UKCP shape review 6 questions - my response

[Mary MacCallum Sullivan]

Please see attached for my response to the 6 questions…..

Mary

[Mary MacCallum Sullivan]

Dear All

Below is the brief paper I have sent for circulation to the UKCP Psychotherapy Council members for consideration prior to the meeting next weekend. I accept that I have not covered all the points made, but hope I have touched on the major themes communicated to me.

I have been consulting with Scottish colleagues, and want to lay some points on the table before the meeting, for consideration.

I appreciate all the work that has gone on within OMs and particularly Colleges since 2009, and it will be important, as Tree points out, that we build on that work. 

That suggests that some of the regulatory/re-accreditation burden should be shouldered by Colleges, and that the financial, ethical (conflict of interest) and administrative implications of this should be recognised organisationally.

(It is important, however, to report that there is still dissatisfaction with the model of regulation via the PSA, and that, if a change of government took place, we might wish to consider revisiting the question of the HCPC, or indeed, a Psychotherapy Professions Council (PPC)).

Colleges could also usefully consider procedures for re-accreditation of  those registrants, who, having qualified via an Organisational Member, now find themselves either wishing not to continue to be affiliated with that OM, or effectively ‘abandoned’ by that OM, possibly through the fact of geography.

The ‘public’ profile of Colleges should be higher, which may be difficult because of the number of Colleges, but this would help to demonstrate and ‘educate the public’ about the diversity within psychotherapy. The Colleges should be seen to be responsible for the competencies of their particular modality, acting as Quality Assurance for their OMs, and for the registrants under their aegis. They should also be seen as advancing the theoretical field and promoting, jointly and severally, training standards.

All of this impacts also the role of OMs, which, with the emphasis on Colleges, could usefully be reviewed in light of their particular functions: training, accrediting, and/or other…. 

Everyone I consulted wanted UKCP to have a higher profile, since this will underpin benefit to public and to members.  I have suggested that we could seek to define ‘psychotherapy’ in a way that (almost) distinguishes it from counselling (I am thinking of how BACP in UK and Cosca in Scotland have ‘and psychotherapy’ in their titles, but do not acknowledge any difference. UKCP is about psychotherapy, so should be trying to raise the profile in a distinctive way. 

I suggest the following as a structure and skeleton of a statement that could be developed through consultation across UKCP Colleges to be highlighted on the UKCP and other websites, and to be used in, say, a generic UKCP leaflet that could be widely circulated. As a start!

Brief summative description:

Psychotherapy is essentially an interpersonal reparative process, carried out in a professional context.

Brief description of role of psychotherapist via training:

A psychotherapist is a person who has studied human biopsychosocial development, trained to be empathically attuned and affectively responsive to the intersubjective needs of the client or patient.

 

Who may benefit from psychotherapy?

People who feel themselves to be affected by any trauma (from specific losses or events to on-going adversity or deprivation), and who feel unable to recover and be fully productive in their lives and/or relationships may benefit from psychotherapy.

The above represents my personal view only; I have deliberately chosen to use language that reflects recent research evidence, including that from neuroscientific studies, rather than more ‘everyday’ language, to reflect that research underpinning.

Regards

Mary

[Courtenay Young]

Dear Mary

Thanks for doing this: I think that the Council will begin to realise that there is some serious work to do - actually, this sort of work is perfect for the Council. 

With regards to the definitions and descriptions: (copied from your e-mail (above): can I please input a couple of definitions about psychotherapy taken from my work with the EAP: (I was the lead writer for the EAP's Project to Establish the Professional Competencies of a European Psychotherapist - for more details of the Project: www.psychotherapy-competency.eu).

1990 Strasbourg Declaration on Psychotherapy:

• Psychotherapy is an independent scientific discipline, the practice of which represents an independent and free profession.
• Training in psychotherapy takes place at an advanced, qualified and scientific level.
• The multiplicity of psychotherapeutic methods is assured and guaranteed.
• A full psychotherapeutic training covers theory, self- experience and practice under supervision. Adequate knowledge of various psychotherapeutic processes is acquired.
• Access to training is through various preliminary qualifications, in particular in human and social sciences.

EAP 2009 Definition of Psychotherapy

• The exercise of psychotherapy shall be the comprehensive deliberate and planned treatment or therapeutic intervention on the basis of a general and special training of disturbances of behaviour and states of disordered condition, or wider personal developmental need, connected with psycho-social and also psychosomatic factors and causes, by means of scientific psychotherapeutic methods, in an interaction between one or several treated persons, and one or several psychotherapists, with the objective of mitigating or eliminating the established symptoms, to change disturbed patterns of behaviour and attitudes, and to promote a process of maturing, development, sanity and well-being in the treated person.
• The independent exercise of psychotherapy shall consist in the practical implementation, at the therapist's sole responsibility, of the activities described in paragraph 1, irrespective of whether the activities are exercised on a self-employed basis or in the framework of an employment relationship.

There is also another "set" of definitions here that I somewhat prefer - just to complicate the issue.

In the EAP, we have also felt it very important to emphasise - in public statements - that the completion of a training in psychotherapy is at a "professional" level (rather than at a "vocational" level), being at the equivalent of an academic Master's degree, and constituting 7 years of specialist training from the age of 17-18: the first 3 years being the equivalent of a university Batchelor's degree in a relevant subject. 

Indeed, many UKCP Member Organisations currently work in conjunction with a university to offer Master's degrees at the completion of the 4-year training (and also even offer some PhDs). 

This framework of a 7-year training is also in line with the criteria from CEPLIS: the EU's European Council for the Liberal Professions (see here). 

And, we are currently in the process of seeking to have the EAP's full psychotherapy training recognised at the European Qualification Framework: Level 7 

(see here for descriptions of the Knowledge, Skills and Competences of this level). 

The problem is how to describe all this simply and effectively and also to differentiate between what we do and the somewhat grandiose claims of the BACP, etc. 

Maybe we need to develop the 'balls' to say that the BACP's claims about psychotherapy are a deliberate misnomer, designed to confuse the issue, and seek to "prove" this in some way: i.e. open (civilised) warfare.

Yours

Courtenay

[Mary MacCallum Sullivan]

Dear Courtenay

Thanks for this – it’s very useful, and important that this work is taken into consideration. Are you happy with the structure of my draft?  As a start?

Whilst you can tell, no doubt, that I am unhappy that BACP and Cosca command the field with the ‘no difference between counselling and psychotherapy’ position (and they are not entirely alone), and I do resent their use of the ‘and psychotherapy’, I don’t feel we should do anything other than seek to claim ownership of ‘psychotherapy’ and do the work of agreeing a (relatively) brief and straightforward description/definition – enough of a task, I have no doubt.

There are enough implications to deal with in terms of what we do about ‘psychotherapeutic counselling’; I haven’t addressed that question, but I’m aware it will be in the frame…..

Regards

Mary

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