Letter submitted to Therapy Today (the BACP journal) but not published.

I’d like to respond to Catherine Jackson’s interesting article ‘Colocation or collusion? How ethical are the Government’s proposals for closer working between IAPT services and Jobcentre Plus?’ (Therapy Today, April 2016, pp.8-9).

Catherine’s title suggests that the issue is generating heat and, at the end of this letter, I make a suggestion for a dialogical, relational next step.

What Catherine wrote illustrates the usual dilemma that the large professional organisations find themselves in with regard to Government policies – in this case, the many linkages between employment on the one hand and psychological therapies on the other. If bodies such as BACP, UKCP, BPC, BPS and BABCP are too robust in their criticism of Government policies, they will be labelled as ‘the awkward squad’ and ‘the usual suspects’. Doors in Whitehall close, requests for meetings go…