A-Z of mental health
Information and advice on a huge range of mental health topics
Cats to set up therapeutic centre?
Posted Tuesday 8 December 2009
A while ago I wrote a blog post about the fact that Derek Gale, an arts therapist found guilty of multiple and varied malpractice, is still legally entitled to continue to practice as a psychotherapist because counselling and psychotherapy is not statutorily regulated.
This means that anyone can practice as a counsellor or psychotherapist – you don’t need any basic training and there’s no code of conduct that you have to adhere to. In my blog, I pointed out that Sorcha, my cat, could technically set herself up as a bona fide therapist.
Little did I know that an adventurous feline in Cumbria was soon to make that great leap into the psychological professions. Chris Jackson, presenter of Inside Out in the North East and Cumbria, decided to register pet cat George as a hypnotherapist in order to demonstrate the lax regulation of hypnotherapy.
Although I would be very surprised if one of the professional counselling or psychotherapy bodies would actually register a furry friend, the point is that you don’t even need to be registered with a professional body in order to practice as a counsellor or psychotherapist.
With hypnotherapy, counselling and psychotherapy all lacking proper regulation, it looks as though nothing will prevent George and Sorcha from setting up the first therapeutic centre to bill clients in milk and mice.
Admittedly, people do not need protection from rogue feline therapists. But they do need better regulation to prevent untrained or abusive therapists from continuing to practice. That is why Mind is campaigning for the statutory regulation of psychotherapists and counsellors.
Mind is currently looking into what type of regulation and complaints processes users of mental health services would like to see in counselling and psychotherapy. Comment below or email Mariam Kemple to give your thoughts on the issue.
Mariam Kemple, Policy and Campaigns Officer
9 Comments
-
Meow.
-
I was wondering if Mariam is aware of the current progress of statutory regulation of all counsellors and psychotherapists by the HPC? THis item infers that MIND are the only people concerned with regulation of the profession, whereas this is now a long running debate soon, hopefully, to be finalised. There are also safety nets in place in terms of membership of appropriate professional bodies, accreditation procedures and clear complaints procedures which are used. Bearing in mind that CHRE reports boundary violations across all health professionals (4%), perhaps the issue is more about raising awareness about how clients can check the credibility of health professionals rather than regulation? Personally I welcome statutory regulation. However, I am also not naive enough to assume that regulation will stamp out all bad practice.
-
Thanks very much for your comment Val T; you raise some very interesting points.
Regarding the Health Professions Council’s (HPC) current work on the regulation of counsellors and psychotherapists, Mind is very aware of this process and has been involved in the debate. One thing to say is that the HPC’s work does not mean that these professions will be regulated. Once the HPC makes its recommendations, the Department of Health will still need to consult on the issue and so statutory regulation of counselling and psychotherapy is not yet guaranteed. It is for this reason that Mind is continuing to make the case for the statutory regulation of these professions.
You also mention that there are safety nets in the form of professional bodies. Whilst there are some very good professional bodies that do accredit counsellors and psychotherapists, there is absolutely no obligation for a counsellor or psychotherapist to be a member of one. This means that not all counsellors or psychotherapists have been properly accredited or are subject to formal complaints procedures. I should also add that we have been told by many service users that the complaints procedures in some of the professional bodies are not effective. In particular, they say that the fact that the professional bodies regulate themselves can put service users off making a complaint in the first place because they are worried about professional bias in the system.
Mind will continue to work on this issue to ensure that the voice of service users is made a real part of the wider debate on regulation that you refer to. As you point out, a large part of this work should also include raising awareness about how service users can check the credibility of any health professional they come into come into contact with. If people are interested in getting involved in any aspect of our work on this issue, please contact me at m.kemple@mind.org.uk.
-
I asked my cat what he thought about this, but then he started staring into my eyes, waved his paw across my face….and the next thing I knew it was ten minutes later and the fresh rainbow trout I’d been planning for Sunday lunch had mysteriously moved from the fridge to the cat’s food bowl.
-
I eat cats for breakfast.
-
I was the original complainant in the HPC case against the discredited arts therapist / psychotherapist Derek Gale.
I can assure you that it is a complete misnomer that you need recognised qualifications to aquire accreditation through the voluntary psychotherapy registration bodies.
Through the "grand parenting" system anyone who can get references from existing members and show that they have worked in the field for a certain amount of time can be accredited. Unfortunately despite protests those that are accredited to the voluntary registration associations now will automatically be registered with the HPC without any background checks on their skills or qualifications.
Fortunately the upside of that was that HPC registration enabled us to expose Gale as a charlatan - ironically his lack of qualifications became his downfall.
The umbrella organisation for the voluntary bodies is the UKCP. The Chair of the UKCP, Prof Andrew Samuels, made representations on behalf of Gale to the HPC. Prof Samuels is very very anti regulation and condones changing title to avoid statatorary regulation.
You can read my open letter to Prof Andrew Samuels here:
http://forum.rickross.com/read.php?8,79233
Thanks for your time.
-
I really think councilling should be regulated. People in such a position could find themselves with power over somebody very vulnerable which potentially leaves the door open to abuse.
I know some kind hearted souls may offer their councillers and web of support workers gifts from time to time but by general code of conduct they're obliged to reject politely. What if a particularly vulnerable person was to offer expensive items quite regularly? An unregulated counciller could very well accept all of these, sell them on and then deny it ever happened as the councilling sessions may have been one-on-one and confidential.
Above that, what if they were to give rather bad advice on purpose? I'm sure most people looking into councilling would have their heart in the right place but not everybody is morally correct.
We all know cats are manipulative with their meowing and crying, atleast they're not capable of what us humans are.
-
rehome a rescue cat and you will have got yourself a fantastic therapist
-
Of course you can get a cat registered if you tell lies. This is a rather silly story I think.
Back in the real world, what's much more worrying to me is that the HPC, which it is proposed should regulate counselling and psychotherapy, seems happy to register anyone. You mention Derek Gale. Ok they made a big noise about striking him off, but who was it signed him up in the first place, thus implying he was 'safe'? Oh yes... it was the HPC.
It gets much worse. Last year HPC were patting themselves on the back for striking off an occupational therapist because he is a convicted rapist. That might sound OK if it wasn't for the fact that he was found guilty of first degree rape in the USA in 2002. His licence was revoked and he was deported to Kenya. Still HPC was happy to sign him up in 2003 so that he could come and work for the NHS in the UK. Desite their 'character checks', HPC have had to strike off registrants for a number of sexual offences including rape, sometimes involving children. Probably the worst was Colin Barton, an operating department practitoner, HPC registrant and serial child abuser.(See http://www.hpc-uk.org/complaints/hearings/index.asp?id=686. There's a list of just a few more at http://www.hpc-uk.org/assets/documents/1000264E20090205Health-enclosure5-FtPreport.pdf)
And yet HPC suggests to the public that they can rest assured that "registration means that a health professional meets national standards for their professional training, performance and conduct. "( http://www.hpc-uk.org/microsite/whatdoesregistrationmean/)
Commenting is now closed.