Hope Street Psychotherapist joins Ethics Committee

 Walking the Talk
On Saturday 2nd April 2011 UKAHPP held its annual gathering of practitioners in London. Unlike many AGMs in what is known as the ‘psy’ field (organisations that work in the field of psychological health), this one showed its commitment to ‘walking the talk’ by welcoming everyone warmly with an exercise to help people integrate their minds and feelings with their bodies.

The energy of the participants moved from sedate and, for some, embarrassed - to giggling and breathless as the facilitators gently encouraged greater interaction and movement. After just 30 minutes everyone looked much livelier and ready to engage in the business of the day…which was just as well as some of us had travelled very far to be there, with members from Japan, France and even Cheshire (yours truly).

 Inclusive Approach
The turnout was the largest it had been for many years which was hugely encouraging. The keynote speaker was Dr Brian Scott of the Philadelphia Association which runs therapeutic communities and offers psychotherapy to people with a long history of hospitalisation. Dr Scott gave an overview of new developments in regulating the ‘psy’ field.

UKAHPP had been concerned with the implications of compulsory statutory registration by the Health Professions Council (HPC), which, although intended to protect the public, had actually threatened to limit the titles of psychotherapist and counsellor to members who agreed to ways of working and defining psychological therapies that were strongly influenced by the medical model. UKAHPP holds a pluralist stance offering to support its members whether they registered with HPC or not. This inclusive approach protected UKAHPP from the bitter conflicts that had threatened the unity of other accrediting organisations.

In February 2011, the Coalition Government halted the move to register all psychotherapists and counsellors through the HPC and the proposed alternatives to statutory regulation seem to be far more reasonable to a plurality of views of what it means to be human and to work psychotherapeutically. UKAHPP continues to monitor this area to ensure that its members can work humanistically.

Protecting the Public.
The UKAHPP takes its responsibilities to the general public seriously but rather than contribute to a tick box and compensation culture has for many years run an Ethics Committee which aims to deal with such situations in a humanistic way by resolving disputes through mediation and facilitation. This approach has worked well for many years and means that rather than traumatising clients and therapists by taking them through a punitive and judgemental grievance procedure, all attempts are made to understand how the difficulties arose in the first place and where necessary suggestions are made for reparation and retraining where necessary. This is not to say that the process is easy as true mediation requires hard work on all sides, but participants have experienced the process as positive.

Practitioners who are members of UKAHPP can ring the Ethics Committee to advise on potentially difficult conflicts of interest or situations where it is unclear how to proceed due to boundary clashes. The Ethics Committee has welcomed Jessica Woolliscroft as a new member. Jessica has many years experience of supervision, organisational working and has even worked as a Trades Union representative, all invaluable experiences for helping on an Ethical Review panel.

Ensuring that Practitioners are working safely
UKAHPP is also an accrediting organisation. It accredits psychotherapists, counsellors, supervisors and trainers, but also researchers and educators. It is working on a new category of Humanistic Psychology Practitioner.

Unlike many accrediting organisations the UKAHPP does not rely only on forms and references. It is one of the few accrediting organisations that actually meets with practitioners and spends time getting to know them and their work to ensure that UKAHPP really is the right professional home for them.

Practitioners wishing to become accredited are partnered with an Accreditation Buddy who supports them through the long process of application. Psychotherapists are reaccredited every five years and this too involves meeting with the organisation over a whole day. Having been originally accredited in 1994 and reaccredited twice since then, I can vouch for the thoroughness of the process but also how much fun it is and what a privilege it is to spend time with people who are working from similar values.

For more information on UKAHPP accreditation go to www.ahpp.org.

Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Accidents…
In any gathering there are announcements, but when one of our Japanese members got up to speak the room was more than usually hushed. She lived in the part of Japan “most affected by the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accidents” and was trying to organise support for traumatised Japanese people in the UK.

Those three words….earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accidents….served to humble us and brought home all the horror of their situation. As our Japanese colleague put it, these events will impact us for generations to come. She has urged people to continue donating to the Red Cross and she was put in touch with trauma response organisations in UK who could help such as EMDRHAP www.emdrhap.org which runs humanitarian assistance programmes abroad.

 UKAHPP Regional Event

Jessica is organising a regional UKAHPP event to be held in partnership with Hope Street Centre. It is hoped it will cover the topics of working humanistically and becoming accredited.

If you are interested in finding out more please contact Jessica on jessica.woolliscroft@googlemail.com or 01270 882349.

Jessica Woolliscroft
is a psychotherapist, trauma therapist, supervisor and trainer based at the Hope Street Centre. MSc Psychological Trauma (Distinction); MSc Psychology; BSc (Hons) Psychology; Diploma Gestalt Therapy; Diploma Counselling Supervision; EMDR Parts I, II and III.