Statutory Regulation and the Future of Professional Practice in Psychotherapy & Counselling (original) (raw)
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We explore how doctors, psychotherapists and counsellors in the UK react to regulatory transparency, drawing on qualitative research involving 51 semi-structured interviews conducted during 2008-10. We use the concept of ‘reactivity mechanisms’ (Espeland and Sauder, 2007) to explain how regulatory transparency disrupts practices through simplifying and decontextualizing them, altering practitioners' reflexivity, leading to defensive forms of practice. We make an empirical contribution by exploring the impact of transparency on doctors compared with psychotherapists and counsellors, who represent an extreme case due to their uniquely complex practice, which is particularly affected by this form of regulation. We make a contribution to knowledge by developing a model of reactivity mechanisms, which explains how clinical professionals make sense of media and professional narratives about regulation in ways that produce emotional reactions and, in turn, defensive reactivity to transparency.
British Journal of Psychotherapy, 2001
This paper responds to the BJP editor's call for responses to the journal's symposium on statutory registration by offering a critical analysis of two previously neglected aspects of professionalization: the rapid 'postgraduatization' of psychotherapy, and the legitimacy or otherwise of the way in which state regulation is being pursued. The paper concludes by posing three key questions which any coherent case in favour of regulation must explicitly address, and by highlighting the inappropriateness of a hierarchical,`old paradigm' model of institutional regulation for a psychotherapy field which is increasingly embracing the worldview of postmodernity. All professions are conspiracies against the laity. (George Bernard Shaw, The Doctor's Dilemma) RICHARD HOUSE is an NHS counsellor and a trained Steiner Waldorf teacher, currently working in both fields. He previously worked as a counsellor-therapist in private and voluntary practice, and as a supervisor and trainer. His particular current interests are early years learning and educational practices in the era of modernity, and he has contributed extensively to both the psychotherapy and education literatures.
STATUTORY REGULATION: SHRINK-WRAPPING PSYCHOTHERAPY
British Journal of Psychotherapy, 2000
ABSTRACT This paper offers a series of propositions about how power has been deployed in the field of UK psycho-practice and draws conclusions about the value of statutory regulation of psychotherapy. The failure by organizations pursuing statutory regulation to engage with dissent is examined and some of the elements of this dissent are outlined. The coercive nature of the power relations intrinsic to statutory regulation are evaluated with regard to their effects on client welfare.
The Future of Psychotherapy in the Uk: Discussing Clinical Governance
British Journal of Psychotherapy, 1999
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The central thesis is that professionals and state regulators have incompatible perspectives, both on their professional practice and on the role of (self-)regulation. Regulators have a topdown perspective (with the state at the top) and focus on the product of the professions.
Reactivity and Reactions to Regulartory Transparency in Medicine, Psychotherapy and Counselling
We explore how doctors, psychotherapists and counsellors in the UK react to regulatory transparency, drawing on qualitative research involving 51 semi-structured interviews conducted during 2008–10. We use the concept of ‘reactivity mechanisms’ (Espeland & Sauder, 2007) to explain how regulatory transparency disrupts practices through simplifying and decontextualizing them, altering practitioners’ reflexivity, leading to defensive forms of practice. We make an empirical contribution by exploring the impact of transparency on doctors compared with psychotherapists and counsellors, who represent an extreme case due to their uniquely complex practice, which is particularly affected by this form of regulation. We make a contribution to knowledge by developing a model of reactivity mechanisms, which explains how clinical professionals make sense of media and professional narratives about regulation in ways that produce emotional reactions and, in turn, defensive reactivity to transparency.
British journal of social work, 2016
In this paper, we analyse the way in which social work, as a profession, has coped with and responded to the various forms of regulation to which it has been subject in England. First, we briefly detail the rise of external regulation of the professions, discussing both the rationale for, and criticisms of, such developments. Second, we take a closer look at developments within social work and the operation of the General Social Care Council (GSCC)'s conduct proceedings from its inception in 2001 until its dissolution in 2012. Third, we focus on the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) and consider how it has begun its regulation of social workers since it took on this responsibility from August 2012. We conclude by outlining some of the concerns we have as well as discussing reasons as to why we feel this area of work needs to be explored further.