The profession, I’d say, is in a mess.
This could be said to apply to psychotherapy in general, but, actually, psychosexual and relationship therapy too seems to be somewhat at sea.
Decades ago, as a result of the Rugby Conference 1982, counselling and psychotherapy separated out into ‘counselling’ and ‘psychotherapy’, for those who were keen to spend more money and time on their training and who, in return, felt less inhibited in charging higher fees. BACP and UKCP became representative of these two titles, one, with around 70.000 members today catering for counsellors, the other (UKCP) with around 10.000 members dedicated more to psychotherapists. We learnt at the time a number of things: 1. that the two are different and hence different “bodies” were required and 2. that, according to research at the time, there really was no difference in outcome to the work an experienced practitioner might achieve, compared to that of an inexperienced practitioner. Go figure!
We moved on. The past decades have seen an erosion of what was held as true a while ago, manifested at the BACP, now accrediting both counsellors and psychotherapists, research confirming that there wasn’t really any difference between counselling and psychotherapy. UKCP followed suit and, would you believe it, counsellors are now registered by UKCP too.
More recently BACP and UKCP (and several others) have joined forces, in pursuit of a re-definition of standards and presumably titles (ScopEd, it’s called) to let us know, confusingly, that there are indeed differences: there are standards aligned to counselling, standards aligned to psychotherapy, and – wait for it – standards aligned to a third category: ‘therapists’ ! No guesses who might end up charging higher fees, who will charge mid-range and who would get paid least?? These discussions have not been completed yet, but I am convinced, the new wisdom shall be that there will be therapists, counsellors and psychotherapists.
Now let me turn to my specialisation: psychosexual and relationship therapy. Is ‘psychosexual therapy’ the same as ‘sexology’? Or ‘sex therapy’? or ‘sexual wellbeing’? Is relationship therapy the same as couples therapy, only with the added possibility of working with multiple partner relationships? And why are the two combined into psychosexual and relationship therapy? Does research confirm the need for this?
Returning briefly to the various tiers of experience and titles it confuses further that everyone seems to use these terms interchangeably. Within COSRT too we use the terms interchangeably or settle for the non-descript ‘therapist’ as if it were the same as counsellor or psychotherapist. Does it actually matter?
I think it does.
Despite my somewhat polemic stance, I wish to acknowledge that COSRT have worked hard to navigate the situation and to clear up this mess. I am sure that they and all my colleagues join me in pushing for firstly, a clear definition of psychosexual and relationship therapy. Secondly, a sound philosophy of integration of the two. Third, we need evidence to demonstrate the effectiveness of psychosexual and relationship therapy.
Without this I fear for the future of this profession
Bernd Leygraf – Course Director LDPRT
The views and opinions expressed in these blog posts are held by the author(s) and are for general interest in the field. These blog entries do not attempt give advice to the reader, they are for educational and information purposes only.
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