Call yourself a counsellor?? The "Brass Plaque" argument

One of the major historical strands in the debate about regulation of psychotherapy and counselling in the UK has been the so-called "Brass Plaque". This refers to the notion that (at present) anyone can set themselves up as a counsellor or psychotherapist, simply by having a nice-looking shiny name-plate outside an office. Put simply, if you call yourself a counsellor, you can be one - even without relevant qualifications or training.
Regulation (supposedly) offers the public protection against charlatans and bad therapists, qualified or not - and part of the package entailed the legal protection of the titles "counsellor" and "psychotherapist".

I must admit, I never really bought this argument. I have always had some faith in Joe Public, and believed that he/she would be able to tell who's who. But I am beginning to reconsider. Those people wishing to name themselves (without, perhaps, the necessary credentials) have increasingly complex ways of covering this up. We're now living in a world of flash(y) websites and bold claims, nice pictures and all-too-positive 'testimonials'. If a website has a high Google ranking, it's often mistakenly assumed that the company must be 'reputable'. In truth, these rankings are more about e-marketing than good service or clinical expertise. Maybe it's getting easier to fool Joe Public.

I stumbled into a website recently of someone reasonably local to me, who doesn't seem to be qualified in counselling (they have been trained in an associated field, you might say). But there is no evidence of BACP/UKCP membership (or of any other professional bodies), and no information about their qualifications. Some interesting claims were made, when I looked further....

(Counselling is) "... literally repeating what the client says each time..."

(On couple work) "your conflicts ..." ".. will become a thing of the past!"

Some of the material, like the first example above, shows a gross misunderstanding (and misrepresentation) of the counselling process.
The second example shows how a bold claim can be incredibly misleading. I have never been in the business of telling couples that ANY of their conflict will disappear entirely an this way - it's unrealistic.

Now I've (nearly) stopped seething, I am more sympathetic to the idea that our titles should be protected, and those using them falsely should be stopped.

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"No Health Without Mental Health" ... or, "no debate without product placement"

I recently received an invite to a conference around mental health , entitled (something like) 'the implementation of the mental heath strategy'. The invite makes particular reference to the "No health without mental health", the UK government's mental health strategy.
It also goes on to say that "Central to these plans is to improve access to psychological therapies such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)..."

Sadly, this is another example of how the wide range of therapies is being artificially distilled down according to its 'evidence base' (or perhaps its percieved cost-benefit to the state?).
On TV and radio, as well as from political sources, the covert advertising of CBT over other therapies is still going on. Try the examples below, and see what effect you notice.....

"Soft drinks like Coca-Cola (Coke)"

"Fast food chains such as Burger King"

"Popular phrases, for example 'evidence-based'..."

In much of the debate around mental health and IAPT, it seems you never hear the phrase "talking therapies" without the adjunct "such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy".

How about calling this by its name? Product Placement.

Fortunately the UKCP is still asking for a wider view, claiming that the current approach denies patients a fair choice.
http://www.ukcp.org.uk/ukcps_reaction_to_no_health_without_mental_health.html .

Victor Frankl

A nice quote from the author who told us so much about the resilience of the human spirit:

“When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves."

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"Excellence"...... it's ... umm... well, it's good.

Have you noticed how many organizations, government agencies, and managers these days are referring to "Excellence"?

In the healthcare and psychotherapy worlds, we are already familiar (perhaps too much so) with NICE (the National Institute for Clinical Excellence) and The Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence (CHRE).

A couple of thoughts.... firstly, I tend to flinch these days simply because "Excellence" seems to be bandied around now like just another bit of management-speak. Ducks in a row, blue sky thinking, etc.

Also, I frown a little at the hyperbole of it - like, what happened to "Awesome"?? It's mostly used now by people who haven't really experienced anything truly awe-some. The guy who told me that making a credit card balance transfer recently was 'awesome' clearly hasn't stood at the top of a mountain or met someone who lives with a terminal illness.

I think I'm most bothered about the notion of "Excellence" because it seems to suggest that good enough isn't good enough, and that anything short of Clinical Excellence is poor practice.

BACP have a policy/procedure document that is known as the 'gold book' .... I can't help wondering, what happens next - the platinum one...????

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