Thread by @drpeterblundell

Open Letter to the #SCoPEd MB from Members of the Person-Centred Counselling & Psychotherapy Community a 🧵

Campaign for an opt-in membership category that is not aligned with the SCoPEd framework’s columns.

Full letter - allianceblogs.wordpress.com/2023/04/19/per…

#TherapistsConnect

A short video about the open letter -

Fellow letter authors are @AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy #JanetTolan & PC Community

#TherapistsConnect #SCoPEd

@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy SCoPEd has been formally adopted by all the professional organisations involved, including the three largest membership bodies in the UK (BACP, UKCP and NCS), and the project now turns to the question of implementation. 

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy For those of us in the person-centred approach who have long critiqued both the framework and the organisational processes around it, and have serious ongoing concerns about the potential outcomes (PCG, 2020), this is a disappointing moment.

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy Despite our best efforts, little of any substance has changed in the structure of the framework since the first iteration and all our principal concerns remain:

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy The impacts on equality, diversity and inclusion in the counselling and psychotherapy profession of adopting a simplistic hierarchical structure based on initial training – a structure which cements and entrenches existing inequalities in the field.

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy The inability of the SCoPEd organisations to provide sufficient meaningful data on EDI to the Impact Assessment speaks volumes about how seriously it took these concerns until compelled to address them by the assessment process. 

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy The ‘gateways’ between levels are vague, unspecified and fraught with the same issues of exclusion and elitism, while #SCoPEd’s likely impact on the training market will only exacerbate the inaccessibility of the top tier(s) of the framework. 

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy The poorly evidenced return to differentiating ‘counselling’ and ‘psychotherapy’, with ‘psychotherapy’ positioned as the more competent and skilled activity.

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy ‘Counsellors’ and ‘counselling services’ are often doing complex work and the BACP itself found no evidence for differentiation as recently as the late 2000s, yet under #SCoPEd ‘counselling’ has been demoted to a position of inferior competence.

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy Within the person-centred approach, counselling and psychotherapy are considered indistinguishable (e.g. Rogers, 1942; Thorne, 1999) but hierarchical differentiation effectively downgrades person-centred therapy...

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy ...an approach that for historical, political and organisational reasons (Rogers, 2019) rather than issues of competence, depth or evidence-based effectiveness, is mostly practised in the UK under the title of ‘counselling’.

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy Hierarchy flies in the face of decades of therapy research studies and meta-analyses, which do not find psychoanalytic psychotherapy & psychoanalysis & their attendant training norms – that so dominate the top tier of the #SCoPEd framework – to be in any way superior ...
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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy ...in helping clients or in producing more competent practitioners to person-centred therapy, which finds its differing training culture mapped onto the lower two tiers despite being solidly evidence-based.

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy This creates the absurd injustice that under #SCoPEd a new graduate of training approved by the BPC is automatically deemed more competent than a humanistic ‘counsellor’ who could never have afforded such a course but has accumulated years of experience

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy Such injustice is wrong & confusing, misleading & pot harmful to clients, who believe #SCoPEd’s claims of differing ‘competence’ that, in our eg above, the newly trained BPC graduate is inherently more safe & effective than exp humanistic counsellor. 

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy We note here that there is no evidence that graduates of training leading directly into column ‘C’ are less likely to harm clients through professional malpractice.

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy The excl of person-centred voices in the developmental stages of the framework & the dominance of psychoanalytic views, e.g. in the make-up of the Expert Reference Group, even after it was minimally expanded, have distorted the project’s direction.

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy Here we contrast the role of the BPC, which in #SCoPEd has enjoyed prominence & influence disproportionate to its no. of members, with the role of the larger NCS, which was initially excluded until a draft framework was already in place.

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy We object to the framework’s capitulation to the fading notion that therapy will forever be an extension of medicine and healthcare, with their medicalised systematising of human experience and manualisation of psychological ‘treatment’.

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy The leading edges of counselling, psychotherapy and psychology are moving away from medicalisation (Johnstone & Boyle, 2018; Sanders & Tolan, 2023), yet SCoPEd takes a step back towards it. 

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy As person-centred therapists, we can't sign up to framework’s delegitimising of the ‘third force’ in psychology, the humanistic approaches, which have pioneered radically de-medicalised theory & practice since the middle of the twentieth century.

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy We object to the single-minded commitment to a methodology derived directly from the manualisation of CBT for the IAPT project (Roth & Pilling, 2008).

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy In #SCoPEd, this methodology relied on a narrow & self-referential range of evidence & ignored all research into practitioner effectiveness & client outcomes, with the result being that the framework misrepresents the reality of practice on the ground.

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy The divisiveness of the project, which has talked a great deal about listening to members’ concerns, yet has sought to dispute, rebuff, ignore or, in some cases, silence critique & dissent (e.g. by not publishing members’ letters).

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy ‘Listening exercises’ and ‘consultations’ have not led to any substantive change in the trajectory of the project or the structure of the framework itself ...

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy ...and it has since emerged that efforts to question the project, temper its excesses and address its failings by senior figures in BACP, such as the former Deputy Chair who recently resigned over the issue (Golding, 2023), have been blocked.

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy A Way Forward? - please keep reading

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy For us, these are not the characteristics of a project that embodies the values of counselling and psychotherapy. We believe #SCoPEd to be too flawed to impose on the field as a whole. 

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy We understand that there are complex issues around training, practice and the future of therapy, but we do not find SCoPEd to be a convincing solution to the challenges we face, or even the right path on the way to a solution

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy So we are calling on the membership bodies to respect and acknowledge the rights and needs of members who do not wish their practices to be aligned with #SCoPEd.

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy We ask that we are not forced to adopt the framework by being assigned a title and position in the columns against our will.

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy We value our membership organisations as diverse collectives of professionals and do not want to be forced out of these organisations in order to retain our integrity

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy While some may choose this path to leave, for many this simply isn’t viable due to the requirements of the job market.

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy – therapists need to earn a living and being on a PSA register is increasingly seen as a necessity for employment.

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy The recent Impact Assessment recommends, ‘[a]n important space can remain for those therapists who are unconvinced of SCoPEd’s desirability if the framework is taken forward.’ (Eastside Primetimers, 2022, p.3). 

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy In this spirit of inclusiveness and constructive engagement, we call on the SCoPEd organisations to create a professional home for the substantial number of therapists in their memberships.

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy NCS member vote suggests could be as high as 46%, who do not see their work and identities reflected accurately in the framework

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy We ask that each organisation develop within their PSA-approved registers an opt-in membership category that is not aligned with the SCoPEd framework’s columns.

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy We would welcome discussion on the practicalities of such a membership track, how it is defined, the standards of entry, accessibility for new and existing practitioner members and so on. 

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy We believe this proposal to be a creative, inclusive and growth-promoting response to an issue that has deeply divided the field, threatens to be intractable, and has already consumed too much time and energy for all those involved.

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy Whatever our concerns, we understand that the leaders of the #SCoPEd project believe in their framework and that a portion of members will be content to be mapped onto its tiered practitioner categories. 

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy We call on these organisations to respectfully include those of us who experience the framework very differently, not just with words but in actions.

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@AndyCounsellor @dmurphypsy We ask that you value our ethical, congruent and engaged participation by welcoming us into new membership categories on the PSA registers that are not mapped onto the SCoPEd framework’s columns and titles.

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