Constitutional Process

It has been an exciting read to absorb together the range of papers and contributions in Self and Society 28.1, on the Registration debate, and on the role of processes which enable legitimate quasi-legal challenge to practitioners’ practice and interventions, etc.  The link between these is purportedly ‘protection of the public’.  It is most encouraging to find this kind of concerted intensity of engagement with the debate.  

The Independent Practitioners’ Network (IPN, hereafter) and its members have been at the forefront of the stimulation of this debate.  Although aspects of the IPN’s debating style are as exasperating as are some of the replies to them (!), they have undoubtedly stimulated debate.  I have heard Michael Pokorny - no less - say that the GMC ‘college’ model of individual registration has provenly failed, and that we should try the federal organisational model (UKCP).  This is of course partly taking a leaf out of Mowbray’s book (Mowbray, 1995).  The IPN’s freedom from heirarchical models of authority has enabled it to do some kinds of thinking, which are difficult for the rest of us to do because of our heirarchies.  It has always been a matter of regret to me that IPN, or something like it, did not gain a foothold within UKCP, since the anarchist-cooperative model of organisation it represents is an essential part of the dialogue on how to organise psychotherapy.  It really ought to be preserved, at least as an ‘endangered speicies’.  But of course many IPN members would say their form of organisation is essentially incompatible with that represented by UKCP.  And there’s the rub!

As I read these papers, particularly Nick Totton’s and David Kalisch’s, both of which have relation to Postle’s Gold into Lead paper on registration (Postle, 1998) - and taking account of the rank mutual incomprehension which seems to bedevil this debate - an essential connection suddenly came to me.  It is one which also perhaps begins to make sense of the mutual incomprehension, - and indeed often the mutual contempt, - in this debate.

I realised that Nick Totton’s paper on conflict and complaint (Totton, 2000) is a paradigm of both the best and the worst of the IPN position.  He says at the beginning that ‘what follows is a personal and unauthorised [my italics, HW] account’.  But the problem is that it could not be authorised;  there is no model of collective authorisation within IPN as it stands.  Totton’s model of confllict resolution is an excellent model where there is fundamental agreement upon a shared process;  it corresponds to what many of us used to call the ‘grievance’ level of dispute.  (Incidentally, from UKCP’s point of view, which has decided to define ‘Grievance’ in the Trade Union sense, not that of ‘lesser non-quasi-legal issue’, the phrase ‘conflict resolution dispute’, which I derive from Nick Totton’s paper, might well replace it.)   

But at present within the IPN framework there is no provision for the exercise of power based upon constitutional authority where judgement does have to be made on the basis of an ‘trial model’ (Totton, op cit p9). Of course, as France illustrates, a ‘trial model’ does not have to be ‘adversarial’ on the English legal of parliamentary model.  But it does involve judgment, authority, and the inherently though partially one-sided exercise of  power.   This is the ‘tier’ of reasoning that Nick Totton’s model omits.  For the moment an IPN group expels someone and is supported by its two link groupings it will be exercising such a function - and if it does it will need also to develop intermediate sanctions too.  Then it will be in the same ball park as the rest of us.

Now, as the industrial co-operative organisations of Mondragon in Spain and Semco in Brazil illustrate (c.f., Maverick by Riccardo Semmler, ), there is no inherent reason why an anarcho-cooperative mode of organisation should not embody and express its power in some form of democratic authority.  When it does it is the most powerful form of organisation there is.  This it the nettle IPN has yet to grasp - and it is a mark of naivety about power and constitutionality.  Fundamentally, it is the avoidance of the necessity of constitutionally grounded representative institutions.  

In the context of the Alderdice Bill, if Mowbray (op cit) is right - and he may well be, though I think we are all learning here and can all become more effective in this respect - the jury is definitely still out, on whether bad ethical practice is better protected within a framework which is unregulated, or whether a regulated framework would do it better, or whether it makes no difference.  But it has not been considered that what may also be needed for a Profession to exist as such is simply the public existence of a quasi-legal (underpinned by the law) framework of redress - in other words the legally underpinned possibility of redress.  

For instance, in medicine, the Bristol and Shipman cases do indeed support Mowbray’s case in one way, but they also bring into view that there is an institutional framework for redress and change within the law.  I am not personally inspired with confidence by David Kalisch’s reference (Kalisch, 2000, pp57-58) to the operation of market forces within the building trade, as an illustration of the merits of ‘fully legal redress or else nothing’!  Again, the ‘maternal’ aspects (c.f., Kalisch, op cit p57) of nursing, for instance, are not denied or diminished by its being a State Registered Profession, and, though imperfect, it has come a very long way since Dickens and Florence Nightingale on the basis of its Registration.  At these levels of argument the IPN and its allies argue with as much frivolity, or naivety, as anything their opponents can do.  

This is sad because, as I say, they are essential to the debate.  But currently this bears all the marks of stubborn institutional polarisation - on both sides (c.f., Pokorny, 1998).   Why, then, will the IPN not face the problem of power and authority in psychotherapy, so that their voice can be heard at the level of deed not just word, and not marginalised?  Then those of us who speak for their value and importance within UKCP would have a better chance of being heard.

Heward Wilkinson

(References to follow)

Dear Heward

Thanks for sending your paper, and for the paper itself. I will mull it over. 
But meanwhile, I would sincerely like to know what "aspects of the IPN's 
debating style are as exasperating as are some of the replies to them".

Love

Nick

							8.04.00
Dear Nick
Thanks for your email.  I understand from Maxine there might be time to get a reply in before the May issue of S & S  goes to publicaion.  She is away from the tenth from 10th it says in the issue itself and Alexandra Chalfont is holding the fort after that.  

I cant understand how you cannot understand what my exasperation is about, from what I wrote already.  And that also is exasperating.  There is something about the whole debate on both sides that is very set piece and rhetorial and indicative of a serious refusal to consider the strong points of each others positions.  It is not in the least a pluralistic debate - on either side.  There is a hectoring tone for example in Denis's Lead into Gold paper and likewise in Michael Pokorny's reply.   Whereas your dialogue with psychoanalysis in The Water in the Glass is a genuinely pluralistic contribution to dialogue.

Your own contribution on complaints in this issue is of a different quality of tone, but it also simply assumes its own utopian position about conflict resolution model as if it did not need argument.  And this untopian naivety is the other thing I find exasperating.  It goes with a great deal of routine contemptous talk about heirarchies and euro-centricity, and dominance politics and so on.  Such routineness is the death of dialogical thinking. These emphases of course have a great deal of validity, and so have arguments on the other side.  Thus in Denis's paper the Postle/Young debate is presented as if it could not possible be considered that Young’s and Freud’s reading of hiuman nature may be right.  This after the most genocidal century of human existence!  It is a choice of evils in any politics and the other side of the issue.

When the IPN denies (Who runs IPN? in the IPN Briefing Document) that any individual or group runs IPN this is a contradiction because this document has been issued.  Therefore someone at a National Gathering was empowered to issue it in practice.  Likewise the groups standing by each others' work will from time to time make sanctions decisions - as suggested by your final case in your paper.  So at some level IPN has to bite the bullet on this.  

Now I understand that at some level IPN may not ultimately wish to touch UKCP with a bargepole.  But is this a matter of temperamental aversion or one of principle?    If the former then is this not the same kind of self-indulgence that those Labour party indulged in, who actually did not want to ever be out of opposition?  If the latter, then should not the IPN address both its own implicit contradictions, and the possibility that it could remain anarcho-cooperative and yet authorise persons to speak for it when rapid response is required?  Otherwise all we who would like to help its case to be heard have to envisage is a parting of the ways really.  There is actually no ground on which we can meet.    My concern is that IPN, whilst ostensibly pluralistic, is not actually in the least so with those who disagree with it on fundamentals.  

I have a suggestion - if Self and Society would consider it.  That you and I actually have a 'for' and 'against' dialogue on the Guardian model - by email maybe - and see where we get with it after suitable editing.

love

Heward

Dear Heward

I've read your article and supplementary e mails several times now, and I have to admit that I am still struggling to grasp your argument. This is not meant to imply that there is anything wrong with it! - But it illustrates very clearly your point about mutual incomprehension. On an emotional level, my reaction is that you have utterly failed to understand IPN, how can you be so dumb, etc etc etc - and if I responded from that place, no doubt it would start off another round in the spiral of misunderstanding.....

So let's not do that. Instead, I want to acknowledge that I know there is always a great deal of careful thought and feeling behind what you say, even if I fail to grasp it; and also, I think I may have got a handle on some of what is being misunderstood. 

If I have it right, then your argument about IPN failing to grasp the nettle of authority, etc.  etc., is based on a model which says that for an IPN group, for example, to exclude someone from membership is a sanction, a form of punishment, which is therefore necessarily an assumption of authority. Right so far?

If so, then I think this actually is a misunderstanding of the actual radical basis of IPN.   Unlike UKCP we have no goal of controlling or affecting people's right or ability to practice. Therefore,  excluding someone from an IPN group, or breaking a link between groups, is not a punishment; it simply stops them from being in an IPN group, or being a member group as the case may be.  In other words, it  is primarily a statement of fact: so-and-so's work is no longer supported by such-and-such group.

This is even clearer and less authority-like with the link between groups: for my group to de-link with yours is also for my group to lose a link. This will in almost all cases mean that my group no longer has full member status either - so that our behaviour in de-linking will necessarily come under scrutiny from other groups as we try to achieve a new link.

Does this clarify things at all? I do hope so, because if not I haven't yet managed to grasp what you are saying!

To turn to your e mail, you say that  "When the IPN denies (Who runs IPN? in the IPN Briefing Document) that any individual or group runs IPN this is a contradiction because this document has been issued.  Therefore someone at a National Gathering was empowered to issue it in practice. "  This is untrue in ways which it may be helpful to look at. Anyone in IPN is intrinsically empowered to produce any document they like, so long as they don't claim status for it which it does not have. Hence what actually happened with this one was that Denis saw a need for it, produced a draft, and circulated it to a number of people. He re-drafted it on the basis of responses received, and simply made the result of this process available for anyone to use or change as they saw fit. Thus, I have been using a rather different version of the Briefing Document from Denis's in informal discussions with Brian Thorne re the UKRC. No one has had  to authorise me to do this. (If you read the IPN Principles and Procedures which are Appendix I to the document - and which are the ONLY 'authorised' IPN statement - you will see that they are saying the same thing.)

To move on to our relationship with UKCP: despite varying degrees of personal hostility and mistrust on the part of various IPN participants, the general consensus is that our only serious argument with UKCP  (and whenever I write 'UKCP', I mean the Council rather than the members) is over its explicit goal of making IPN's existence impossible. We are very willing to coexist; however, UKCP explicitly wants to be the only body which accredits psychotherapists, and to enshrine this in statute. Were UKCP to drop this goal of extermination, I for one would have no reason to argue with it. (You may feel that it is inflammatory of me to use words like 'extermination', but I honestly feel they are the simple truth. If UKCP gets its way, I will not be allowed to work as a psychotherapist.)

As for joining UKCP, as things stand we meet virtually none  of the criteria for doing so. We don't have (or want) a complaints procedure or an ethical code; we don't use any objective  criteria to accredit practitioners; and we don't fit into any of the UKCP sections, since we have no allegiance to any particular form of psychotherapy. If UKCP were interested in accepting us on that basis, I'm sure we would be interested in exploring it!

Seriously, I think that our attitude towards existing bodies is shown by the fact that we have been negotiating  about becoming a route to UKRC accreditation. We laid out how we work, and got the response (as expected) that in no way did we meet their current criteria. This is essentially because those criteria fail to imagine anything remotely like IPN existing. The situation seems to be much the same with UKCP.

UKCP's attitude to the whole issue of registration and accreditation, in my view, has been consistently to avoid debate. It looked as though this was going to change with the  conference entitled 'Therapy Hurts?' organised last October by the Association of Independent Psychotherapists and Camden Press. I was asked to speak, together with Dan Hogan, Bob Young, and various other people, including  a UKCP representative. Right up to the last minute UKCP would not say who was going to speak, and then finally told the organisers that no one was coming. It was clear that the conference chair, David Henderson, was extremely fed up about this, though he played a straight bat - the event had been planned for a good six months. If it had come off, it would have been the first occasion, so far as I know, on which UKCP debated with its critics.

It is very good to know, Heward, that you support IPN's right to be heard within UKCP. If we do misrepresent or misunderstand UKCP's position, I think that it is partly, no doubt, shadow projection by us; but also partly the result of events like the one I have just described, and of the complete lack of dialogue on every level; and also partly of the fact that UKCP's declared policy is to stop me and my comrades from practising as psychotherapists. One does tend to take this sort of thing personally.

Two other minor points: 
 
You say that "it has not been considered that what may also be needed for a Profession to exist as such is simply the public existence of a quasi-legal (underpinned by the law) framework of redress - in other words the legally underpinned possibility of redress. " I hope that by now it's clear that IPN doesn't want  a profession of psychotherapy.

Also: I don't know whether you are aware that David Kalisch has no involvement with IPN, and never has  had.

I very much look forward to hearing your response to this, and finding out whether we have yet made any progress in our dialogue.

Love

Nick

										14.05.00
Dear Nick
Sorry for the delay;  I now offer my main response which comes in relation to your first point - the whole argument is already there, with one or two connecting points. I shall explore the dilemma arising from the tension between two interpretations of your position, which lead in fundamentally different directions, and which I shall call the ‘anarchistic-co-operative’, and the ‘optomistic-co-operative’ models.  For reasons I shall give, looking in on the dynamics from the outside, I would be amazed if IPN were not currently wrestling with the organisational dilemma between these two positions.

Your first points::
“If I have it right, then your argument about IPN failing to grasp the nettle of authority, etc.  etc., is based on a model which says that for an IPN group, for example, to exclude someone from membership is a sanction, a form of punishment, which is therefore necessarily an assumption of authority. Right so far?

If so, then I think this actually is a misunderstanding of the actual radical basis of IPN.   Unlike UKCP we have no goal of controlling or affecting people's right or ability to practice. Therefore,  excluding someone from an IPN group, or breaking a link between groups, is not a punishment; it simply stops them from being in an IPN group, or being a member group as the case may be.  In other words, it  is primarily a statement of fact: so-and-so's work is no longer supported by such-and-such group.

This is even clearer and less authority-like with the link between groups: for my group to de-link with yours is also for my group to lose a link. This will in almost all cases mean that my group no longer has full member status either - so that our behaviour in de-linking will necessarily come under scrutiny from other groups as we try to achieve a new link.

Does this clarify things at all? I do hope so, because if not I haven't yet managed to grasp what you are saying!”

Response:
My first response is that, yes, in a sense we do both - all too clearly! - understand and agree about what we are disagreeing about.  

Your (as I call it, anarchistic-co-operative) model seeks to construe what people do in these situations as interacting individual choices, and interacting group choices, to which you give no status of law, or quasi-law, and, associated with it, the notion of legitimised authority and power, of any kind.  As you say, it is simply a statement of a fact, with no value or legal status whatsoever.

My response is:  that that is precisely the problem.  IPN systematically avoids the issue of institutional legitimisation.  It does so explicitly and deliberately, and this precisely is what you are confirming.  On this model, the disagreement is about the essence of social organisation.

Except, of course, that, since as you go on to say, any member of IPN can say what they like, since IPN is therefore only constituted, on this model, by factual mutual interest, I cannot take you to be speaking for IPN on this!  However, I get round this by initially acknowledging the paradox that this is a clear anarchistic position, with, as such, its own coherence.  The position is that IPN has not got a position, in the sense of an authorised position; but this is to be interpreted as a positive vision, not the absence of one, - otherwise we would not be having this argument.  So the position is about the freedom from legitimisation or authorisation.

Now the first problem is that, on that interpretation, this position becomes what constitutes IPN in its own uniqueness, and this creates a dilemma.  

The optomistic-co-operative position
For, either it is, or it isn’t.  If it isn’t, then IPN can have a position that addressses the question of legitimate authority and power.  Then IPN is playing on the same ball-park as the rest of us, and the argument becomes one only about means and strategies - this is what I am calling the optomistic-co-operative position.  (I think it roughly corresponds more to Denis Postle’s position.)   On that position, my challenges, about why does not IPN emulate the capacity for formidable action of Mondragon and Semco? apply, and on that position I would want to argue that IPN now needs to pull its finger out, and get its act together pretty fast. This alternative interpretation, the optomistic-co-operative position, again, would be based upon IPN’s claims - which on that interpretation and context would be the IPN claims - that its process of ethical scrutiny is fairer and more effective, and hence more legitimate, than alternative models.  Here it would be allied - as I had assumed - with ‘left wing’ (to have recourse to an old model) people within UKCP, such as David Kalisch, which was why I included him in the remarks I made.  

Within that version, there would be no problem and hesitancy about authorising individuals to speak for IPN, and having the debate;  and, in practical terms, people such as myself would be able to say, ‘we must include IPN in the debate, and the person who is their spokesperson is --- ‘, which it is embarassing not to be able to say.  It is possible from that position for you to argue that it is illegitimate, and contrary to the principles of natural justice, that practitioners, - whose sole fault is that they do not agree with the principle of State Registration of psychotherapists, - should be disenfranchised and their practices, in some sense, exterminated, as you yourself argue.  For on this position there is no principled objection to legitimisation of authority. The only argument is about the best means of this.  And it would, therefore, be much more possible, if this were the case, for those of us who are concerned to mount arguments, and suggest strategies, to support you.  It would be possible to argue for something like a ‘conscience-opt-out’ clause - as with abortion operations.

But one of the consequences of the other position, yours, is that we cannot do that, for reasons I am about to come on to.  It has to be said, also, that it would be easier for those of you in the optomistic-co-operative position, nevertheless, to accept that the politics of the thing may go the way you disagree with, and on that basis to move towards grandparenting in.  

I myself believe that IPN is caught, and indeed confused, between the two positions - and that its trumpet gives an uncertain note as a consequence, with knock on effects for those of us who wish to support it.  For I believe the position you are occupying, though it has the excitement and beauty of purity, and of being a very distinctive political vision, which human beings have again and again been drawn by, is neither consistent in its implications, or sustainable by people occupying the middle ground, and that it is naively utopian.  

The anarchistic-co-operative model
This first position, which opposes all notions of legitimate authority in its sphere of expression, can do so on one of two bases, again.  First, it could say, ‘we prefer to have no authority structures, but you may prefer otherwise’.  Or, second, on the stronger version, it could say, ‘no authority structures have any legitimacy;  to assume they could do is to make an illegitimate claim’.  

On the first position, the position is just not a principled position.  It is merely an expression of preference, opposed to any other expression of preference.  This is not really a position, except in the loosest sense.  It might say ‘I don’t like what UKCP are doing’, but it can say no more;  it can make no arguments.

But, on the stronger position claim, it becomes self-contradictory.  For it implies both, that it has a principled understanding of how legitimacy could be claimed, and that there is none.  It makes the authoritative claim that there is no authority;  it says it legitimately claims that there is no legitimacy.  Anarchism as a principle must claim it is right;  and thereby it introduces a principle of law and right.  Part of its very attraction, to the purist, consists precisely in this claim that it is right.  

This contradiction, for me, comes out in the appeal you make when you say, “If you read the IPN Principles and Procedures which are Appendix I to the document - and which are the ONLY 'authorised' IPN statement - you will see that they are saying the same thing”.  It is as if, by only having the slenderest statement of authorised principle, the IPN feels it has avoided the contradiction.  In fact, it has highlighted it!  This is the tip of a very big iceberg of contradiction.  I believe the IPN is paralysed in ineffectuality, and a kind of utopian purism because of this contradiction.

The other attraction of the anarchistic position is its effectiveness as a form of organisation.  But here we are back to the optomistic-co-operative rationale, and on this  basis IPN could be playing, and could have played, a very active part in the creation of the culture of psychotherapy.  It could have grasped the nettle it has consistently avoided of legitimate power;  it could full-bloodedly have actually offered, and campaigned for, an alternative vision of the management of the ecology of psychotherapy, which could have offered a different way of thinking (perhaps upon Sczazian, or Ralph Nader-ish, free-market lines) about the process of the delivery of psychotherapy and its implications, and whether or not it won the politics, it would have asked questions which got heard.  But I actually think it has largely itself to blame that its position has perforce become so defensive;  and I would be surprised if a significant portion of the IPN membership did not partially espouse the optomistic-co-operative rationale - but unclearly and with an uneasy conscience, because of the pull of the pure anarchistic position.  

You say, 
‘Seriously, I think that our attitude towards existing bodies is shown by the fact that we have been negotiating  about becoming a route to UKRC accreditation. We laid out how we work, and got the response (as expected) that in no way did we meet their current criteria. This is essentially because those criteria fail to imagine anything remotely like IPN existing. The situation seems to be much the same with UKCP.’

I accept that only those with an unusual interest in political forms will actually  understand the anarchistic position.  I think it is naive to expect otherwise.  But I think that, for the reasons I have given, because of the contradiction at the heart of its position, IPN has largely disenfranchised itself.   I also think that, because of this, IPN also has in a different way avoided debate, because it has not  put forward an alternative model.  The potential power of the anarchistic mode of doing things has been impeded by the principled embargo on legitimate authorisation, there has been nothing to debate with.

I have already run on at too great length, and there seems no point in having the debate which could be had about the rationale for Statutory Registration, in terms of the destigmatising influence for good which an effective, non-marginalised, psychotherapy Profession could have, for all its faults and problems, if it grasps the nettle of Professional power - or for alternative models of such power.  Such an ends and means argument is ruled out, because the legitimacy of taking power for the Profession, in any form, is disallowed by yourselves in principle.  

This, then, is why I am still exasperated by the IPN’s position.  In a pursuit of an utopian model, I don’t think you have protected your own positions, or helped others to protect it.  I believe it is a real opportunity missed.

I also believe my position on all of this is now fairly clear and I would think that a final response from you would put it all in a debateable form for readers of Self and Society.

with love

Heward

Dear Heward

Thanks for the material. I am now rather confused about what we are doing. I was under the impression that your original piece was going in the May issue, to be followed by our debate in the July issue - is this no longer the case? is the whole thing to be printed together? 

If so, I have some problems with it. What you sent me is nearly 5,000 words already, and over 3,500 of those are by you. To even out the debate - and I know wordage isn't the only thing here, but it is meaningful - I would have to write another couple of thousand words, which a) would probably make it much more than S&S want, and b) is not, I have to say, my preferred style of debate. When you suggested a Guardian-type debate, I took you to mean that fairly literally - i.e., three to four shortish alternating contributions each. (This is why I tried to hurry you up.)

No matter, I can adapt - though that is the format I would have preferred. However, I'm not sure if it is appropriate to print all our exchanges so far verbatim, as you have laid them out. Could you clarify how you see it? I am eager to respond to your points! One possibility would be for me to do so, and then for us to edit the whole into a series of shorter exchanges (this is in effect what you have done in your last piece, of course, by using lengthy quotations). What do you think?

I realise as I write that I'm also suffering from the ambiguity of the task - both a public debate and a genuine private conversation, with real outcomes! Can I jump the gun and ask you now: What do you mean by 'wanting to support' IPN? What exactly is it in which you want to support us? If at all possible I would be delighted to make it easier for you to do so.

Love

Nick

Dear Nick
Thanks for your email, - and accordingly the contents of this are between
ourselves, and then we see what we do with the 'official' debate.

Of course I have done my usual thing of going right for fundamentals, and
it has unpacked into a lot of words.  And it is indeed lopsided in that
sense.  It might well be top-heavy for Self and Society.  I just wanted to
get something tangible down so we could take the next step - which might be
to hand it over to Alexandra and let her edit it.  Incidentally, I included
the first thing so that it would follow a sequence, but I am assuming that
- if accepted for publication and my reading of the timing of when I was to
get it in was it had been - would be published in 
the next issue and then the follow-up dialogue in the one after.  

We might have to sort of edit it down to bullet point form in the end but I
felt it was important to have the stark fullness of the thing before us! 
Also as you say this is the first time a UKCP person - member of the
Governing Board - has debated with an IPN person.  So Self and SOciety
might push the boat out.

So that's at the level of the official argument.  If you think any of what
I am about to say should be included in it please say, but otherwise it is
between us.  Some of it overlaps with the official dialogue.

So here goes:
1. For myself, it has made it doubly awkward in putting the case, for IPN
to have access to Lord Alderdice, within UKCP, which Denis asked me to do,
that I can't say who would be the link person in such a discussion, and
that there is no 'chair' or 'chief executive' etc whom one could name.  
Because of the special nature of the organisation which you and I have
dilated upon in the dialogue it means one cant say, this is who it is.  So
the sense of the power centre of it is uncertain.   I personally think this
also reflects a sustantive uncertainty about exercising power, but this of
course follows from your understanding of what the IPN process amounts to. 
But I personally have not been able to get across that IPN stands for
anything positive.

2.  It is also for similar reasons unclear what the representations would
amount to:  for it amounts absolutely to a wish that Statutory Regulation
will not happen.  Clearly that is not a discussible proposition within the
Alderdice talks.   It also amounts to an intention that 'it not happening'
will prevail, which goes against the wishes of the psychotherapists who do
wish it to happen.  

There is no middle ground here - there might have been if there had been a
powerful enough presentation of an alternative, which could only really, as
far as I can see, have been a free market consumerist type model.  But that
debate did not get going.  I recognise that there have been political
realities behind that, on both sides, and also that maybe we have all only
really begun to stir in our tents on all of this, in theoretical terms,
rather belatedly.   But that is how it is - the difficulty in communication
between orientations even within UKCP has been redoubled in relation to
anyone outside, except where the psychoanalysts are concerned, for there
the argument did not fall from lack of mutual familiarity, but for other
reasons, of course.  I think this type of mutual incomprehension is only
overcome when there is a sustained dialogue, and dialogue breaks down, or
fails to get off the ground, most of the time, in this profession . Thus,
if the moment is right I (HW) can get heard now within UKCP on what is
perceived as a major issue, but mostly Heward Wilkinson is someone who
speaks on all manner of things and mostly we don't understand what he is
driving at! 

3.  So what might IPN want, apart from that it (Stat Reg) will go away?  As
far as I can see, (I may be wrong, please advise me) some kind of opt out
clause,  or conscience clause.  I understand the former only would apply to
existing statutorily regulated professions - currently only psychiatry.  I
don't know the mechanics of a 'conscience clause'.  I am likely to be
meeting Lord Alderdice with Jennie McNamara and Christine Lister-Ford on
behalf of the HIP Section soon and I would seize my chance to explore some
general issues as far as possible.  But one can imagine the limits of such
a meeting with a seasoned political operator and wheeler dealer!

4.  If I were now in the IPN instead of having backed the UKCP horse, -
but, per impossibile, with my existing political antennae, - and secondly
if I were afraid of disenfranchisement, I would recommend IPN -
emphatically now! not later! - to apply 'en bloc' to become a section or
some other formal part of AHPP, and begin negotiations to achieve this.   I
think this would make a dramatic impact, even to begin this process, - in a
way which IPN has totally failed to do so far.

5.  From my own - Heward WIlkinson's - point of view, if IPN did this it
would introduce into UKCP a healthy necessary leavening of a kind of
anarchism which is only partly present in the HIP Section now as it exists,
and which Tone Horwood, Whiz Collis, Tricia Scott, and one or two others
struggle partially to sustain.  I think it would also immediately acquire a
voice and a presence, which it simply has not operated so far in a way to
acquire.  But all that - or analogous strategies - would mean that IPN
would have to stop sitting on its hands and get into the political arena.  
And the 'how'  of that, of course, is where we, you and I, would continue
to have fundamental disagreements.  (I still await your new book!)

6.  When all is said and done if Stat Reg comes in, then you could call
yourselves 'psycho-oractitioners' or whatever, and continue to practice -
it would be up to market forces then whether this was sustainable.  But if,
via AHPP or some other way, you were all part of UKCP the future of
anarchistic modes would  be more likely to be protectable.

7.  Bluntly, I think IPN has played the Achilles and sat in your tents to
the detriment of the whole movement - but I dont expect you to agree with
that.  There are eight hundred of you - a decisive sort of number - who are
not where you could exercise real influence.  I wish it could change.  But
I think your decision-making processes are even more cumbersome than those
of the BCP's about the definition of psychoanalysis, and thats saying
something.

I hope Im wrong.

Well I leave it with you what you make of all this.  I could well believe
you have no interest is being 'in' at all.  But then it will go on without
you all, in some sense.  And I personally have little ammunition to do much
with on your behalf - if you have anxieties, and the word 'exterminate'
suggests you do have.

with love

Heward

Dear Heward

I'm still thinking about my response to your long piece, but a lot of what you said in your last e mail I find extremely intreresting, and want to reply now. Personally I would be very glad to include all this in the official record - would you be prepared to do that? Let's just get it all down and then look at the editing process afterwards?

<<For myself, it has made it doubly awkward in putting the case, for IPN
to have access to Lord Alderdice, within UKCP, which Denis asked me to do,
that I can't say who would be the link person in such a discussion>>

It would be Denis, I presume! Did you ask him?

I think you are making a back-to-front assumption that because IPN tends not to formally delegate, it is hard or impossible to identify the responsible person. The responsible person is themperson who _takes_ responsibility. In this case, denis would clearly be It; and if he felt the need, he would consult with or draft other IPN participants to help him. Clearly he would have to go back to the whole Network over any major decision, but teh same thing would surely be true for UKCP, say. And IPN has a National Gathering - which can make binding decisions, subject to repeal as with every democratic body - every four months. Where lies the problem?

<<there is no 'chair' or 'chief executive' etc whom one could name>>

If this is really a big deal _in itself_, rather than for practical reasons (which I have dealt with above), then it reminds me of the British problems with Gandhi: how can we possibly take this funny little man seriously, he doesn't wear a morning suit....

<<t is also for similar reasons unclear what the representations would
amount to:  for it amounts absolutely to a wish that Statutory Regulation
will not happen.  Clearly that is not a discussible proposition within the
Alderdice talks.>>

Why not? Why is it not acceptable to suggest to Alderdice that he is mistaken in his view of the situation, that a substantial number of   therapists don't want SR, and that SR wuill not in fact protect anybody? How can you say that this is 'not discussible'?

 <<It also amounts to an intention that 'it not happening'
will prevail, which goes against the wishes of the psychotherapists who do
wish it to happen.>>

Yes; but what implication are you drawing from this? That these psychotherapists will therefore not want IPN to be heard? I'm not sure I can make sense of what you are saying here.

<<So what might IPN want, apart from that it (Stat Reg) will go away?>>

Yes, first choice. I still think it may, though you obviously think this is absurd on my part.
  
<<As far as I can see, (I may be wrong, please advise me) some kind of opt out
clause,  or conscience clause.>>

Doesn;t this amopunt to the same thing as Stat Reg going away? If I can still work as a psychotherapist, then as far as I am concerned SR has gone away, no?

<<I would recommend IPN -
emphatically now! not later! - to apply 'en bloc' to become a section or
some other formal part of AHPP, and begin negotiations to achieve this.>>

You seem to be assuming that IPN is a humanistic psychotherapy organisation. It isn't, although perhaps some 85% of current participants would identify as humanistic. It seems to me that this sums up one of the immediate difficulties of any such application -IPN is not oriented around any particular model of therapy (see Principles and Procedures).

<<I think this would make a dramatic impact, even to begin this process, - in a
way which IPN has totally failed to do so far.>>

This again is a matter of opinion, but in my opinion IPN has made a very dramatic impact in many quarters. We evidently move in different spheres, however.

<<I think it would also immediately acquire a
voice and a presence, which it simply has not operated so far in a way to
acquire.>>

Again, you seem to mean 'a voice and a presence _within UKCP_'. I have heard this several times, e.g. from Tone Horwood - 'I like what IPN stands for, but simply can't be bothered to make the effort because you're not part of UKCP and UKCP is where the action is.' To which I say, quite frankly, Crap.

<< think IPN has played the Achilles and sat in your tents to
the detriment of the whole movement >>

This I truly resent, Heward. What on earth do you mean? I haven't been sitting in any damn tent for the last few years, I've been out there trying to generate debate with anyone who would listen, in any available forum. As I said before, UKCP as an institution has consistently refused to talk. What do you think I and the rest of IPN should have done? - apart from applying to join UKCP, which you surely must see is not much of an answer.

<<here are eight hundred of you>>

Unfortunately somewhat of an exaggeration, I have to admit. try 400.  

<<who are not where you could exercise real influence>>

i.e. within UKCP?

<< think your decision-making processes are even more cumbersome than those
of the BCP's>>

What is your evidence for this? Our decision making processes seem to me a great deal simpler than those of, for example, UKCP (and obviously this is partly a matter of relative size). Anyone who wants to takes an initiative, and this gets looked at by a National gathering every four months. What could be simpler and less cumbersome? (Yes of course I overstate, but only in response to your overstatement!)

To sum up: You seem to be saying 'I would like to support IPN, but only as a tendency or grouping within UKCP, which is and should be the only game in town'. My response is that I, and I think IPN generally, have just two fundamental arguments with UKCP, and this is one of them: the idea that a trainer's club should be the ONLY organised body in the field of psychotherapy. The other one is that state power should be used to enforce this situation. If you disagree with us on these two matters, then exactly what is it that you want to support us about?

Love

Nick

17.05.00
Dear Nick
Thanks for yours - I think broadly this is now a good blunt interchange
which could go out mainly as is.  

In the attached version of the whole sequence I have indicated what I would
want edited out (or changed in the light of your comment about the numbers)
in mine.  In yours the last few 'quotes' are not given, and I did not know
just what of mine you wanted to quote.  I personally would want you to
delete swear words at I think two places (comment on Tone Horwood, and on
my Achilles comment) but would be willing to let Alexandra decide on that.

I have added a one sentence answer  to your last question, and a comment on
the the presence of UKCP in the talks. Otherwise let it all speak for
itself.

Do you want to email Alexandra indicating where we are up to or shall I?

love

Heward

PS I copy an email about the first reading from Lord Alderdice's
secretary/PA

"Subject:       Bill First Reading
 
 Subject to any unexpected Parliamentary business, Lord Alderdice's Bill
 will  be given a First Reading on Thursday, 18th May. The Bill will be
available
 from the Stationery Office the following day and will also be available
 via  the Parliamentary website at www.parliament.uk.
 
 Regrettably, it proved to be technically impossible to include in the Bill
 a  list of those stakeholders that the Secretary of State must consult
with
 before making initial appointments to the Council. We will, therefore, be
 examining other ways to achieve this such as a statement by a Minister on
 the floor of the House."

Dear Heward

Thanks for yours, but you jump the gun slightly - I still haven't responded to your long bit about anarchism! Below is a short reply to that. As for overall structure, I want to have a good think about that before sending anything off to S&S: I wonder if we can't salt it down in some way, eliminate redundacies and bring relevant passages together? Anyway, I'll get back to you. This seems a very worthwhile project.

Love

Nick

Dear Heward

On the whole anarchism issue, I just want to say this: there are some people in IPN - I am one of them - who  might be described as principles anarchists. But we are in a small minority, and accompanied by others who are liberals, libertarians, socialists, even I would say a number of conservatives with a small ‘c’ who see no need to change the way things are. I suggest that you are projecting onto IPN your own ambivalent interest in the pure anarchist position! In reality, IPN is anarchist only in the same sense as many other practical arrangements within our society (including, as a prominent anarchist once pointed out, the international postal system!)

The initial goal was to invent a system which combined simplicity, low bureaucracy, no
hierarchy, and rigorous accountability. There was no serious input of political ideology into this. However, we argued then and do still argue now that IPN’s approach is more consonant with the theory and practice of psychotherapy, in most of its forms, than the regulatory approach.

I want to argue with one other passage: “on this  basis IPN could be playing, and could have played, a very active part in the creation of the culture of psychotherapy.  It could have grasped the nettle it has consistently avoided of legitimate power;  it could full-bloodedly have actually offered, and campaigned for, an alternative vision of the management of the ecology of psychotherapy ... and whether or not it won the politics, it would have asked questions which got heard.”  

I do not understand on what basis you maintain that IPN has not tried to do exactly this! To the best of my knowledge we have ‘actually offered and campaigned’, to the point of exhaustion. If we have not ‘got heard’ - by those active in UKCP, presumably - that is surely because UKCP has not been listening. I want again to refer to the conference in London last October , where IPN had a speaker among many others, and UKCP offered a no-show. This seems to me typical of the debate so far. To then be blamed for 'not getting heard' seems a little harsh.