Dear Norman, Thank you for your resonse to my email - I am sorry not to
have responded until now, but have been really busy. I was very interested
to read your views and thoughts about the future of counselling/
psychotherapy. I too can see several advantages in having some sort of
regulation when it is being measured against a medical/ institutional
standard (which happens to be the area in which I am employed), BUT I also
believe that it would not have even got this far without the courage and
creativity that has been demonstrated by our forebears in the profession.
So I find it very exciting to belong to this list where the members do
display innovation and foreward thinking. I don't find your views or your
passion disturbing, indeed I share some of it myself, but I do find myself
feeling very uncomfortable at the way in which you respond to other people's
views and also sometimes assume that your views are representative of those
of all counsellors/psychotherapists. Regards, Joy.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Norman Claringbull" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2001 10:38 AM
Subject: Re: Campaign for Real Psychotherapy
> Dear Joy,
>
> If any of my postings make you think then of course I am both delighted
and
> honoured. Do I have a purpose? Yes I do. It is to attack with all my might
> the many dangerous half-truths and false assumptions that hold back
original
> thinking and investigations into therapy generally. Why am I so graphic in
> my statements? Because I am usually a lone voice and its gets me heard.
>
> The exciting thing about therapy, as it is emerging in our new millennium,
> is that it is growing institution. It's growing academically,
professionally
> and in practice terms. Increasingly it is being accepted both by the
public
> and by the institutions as a proper science, (in the widest sense of that
> word), and as a proper activity that has a place in mainstream society. I
> want to capitalise on that and to do the very little that I can do in
> helping to turn our "trade" from a guru-led collection of badly-formed,
> ill-thought out, beliefs into a properly developed and soundly based
process
> that helps everybody. By this I include individuals, public, voluntary and
> commercial organisations. My own practice, my consultancy work and my
> research incorporates elements of all of these interests.
>
> One important factor for me in the advance of therapy as a publicly
accepted
> and publicly valued provision is its professional regulation. The public
> needs to be assured that therapeutic practitioners belong to governing
body
> can discipline them in case of malpractice. The core of any therapist work
> must be a soundly based ethical practice that puts the needs of the client
> first. That's why I support regulation and I don't like fringe
organisations
> or fringe training schools. I always suspect that they are set up more to
> suit their supporters than their clients.
>
> One more comment about my style of writing. I think that the most exciting
> thing of all about therapy as it now stands is that therapists are gaining
> in confidence to look with world in the eye and say "here we are, we a too
> are a serious profession". That means that we can now have the confidence
to
> look ourselves in the eye and to laugh, sneer, applause, backbite and
> generally behave like everyone else. This includes pricking pompous
balloons
> whenever we see them. Doing this is risky but then all of the great
> psychologists and innovative therapists took personal and professional
> risks. The biggest risk of all that they took was the probability that
they
> would upset loads of people. They had to; they were thinking the
> unthinkable!
>
> So come on folks, lighten up a little. Stop worrying about your sensitive
> selves and start thinking. You never know, you might even be able to think
> up lots of reasons to put me down too!
>
> Unrepentantly yours,
> Norman
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