, taking an average of 32 weeks before a case was heard by an Investigating Panel.
• 63 (58.3%) of the allegations from the public were heard, and only 18 (28.6%) of these allegations were found to have a case to answer.
• Each allegation with a case to answer which came from the public represented an HPC expenditure of £643k.
Wednesday, 29 July 2009
Friday, 24 July 2009
Paris, 16th May 09: Protecting the public from the State
Fifteen people met in Paris on Saturday 16th May, to sit together in a room and begin a new conversation. English speakers from London, Belgium, Bordeaux, Rouen, and of course Paris gathered at the University of Chicago on rue Thomas Mann to listen to five people speak about the British Experience of state regulation of the psys. All of us practise in some form or another – about half of us were psychoanalytically inspired, many were also psychologists, one a psychiatrist, one or two had done their training in the UK, and there was even a member of the UKCP present. Many work independently running their own private practices, and most were also linked in some way to state or voluntary projects. One was new to the field, nearly finished training, and wanted to know how the regulatory revolution was going to affect her future work.
There is something very precious about speaking in another country – shifting through subtle changes of culture and a different way of life often brings a change of perspective. So, first, I would like to thank Victoria for the invitation, and to thank the people who gave up a Saturday afternoon to hear about the British experience. The event was an initiative of the Simply Speaking section of a small group of English Speaking practitioners called Healthwise, Paris. - a group that knows how difficult it can be to navigate through the twists and turns of another culture’s systems.
The afternoon session was divided into 5 short presentations – Victoria opened up by reminding everyone of the events in France. Bernard Accoyer, a medical doctor and member of the Union for a Popular Movement, the conservative Party of which Jacques Chirac is a member, introduced legislation to restrict the practice of psychotherapy to psychiatrists and clinical psychologists. Although the bill was passed without debate, and apparently without objection in the Assembly (it was business done in the middle of the night!) there has been a mixed but on the whole vociferous public response since which has reversed many of the restrictions he tried to impose. [see The Pathology of Democracy edited by Jacques-Alain Miller with Bernard Burgoyne and Russell Grigg, Karnac 2005)
Victoria drew attention to the subtleties of language that become more obvious to non-native speakers living in another’s land and was able to maintain a pun through much of the afternoon’s discussion. What is the difference between a hole and a whole? This was a theme that Jean-Pierre Klotz later elaborated. She thought that Accoyer had made a fundamental mistake by drawing the public’s attention to what he called a hole in the law, and that this had boosted a move towards creating the state system as whole. Her underlying point was the rise of State Intervention in the most private aspects of life: who is responsible for who we speak to, she wanted to know.
This question nicely framed Roger Litten’s presentation. Roger works as a counselling psychologist in the British NHS and is well placed to comment on the massive changes in the context of the various ‘psy’ practises sparked by Government policies over the last decade. Not only is there the IAPT (Increased Access to Psychological Therapy) programme which promises computerised CBT in every local Doctor’s surgery, but also the Evidence Based Approaches of NICE (the central planning agency – National Institute of Clinical Excellence) which require psychotherapists to greet new clients with the words – this has no evidence to support its efficacy! Then there is the attempt to codify and equalise NHS jobs via Skills for Health (A Department of Health initiative that collaborates with Business ideology to create a skilled workforce rather than an educated population), and finally the HPC – a giant database that purports to regulate the character and behaviour of all the new ‘skilled’ health professionals.
Elizabeth Gurnicki (Clinical psychologist, with a Freudian Field DEA) posed the question: why do our European governments want to regulate and monitor the practice of psychotherapy – surely not for the sake of the economy. She reflected that national identities and ideologies were less attractive since the totalitarian catastrophe of the 1940-45 war, and that since the fall of the Berlin wall choice in approach to the economy was now effectively redundant. This leaves those of us in the rich world with little more to do than develop more riches, to manage mass consumption, and to control the population flow. This was interesting, as it puts politicians more in the role of managers and makes governing more a question of governance. Couple this with the developments in cybernetics and management-information-systems, and we have a strong move towards Big Brother.
This helped to situate the topic I had chosen to speak about: the Fitness to Practise (FTP) process as played out in the Health Professions Council. The HPC is a new invention and a flag-ship of New Public Management in Britain. It is staffed entirely by administrators, with a handful of professionals invited on to the periphery to deal with tricky problems of practice as and when they arise. My observations of some FTP hearings had easily discovered the anomalies that such an approach throws up. The lack of sensible experience and attention to the realities of practice tend to mean that FTP hearings resemble the figments of Kafka’s imagination (see HPCWatchdog.blogspot.com).
Bordeaux psychoanalyst and psychiatrist Jean Pierre Klotz carefully sketched the important differences between British and French culture, and reminded us of the tendency of centralised politics and generalisations to ride rough shod of these essential details of everyday life. He argued that the French revolution gave them an experience that makes it more difficult to forget why the State and the Citizen should be held as separate entities. The French culture pays attention to the space between the two which effectively protects the citizen from the overbearing power of the state. The French state is created and upheld by law, and the individual is protected from it by human rights. This essential space is precisely what is being removed by the British reliance on regulation. Regulation does not function in the same way as the law. It is, in a funny way, the inverse of the law.
Victoria summed up with a question about the way that Europe as an idea was changing the context for us all. It is providing some people with an opportunity to quietly invent what they call 'European standards' from which to establish themselves as the reference point to control. See project europsy for a glimpse of that new venture.
There is something very precious about speaking in another country – shifting through subtle changes of culture and a different way of life often brings a change of perspective. So, first, I would like to thank Victoria for the invitation, and to thank the people who gave up a Saturday afternoon to hear about the British experience. The event was an initiative of the Simply Speaking section of a small group of English Speaking practitioners called Healthwise, Paris. - a group that knows how difficult it can be to navigate through the twists and turns of another culture’s systems.
The afternoon session was divided into 5 short presentations – Victoria opened up by reminding everyone of the events in France. Bernard Accoyer, a medical doctor and member of the Union for a Popular Movement, the conservative Party of which Jacques Chirac is a member, introduced legislation to restrict the practice of psychotherapy to psychiatrists and clinical psychologists. Although the bill was passed without debate, and apparently without objection in the Assembly (it was business done in the middle of the night!) there has been a mixed but on the whole vociferous public response since which has reversed many of the restrictions he tried to impose. [see The Pathology of Democracy edited by Jacques-Alain Miller with Bernard Burgoyne and Russell Grigg, Karnac 2005)
Victoria drew attention to the subtleties of language that become more obvious to non-native speakers living in another’s land and was able to maintain a pun through much of the afternoon’s discussion. What is the difference between a hole and a whole? This was a theme that Jean-Pierre Klotz later elaborated. She thought that Accoyer had made a fundamental mistake by drawing the public’s attention to what he called a hole in the law, and that this had boosted a move towards creating the state system as whole. Her underlying point was the rise of State Intervention in the most private aspects of life: who is responsible for who we speak to, she wanted to know.
This question nicely framed Roger Litten’s presentation. Roger works as a counselling psychologist in the British NHS and is well placed to comment on the massive changes in the context of the various ‘psy’ practises sparked by Government policies over the last decade. Not only is there the IAPT (Increased Access to Psychological Therapy) programme which promises computerised CBT in every local Doctor’s surgery, but also the Evidence Based Approaches of NICE (the central planning agency – National Institute of Clinical Excellence) which require psychotherapists to greet new clients with the words – this has no evidence to support its efficacy! Then there is the attempt to codify and equalise NHS jobs via Skills for Health (A Department of Health initiative that collaborates with Business ideology to create a skilled workforce rather than an educated population), and finally the HPC – a giant database that purports to regulate the character and behaviour of all the new ‘skilled’ health professionals.
Elizabeth Gurnicki (Clinical psychologist, with a Freudian Field DEA) posed the question: why do our European governments want to regulate and monitor the practice of psychotherapy – surely not for the sake of the economy. She reflected that national identities and ideologies were less attractive since the totalitarian catastrophe of the 1940-45 war, and that since the fall of the Berlin wall choice in approach to the economy was now effectively redundant. This leaves those of us in the rich world with little more to do than develop more riches, to manage mass consumption, and to control the population flow. This was interesting, as it puts politicians more in the role of managers and makes governing more a question of governance. Couple this with the developments in cybernetics and management-information-systems, and we have a strong move towards Big Brother.
This helped to situate the topic I had chosen to speak about: the Fitness to Practise (FTP) process as played out in the Health Professions Council. The HPC is a new invention and a flag-ship of New Public Management in Britain. It is staffed entirely by administrators, with a handful of professionals invited on to the periphery to deal with tricky problems of practice as and when they arise. My observations of some FTP hearings had easily discovered the anomalies that such an approach throws up. The lack of sensible experience and attention to the realities of practice tend to mean that FTP hearings resemble the figments of Kafka’s imagination (see HPCWatchdog.blogspot.com).
Bordeaux psychoanalyst and psychiatrist Jean Pierre Klotz carefully sketched the important differences between British and French culture, and reminded us of the tendency of centralised politics and generalisations to ride rough shod of these essential details of everyday life. He argued that the French revolution gave them an experience that makes it more difficult to forget why the State and the Citizen should be held as separate entities. The French culture pays attention to the space between the two which effectively protects the citizen from the overbearing power of the state. The French state is created and upheld by law, and the individual is protected from it by human rights. This essential space is precisely what is being removed by the British reliance on regulation. Regulation does not function in the same way as the law. It is, in a funny way, the inverse of the law.
Victoria summed up with a question about the way that Europe as an idea was changing the context for us all. It is providing some people with an opportunity to quietly invent what they call 'European standards' from which to establish themselves as the reference point to control. See project europsy for a glimpse of that new venture.
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
Bristol Alliance, 13th May 09
First, a personal view of the day from Arthur: We had day long meeting, to which over 30 people turned up - and a number of people who are known to sympathise were unable to come. The morning focused on NICE gudelines, IAPT and the impact of PCT recommisioning in three different local PCTs. The afternoon was devoted to the impact of regulation and the choice we as counsellors and psychotherapists face about how we respond.
People were undoubtedly stirred up and energised. We were able to suggest that people who want to get further involved don't reinvent the wheel but plug into the wider Alliance network. There was considerable interest in further meeting(s). Professional Full Disclosure (PFD) received some very favourable comments from experienced practitioners, who hadn't yet heard of the work that the local group has been doing on this.
Something that is becoming apparent to me is that many practitioners only gradually take on board the importance of taking a stand on the issue of regulation. We are in a consciousness raising period and have to keep working at people within our local networks.
Els: I agree - I find that many practitioners are working very hard to earn a crust and do not necessarily have a lot of spare time and energy to engage with what is happening. Often people assume that it has nothing to do with them (or that it is inevitable) - I think this view is particularly prevalent amongst those in private practice, However, when people's awareness is raised and they become aware of the fact that HPC regulation will affect them too - they become energised. I feel in Bristol we now have a base from which to launch further events.
People were undoubtedly stirred up and energised. We were able to suggest that people who want to get further involved don't reinvent the wheel but plug into the wider Alliance network. There was considerable interest in further meeting(s). Professional Full Disclosure (PFD) received some very favourable comments from experienced practitioners, who hadn't yet heard of the work that the local group has been doing on this.
Something that is becoming apparent to me is that many practitioners only gradually take on board the importance of taking a stand on the issue of regulation. We are in a consciousness raising period and have to keep working at people within our local networks.
Els: I agree - I find that many practitioners are working very hard to earn a crust and do not necessarily have a lot of spare time and energy to engage with what is happening. Often people assume that it has nothing to do with them (or that it is inevitable) - I think this view is particularly prevalent amongst those in private practice, However, when people's awareness is raised and they become aware of the fact that HPC regulation will affect them too - they become energised. I feel in Bristol we now have a base from which to launch further events.
Sussex Alliance, 9 May 09
Congratulations! "Sussex Alliance" was born this afternoon (9 May 09) after a successful mini-conference over 4 hours this Sat pm.
Richard, Guy, myself and Andy spoke to a gathering of 25 with Tim also in attendance holding a strong admin side.
A few individuals would like to plug in to Alliance subgroups.
Suffice to say at this stage, there was a powerful sense of concern for the issues, a very healthy discussion and exploration and hopefully the beginnings of a local snowballing effect.
Thanks for the good wishes to those who sent
Best
Kevin B
Andy: Yes, it was a good afternoon and I'm now convinced this coal face work with practitioners is vital. Many coming from knowing nothing (some not having heard of the Alliance...) asking us why they haven't been consulted or why BACP isn't representing them etc. Lot of fear, exasperation and negativity but group moved towards activism by the end. They want to plan more events I think with groups they are connected to. Got a few signatories for the BACP letter as well.
Cheers to Richard, Guy, Kevin and Tim - I think we did well. I was chuffed with the responses to my first public speech on regulation. Might brave it again sometime.
Nicky: I just wanted to thank you all for Saturday so far we have had great feed back. Also some reasons why people did not attend, mostly people who believe regulation will not impact on their work at all. I would like to pass this on to Alliance as it would be good to be able to back up my concerns with them. So Again Thank You All very much
Someone at the event said: I have found reading the Janet’s accounts of HPC proceedings, whilst potentially depressing, incredibly helpful in being better able to articulate why it is that regulation does *not* serve to protect the public. The reality of regulation means having to draw up standards, which leads, precisely, to standardisation, which means that only those qualities which can be measured can be considered; the higher qualities of human care, consideration and love cannot be included. We might wish that regulation meant something different; the reality is that it can only harm people; and that includes everyone – both practitioners and their clients. If this is already true for doctors, nurses and hospital workers, then it must be doubly true for counsellors and psychotherapists.
Richard, Guy, myself and Andy spoke to a gathering of 25 with Tim also in attendance holding a strong admin side.
A few individuals would like to plug in to Alliance subgroups.
Suffice to say at this stage, there was a powerful sense of concern for the issues, a very healthy discussion and exploration and hopefully the beginnings of a local snowballing effect.
Thanks for the good wishes to those who sent
Best
Kevin B
Andy: Yes, it was a good afternoon and I'm now convinced this coal face work with practitioners is vital. Many coming from knowing nothing (some not having heard of the Alliance...) asking us why they haven't been consulted or why BACP isn't representing them etc. Lot of fear, exasperation and negativity but group moved towards activism by the end. They want to plan more events I think with groups they are connected to. Got a few signatories for the BACP letter as well.
Cheers to Richard, Guy, Kevin and Tim - I think we did well. I was chuffed with the responses to my first public speech on regulation. Might brave it again sometime.
Nicky: I just wanted to thank you all for Saturday so far we have had great feed back. Also some reasons why people did not attend, mostly people who believe regulation will not impact on their work at all. I would like to pass this on to Alliance as it would be good to be able to back up my concerns with them. So Again Thank You All very much
Someone at the event said: I have found reading the Janet’s accounts of HPC proceedings, whilst potentially depressing, incredibly helpful in being better able to articulate why it is that regulation does *not* serve to protect the public. The reality of regulation means having to draw up standards, which leads, precisely, to standardisation, which means that only those qualities which can be measured can be considered; the higher qualities of human care, consideration and love cannot be included. We might wish that regulation meant something different; the reality is that it can only harm people; and that includes everyone – both practitioners and their clients. If this is already true for doctors, nurses and hospital workers, then it must be doubly true for counsellors and psychotherapists.
Monday, 20 July 2009
Alliance in Liverpool, July 11th: lessons from a beekeeper
"This kind of bees - little brown furry bears - are much less aggressive than most other types" said Mark as he handed me the all-in-one veil and suit so that I could help him tend to the hives. "If you take care of the smoker (a little can of smouldering leaves to give the impression of a nearby forest fire, and encourage the bees to crawl deep within the hive), I want to see if I can introduce some new frames". If you don't keep the frames in place the bees tend to build honey-combs that are unsupported, and which fall off when you try to take the honey. This was a totally unexpected pleasure for the weekend I spent in Liverpool, where I had been invited to speak to a group of counsellors and psychotherapists in a fine Edwardian town house close to the centre of the city.
Organising a bee-hive is a matter of making sure the conditions are right, and letting the bees get on with it. If you want to have a drop of their honey too, there's a bit more work to do. But generally speaking you don't have to interfere too much - they know their business better than you.
Mark had invited two of us to speak to the group on Saturday morning. Pat is a local counsellor, who began this line of work in 1993 with a 4-year diploma. She began practising with 5 years of voluntary work and has worked with people in all kinds of difficulties, some of the people she met get categorised as suffering from Severe Enduring Mental Illness - a recent management category invented to help governments decide how to divvy up funding.
After her initial training Pat had moved from voluntary to paid work mainly through short-term schemes like the EAP. She describes her approach as humanistic. Then the 'powers that be' withdrew the funding, and she was back to voluntary work once again.
Having set up a private practise, and allowed it to wane as her EAP work took off, Pat is now faced with having to start up all over again. Part of the backdrop is the fiasco of IAPT in the NHS which is forcing CBT into the frame as Managers are exercising more power. When the local PCT's switched their funding in favour of an IAPT provider not only did local voluntary/charitiable agencies lose funding and jobs, but large sections of the local NHS psychotherapy service had to be decommissioned. This had been a service that offered group analysis, CAT, individual psychodymanic therapy, drama therapy as well as behavioural therapy and CBT. Pat was clearly fed up to see her training and experience being destroyed, and watching the great diversity of pratice being reduced to a very poor version of a new fashion that the funding managers favoured. She could feel herself become cynical as she read documents claiming to 'retain choice' for patients and clients at the same time that she was being forced onto a CBT course to save her job. "I'm feeling a bit of a dinosaur" she said " There's no dialogue - the manager is only conscious of his own job". She was on the point of giving up.
This struck a chord, and Mark expressed his concern at the new computerised system for 'delivering' IAPT. IAPTUS - "If you get into to their comprehensive patient data set, as well as standard patient information it can be set to record marriage status, single or cohabiting, whether on benefits - if so what sort of benefits you are on. In addition IAPTUS can ask patients about the ethnic and national origins ...... it also can enquire whether you are gay, heterosexual, or other!!!" A database can capture loads of information - the power of its scale can be mesmerising: why not get it all now, as you never know when it might come in handy. In the ordinary course of events, this kind of nonsense would be overcome pretty quickly. But, we are not in ordinary times.
Mark drew on his long experience as a psychoanalytic therapist within the NHS to ask: 'how long will this fad last - we've seen the Defeat Depression campaign, and don't forget CAT (cognitive analytic therapy) - these were things that got everyone excited and attracted the funding in their day. Isn't this CBT just one in a line of Miracle Cures that sweep through the NHS from time to time, only to be discarded a little while later?"
Few, including Mark, seemed convinced by this. Not only are there more government initiatives - eg IAPT, CBT, NICE, SfH, HPC, etc - all bubbling away at the same time, but the underlying assumption seems to have changed.
The work I've done tracing the factors contributing to this shift was what I had gone to speak about. I was very pleased, then, when a few days later, Pat emailed me to say "your explanation was immensely helpful - now I know why I felt so confused for so long and so isolated". The frames of reference for counselling and psychotherapy are changing fundamentally. It is becoming very difficult for people to maintain a productive orientation to their work as their horizon is swept out of view. Unless we get real information out to existing practitioners, and reframe this as a struggle for survival, there is a good chance that an established, trusted, network of practice could lose its way for ever.
Organising a bee-hive is a matter of making sure the conditions are right, and letting the bees get on with it. If you want to have a drop of their honey too, there's a bit more work to do. But generally speaking you don't have to interfere too much - they know their business better than you.
Mark had invited two of us to speak to the group on Saturday morning. Pat is a local counsellor, who began this line of work in 1993 with a 4-year diploma. She began practising with 5 years of voluntary work and has worked with people in all kinds of difficulties, some of the people she met get categorised as suffering from Severe Enduring Mental Illness - a recent management category invented to help governments decide how to divvy up funding.
After her initial training Pat had moved from voluntary to paid work mainly through short-term schemes like the EAP. She describes her approach as humanistic. Then the 'powers that be' withdrew the funding, and she was back to voluntary work once again.
Having set up a private practise, and allowed it to wane as her EAP work took off, Pat is now faced with having to start up all over again. Part of the backdrop is the fiasco of IAPT in the NHS which is forcing CBT into the frame as Managers are exercising more power. When the local PCT's switched their funding in favour of an IAPT provider not only did local voluntary/charitiable agencies lose funding and jobs, but large sections of the local NHS psychotherapy service had to be decommissioned. This had been a service that offered group analysis, CAT, individual psychodymanic therapy, drama therapy as well as behavioural therapy and CBT. Pat was clearly fed up to see her training and experience being destroyed, and watching the great diversity of pratice being reduced to a very poor version of a new fashion that the funding managers favoured. She could feel herself become cynical as she read documents claiming to 'retain choice' for patients and clients at the same time that she was being forced onto a CBT course to save her job. "I'm feeling a bit of a dinosaur" she said " There's no dialogue - the manager is only conscious of his own job". She was on the point of giving up.
This struck a chord, and Mark expressed his concern at the new computerised system for 'delivering' IAPT. IAPTUS - "If you get into to their comprehensive patient data set, as well as standard patient information it can be set to record marriage status, single or cohabiting, whether on benefits - if so what sort of benefits you are on. In addition IAPTUS can ask patients about the ethnic and national origins ...... it also can enquire whether you are gay, heterosexual, or other!!!" A database can capture loads of information - the power of its scale can be mesmerising: why not get it all now, as you never know when it might come in handy. In the ordinary course of events, this kind of nonsense would be overcome pretty quickly. But, we are not in ordinary times.
Mark drew on his long experience as a psychoanalytic therapist within the NHS to ask: 'how long will this fad last - we've seen the Defeat Depression campaign, and don't forget CAT (cognitive analytic therapy) - these were things that got everyone excited and attracted the funding in their day. Isn't this CBT just one in a line of Miracle Cures that sweep through the NHS from time to time, only to be discarded a little while later?"
Few, including Mark, seemed convinced by this. Not only are there more government initiatives - eg IAPT, CBT, NICE, SfH, HPC, etc - all bubbling away at the same time, but the underlying assumption seems to have changed.
The work I've done tracing the factors contributing to this shift was what I had gone to speak about. I was very pleased, then, when a few days later, Pat emailed me to say "your explanation was immensely helpful - now I know why I felt so confused for so long and so isolated". The frames of reference for counselling and psychotherapy are changing fundamentally. It is becoming very difficult for people to maintain a productive orientation to their work as their horizon is swept out of view. Unless we get real information out to existing practitioners, and reframe this as a struggle for survival, there is a good chance that an established, trusted, network of practice could lose its way for ever.
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
Alliance at the West Midlands Institute of Psychotherapy, 15th June 09
Here's a news note by Guy Gladstone, who accepted the invitation to speak in Birmingham last month on behalf of the Alliance for Counselling and Psychotherapy against State Regulation.
15 members of the West Midlands Institute of Psychotherapy, including most of their council, showed up for their hour and a half Monday evening in-house event to be better informed on SR, for and against. I spoke for half an hour deconstructing the arguments for SR and outlining alternative accountability measures, then invited them in pairs to voice their fears and anxieties in connection with SR before moving to question and answer mode in a seated circle.It emerged that none were explicitly pro SR, some were resigned in the inevitability trance and others found the prospect of not calling themselves psychotherapists inconceivable. Everyone was given a new copy of the Alliance Statement with details of the October Conference, I plugged the petitions and signposted to the Conference to get up to speed with what PNC might entail and some were fired up to investigate further. One turned up with a download of CPJA's rejection of Skills for Health expressing outrage against SfH. Questions generally revealed little prior knowledge re HPC but hearing more about it elicited dismay. Overall a worthwhile visit, a positive reception for the Alliance case, oaktrees grow from acorns ...
e-petition against over-regulation of psychotherapy
15 members of the West Midlands Institute of Psychotherapy, including most of their council, showed up for their hour and a half Monday evening in-house event to be better informed on SR, for and against. I spoke for half an hour deconstructing the arguments for SR and outlining alternative accountability measures, then invited them in pairs to voice their fears and anxieties in connection with SR before moving to question and answer mode in a seated circle.It emerged that none were explicitly pro SR, some were resigned in the inevitability trance and others found the prospect of not calling themselves psychotherapists inconceivable. Everyone was given a new copy of the Alliance Statement with details of the October Conference, I plugged the petitions and signposted to the Conference to get up to speed with what PNC might entail and some were fired up to investigate further. One turned up with a download of CPJA's rejection of Skills for Health expressing outrage against SfH. Questions generally revealed little prior knowledge re HPC but hearing more about it elicited dismay. Overall a worthwhile visit, a positive reception for the Alliance case, oaktrees grow from acorns ...
e-petition against over-regulation of psychotherapy
Manchester Stake Holders - re-match
On June 22nd, I was at the Manchester Metropolitan University talking to a group of counsellors and psychotherapists about the history and context of state regulation under the HPC. They was much interest in the history and context of State Regulation and Audit Culture, and exasperation about the lack of genuine engagement of those involved in rolling out the legislative plan with those who were worried about the implications. At the end of the meeting, the group decided to re-stage the "Manchester Stakeholders Meeting" and invite the HPC to come along to it in the hope of actually getting the message across. (See earlier blogs about the HPC Meeting held on 31 March 09).
Here is a letter from Ian Parker to the HPC Chair, Anna van der Gaag. It invites her, her Council, her PLG and those of her staff to come along for a real conversation about the issues involved.
Ian Parker BA PhD AFBPsS CPsychol FRSA Professor of Psychology
13 July 2009 OPEN LETTER
Anna Van der Gaag
Chair, Health Professions Council, UK
Park House, 184 Kennington Park Road,
London, SE11 4BU
Dear Anna van der Gaag,
I have been discussing with a number of colleagues in the field of counselling and psychotherapy the HPC Stakeholder meeting you held in Manchester earlier this year. As you know, many of those who were able to attend the meeting were disappointed by the presentations, and are concerned that the follow-up to the discussion that took place has not been arranged by the HPC. A letter was circulated to those who attended from Jonathan Coe, one of the speakers, but apart from that there has been no opportunity to take forward the discussion and to involve more counsellors, psychotherapists and clients.
We have taken it upon ourselves to organise an event to reflect on these issues, and this will take place on Saturday 3 October 2.00-5.00 at the Friends Meeting House, 5 Mount Street, Manchester M2 5NS. So now we would like to invite you, the members of the PLG, and any of the members of the New Council that would like to get a more accurate picture of the debate that is taking place in the profession about the proposed regulation, together with Michael Guthrie, Kelly Johnson, Charlotte Urwin and any other of your staff as you think necessary to attend as our guests. Please do let us know who will be coming, so we can be sure to reserve some seats for you all.
We will be happy to involve you in the discussions that afternoon, and intend the meeting to serve as a model for consultation around state regulation of counselling and psychotherapy.
Yours sincerely
Ian Parker
Manchester Alliance (Alliance for Counselling and Psychotherapy against State Regulation: www.allianceforcandp.org
Here is a letter from Ian Parker to the HPC Chair, Anna van der Gaag. It invites her, her Council, her PLG and those of her staff to come along for a real conversation about the issues involved.
Ian Parker BA PhD AFBPsS CPsychol FRSA Professor of Psychology
13 July 2009 OPEN LETTER
Anna Van der Gaag
Chair, Health Professions Council, UK
Park House, 184 Kennington Park Road,
London, SE11 4BU
Dear Anna van der Gaag,
I have been discussing with a number of colleagues in the field of counselling and psychotherapy the HPC Stakeholder meeting you held in Manchester earlier this year. As you know, many of those who were able to attend the meeting were disappointed by the presentations, and are concerned that the follow-up to the discussion that took place has not been arranged by the HPC. A letter was circulated to those who attended from Jonathan Coe, one of the speakers, but apart from that there has been no opportunity to take forward the discussion and to involve more counsellors, psychotherapists and clients.
We have taken it upon ourselves to organise an event to reflect on these issues, and this will take place on Saturday 3 October 2.00-5.00 at the Friends Meeting House, 5 Mount Street, Manchester M2 5NS. So now we would like to invite you, the members of the PLG, and any of the members of the New Council that would like to get a more accurate picture of the debate that is taking place in the profession about the proposed regulation, together with Michael Guthrie, Kelly Johnson, Charlotte Urwin and any other of your staff as you think necessary to attend as our guests. Please do let us know who will be coming, so we can be sure to reserve some seats for you all.
We will be happy to involve you in the discussions that afternoon, and intend the meeting to serve as a model for consultation around state regulation of counselling and psychotherapy.
Yours sincerely
Ian Parker
Manchester Alliance (Alliance for Counselling and Psychotherapy against State Regulation: www.allianceforcandp.org
Monday, 6 July 2009
The First HPC 'Smaller Board-Like' Council Meeting, July 09
I've just got back (a bit blustered and slightly damp - flighty July weather) from this morning's new 'Board-Like' HPC Council Meeting. It set me to thinking about reference points. What does a new 'board-like' council do? It is now newly constituted as 19 people, half of whom are 'lay'. From what I heard this morning, Lay largely refers either to NHS managers or University employees.
The Health Professionals Council isn't really a Council of Health Professionals, at least not if today's rather vague comments are anything to go by. It is a Council of professionals who have something to do with health. And if that's still a bit too specific, then 'well being' is what they are really interested in. The Council for Protecting the Public's Well Being from the Proliferation of people who like to think of themselves as Professionals. There, that should just about cover it.
What has caused this little bit of creativity with the title? I suppose it is because the Health Professions Council has just taken 15,000 psychologists under its wing. Psychology - is that really a health profession? Really? No. Not unless you stretch the idea of health to incorporate the psyche, in which case you may as well prepare to regulate the church, hairdressers, mediums, actors, poets, parents, best friends, musicians, and uncle Tom Cobbley and all. The lack of proper bearings allow things to slide all over the place.
Reference points - from what does the Health Professions Council take its bearings? When Michael Guthrie took the hot seat to present his report on the work of the Professional Liaison Group for Counsellors and Psychotherapists he mentioned the Government White Paper (Trust Assurance and Safety) 7 times in the first 3 minutes. This is a major reference point. There was no logic, reason, rationale given other than that, and the white paper does not go to any trouble to justify its decision either. So, one small phrase in this government document is supposed to give the grounds for HPC to take 40,000 counsellors and psychotherapists onto its books.
Michael Guthrie is a young man, perhaps 30, maybe more, who seems a very competent administrator. He can assimilate a lot of information and write a report that includes all the points, presenting conflicting ideas side by side and making it bland enough for nobody to notice what is really going on. I suppose he is also ambitious. This is probably his first time in the driving seat - his predecessor went off on maternity and was not given her job back when she asked to return part time. To get the counsellors and psychotherapists on to the HPC register will be a nice feather in his cap. Fair enough, but not as a major reason for pushing something through as contentious and difficult as this.
The Health Professionals Council isn't really a Council of Health Professionals, at least not if today's rather vague comments are anything to go by. It is a Council of professionals who have something to do with health. And if that's still a bit too specific, then 'well being' is what they are really interested in. The Council for Protecting the Public's Well Being from the Proliferation of people who like to think of themselves as Professionals. There, that should just about cover it.
What has caused this little bit of creativity with the title? I suppose it is because the Health Professions Council has just taken 15,000 psychologists under its wing. Psychology - is that really a health profession? Really? No. Not unless you stretch the idea of health to incorporate the psyche, in which case you may as well prepare to regulate the church, hairdressers, mediums, actors, poets, parents, best friends, musicians, and uncle Tom Cobbley and all. The lack of proper bearings allow things to slide all over the place.
Reference points - from what does the Health Professions Council take its bearings? When Michael Guthrie took the hot seat to present his report on the work of the Professional Liaison Group for Counsellors and Psychotherapists he mentioned the Government White Paper (Trust Assurance and Safety) 7 times in the first 3 minutes. This is a major reference point. There was no logic, reason, rationale given other than that, and the white paper does not go to any trouble to justify its decision either. So, one small phrase in this government document is supposed to give the grounds for HPC to take 40,000 counsellors and psychotherapists onto its books.
Michael Guthrie is a young man, perhaps 30, maybe more, who seems a very competent administrator. He can assimilate a lot of information and write a report that includes all the points, presenting conflicting ideas side by side and making it bland enough for nobody to notice what is really going on. I suppose he is also ambitious. This is probably his first time in the driving seat - his predecessor went off on maternity and was not given her job back when she asked to return part time. To get the counsellors and psychotherapists on to the HPC register will be a nice feather in his cap. Fair enough, but not as a major reason for pushing something through as contentious and difficult as this.
Sunday, 5 July 2009
Between a rock and a hard place - West Wales Counsellors find out about the hpc
Now that the HPC PLG for C&P is at the end of its life, I am off on a series of 'road shows'. I've just returned from West Wales where I addressed a room full of counsellors and psychotherapists in Rhosygilwen Mansion, one of those beautiful old conference centres amid amazing rolling green countryside and a herd of light brown cows.
I was the guest of Janet Garner, owner of West Wales Counselling and Psychology Services (www.wwcps.co.uk), a home-grown provider of EAPs for local organisations. She had been glad to see a debate at last in Therapy Today about the pros and cons of HPC registration and welcomed the chance to get some information flowing around the real implications this will have for practice.
I suggested that she ask one of the PLG members to come along too, and named someone who had impressed me with her ability to stay sensible and say sane things in spite of a very vexing situation – Fiona Ballantine Dykes of the Counselling and Psychotherapy Central Awarding Body (CPCAB)
A local trainer and practitioner made up the third and she would speak about changes in institutional education and how they impact on local counselling. The day's programme was well put together and attractive enough to entice 20 or so practitioners to sign up, tho none would come from the NHS.
West Wales is a very long way away - and not only from London; so we were both offered a room for the night. "Is that ok?" Janet G asked diplomatically, "or are you two at daggers drawn?" It was ok - I was looking forward to actually meeting Fiona in the real world and to have some time for a chat. So, a four-hour whoosh from Paddington and a four-hour wriggle through beautiful country lanes in a car brought the two of us together at a very generous table late last Friday night.
What a delight! Films, books, poetry, all turned out to be fruitful conversations. The three of us chatted about our own trajectories into the therapy world and about dogs, cats, horses, children, tragedy and love. So I was startled and amused the next day as we pulled into the conference centre car park: Fiona switched off the engine, turned slowly toward me, and mischievously said - it was nice knowing you, may the best woman win. We wryly acknowledged that we were, in important ways, on different sides of a fence.
I'd asked for the first slot of the day to avoid being positioned as an 'anti'. The last thing I wanted was to repeat the pattern laid down by the HPC which is to polarise the discussion and put me into a hopeless opposition. My strategy was to give a history and context to the rise of audit culture, and situate the HPC firmly within it. From a sociological point of view it is clear that the HPC is part of an ideology which is antagonistic to the paradigm of most of the talking therapies. I wanted to talk to Fiona as well as to the others, to give some coordinates and context with which to make sense of something that has been described as ‘being crushed by a thundering juggernaut’.
Just before the event began, Fiona leaned towards me to ask a very important question: the Chief Executive of the CPCAB had spotted the rise in regulatory bodies and the changes in counselling trainings and had figured that people who held the work dear could act as a buffer between the real world in the consultation room and the idealised life of the regulators and thus help to keep things working. However, as the regulators grow in strength and number and impose more and more guidelines and standards, it could become more difficult to hold the two worlds apart. What, she wanted to know, would I do, in such a position as this.
Good question. It reminds me of a film I saw recently - Sleep Furiously by Gideon Koppel. It was set very close to where we had our meeting, close to where Dylan Thomas used to write and live. The film became the subject of a few conversations that weekend, and when I recited a line from it - "It is only when I sense the end of things,/ that I find the courage to speak/ the courage, but not the words" - several people responded by reciting some Thomas poetry:
Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Gideon Koppel may not have found the words but he made a beautiful and intelligent film - much of it is in Welsh with English subtitles. In one scene, the camera focuses on the mobile library as a woman steps in to browse. The librarian and the borrower babble away in Welsh, then when he moves forward to drop a little barrier into place at the door, she turns round and laughs, and the words "Health and Safety" break into their conversation in English. The audience in the cinema laughed in sympathy.
I can't make movies, nor am I a poet but I'm not too proud to take my bearings from these two great artists. I don't know what Fiona should do, except perhaps more of what she does already: not to go gentle into the soporific false promise of safety peddled by the HPC, but rage, rage against the nonsense of bureaucracy and try to stop it putting out the light.
I was the guest of Janet Garner, owner of West Wales Counselling and Psychology Services (www.wwcps.co.uk), a home-grown provider of EAPs for local organisations. She had been glad to see a debate at last in Therapy Today about the pros and cons of HPC registration and welcomed the chance to get some information flowing around the real implications this will have for practice.
I suggested that she ask one of the PLG members to come along too, and named someone who had impressed me with her ability to stay sensible and say sane things in spite of a very vexing situation – Fiona Ballantine Dykes of the Counselling and Psychotherapy Central Awarding Body (CPCAB)
A local trainer and practitioner made up the third and she would speak about changes in institutional education and how they impact on local counselling. The day's programme was well put together and attractive enough to entice 20 or so practitioners to sign up, tho none would come from the NHS.
West Wales is a very long way away - and not only from London; so we were both offered a room for the night. "Is that ok?" Janet G asked diplomatically, "or are you two at daggers drawn?" It was ok - I was looking forward to actually meeting Fiona in the real world and to have some time for a chat. So, a four-hour whoosh from Paddington and a four-hour wriggle through beautiful country lanes in a car brought the two of us together at a very generous table late last Friday night.
What a delight! Films, books, poetry, all turned out to be fruitful conversations. The three of us chatted about our own trajectories into the therapy world and about dogs, cats, horses, children, tragedy and love. So I was startled and amused the next day as we pulled into the conference centre car park: Fiona switched off the engine, turned slowly toward me, and mischievously said - it was nice knowing you, may the best woman win. We wryly acknowledged that we were, in important ways, on different sides of a fence.
I'd asked for the first slot of the day to avoid being positioned as an 'anti'. The last thing I wanted was to repeat the pattern laid down by the HPC which is to polarise the discussion and put me into a hopeless opposition. My strategy was to give a history and context to the rise of audit culture, and situate the HPC firmly within it. From a sociological point of view it is clear that the HPC is part of an ideology which is antagonistic to the paradigm of most of the talking therapies. I wanted to talk to Fiona as well as to the others, to give some coordinates and context with which to make sense of something that has been described as ‘being crushed by a thundering juggernaut’.
Just before the event began, Fiona leaned towards me to ask a very important question: the Chief Executive of the CPCAB had spotted the rise in regulatory bodies and the changes in counselling trainings and had figured that people who held the work dear could act as a buffer between the real world in the consultation room and the idealised life of the regulators and thus help to keep things working. However, as the regulators grow in strength and number and impose more and more guidelines and standards, it could become more difficult to hold the two worlds apart. What, she wanted to know, would I do, in such a position as this.
Good question. It reminds me of a film I saw recently - Sleep Furiously by Gideon Koppel. It was set very close to where we had our meeting, close to where Dylan Thomas used to write and live. The film became the subject of a few conversations that weekend, and when I recited a line from it - "It is only when I sense the end of things,/ that I find the courage to speak/ the courage, but not the words" - several people responded by reciting some Thomas poetry:
Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Gideon Koppel may not have found the words but he made a beautiful and intelligent film - much of it is in Welsh with English subtitles. In one scene, the camera focuses on the mobile library as a woman steps in to browse. The librarian and the borrower babble away in Welsh, then when he moves forward to drop a little barrier into place at the door, she turns round and laughs, and the words "Health and Safety" break into their conversation in English. The audience in the cinema laughed in sympathy.
I can't make movies, nor am I a poet but I'm not too proud to take my bearings from these two great artists. I don't know what Fiona should do, except perhaps more of what she does already: not to go gentle into the soporific false promise of safety peddled by the HPC, but rage, rage against the nonsense of bureaucracy and try to stop it putting out the light.
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