All I have is a voice to undo the folded lie.
W.H. Auden

Notes of a meeting with Marc Seale, CEO of the Health Professions Council
Following the success of this petition in collecting presently 1252 names of people who oppose present plans for state regulation of the psychological therapies, Arthur Musgrave IPN Nick Totton IPN and Andrew Samuels UKCP asked for a meeting with Marc Seale.

Notes from the meeting:

1) Marc Seale indicated his own expectation of what will happen: that a very short list of titles will be protected, perhaps starting with just 'psychotherapist' and taking more time to work out which qualifying terms would be protected in combination with 'counsellor'. Other titles would not be protected. A multiplicity of titles 'will not help the public'. This is MS's best guess as to the outcome of the process, which he stressed he will not himself be directly part of.

2) MS could not and would not guarantee anything about use of implied titles, but our sense was that he does not expect a wave of prosecutions.

3) MS was entirely clear that HPC will not conduct a poll of practitioners, but will instead consult with organisations and individuals. He was unmoved by our objections that the people who run the organisations do not necessarily represent their members.

4) MS was also unimpressed by the various radical alternative models of registration/ regulation, on which Denis had briefed him. In particular, he saw no mileage in the idea of a 'register of refuseniks', which strikes him as illogical.

5) MS emphasised that to be effective, arguments against plans for HPC regulation need to be expressed simply, straightforwardly and succinctly.

5) At the end of the meeting MS suggested a re-meet in the New Year, and encouraged us to let him have a brief and simple outline of our objections before that meeting.