Tomorrow marks the first Q&A session that the BACP will be running on the latest iteration of the SCoPEd project. I’m disappointed as I’m unable to attend it. It’s taken until the past couple of days for spokespeople of the BACP to explain where they will be getting the questions from.
So to prepare for the session, I thought I’d look into a previous Q&A that Fiona Ballantine-Dykes did on the BACP Members’ Community Facebook Group (which is currently closed, with no suggestion when they will reopen it) in May 2019. They have since written up the responses on their website.
What concerns me about the Q&A tomorrow is that it will be a repeat of this train-wreck. Already, we know that they will be focussing on “themes” and not particular questions. This happened last year and so no one seemed to get an actual answer.
Not a
Hierarchy?
According to the SCoPEd literature and various spokespeople, the project is not a hierarchy. However I have that there are various times that there have been suggestions to the contrary. Ballantine-Dykes refers to “Entry Level 1” and “every level of entry” – this ultimately shows that it is a hierarchy with various steps and levels.
I’m looking for an answer to this tomorrow: is the SCoPED project a new hierarchy? If so, in what way? How will they redefine the headings (away from A, B and C).
Is this unfairly
balanced towards
psychoanalysis and
behaviourism?
My overall feelings about the SCoPEd project is that it is discriminatory and excludes the humanistic school of therapy. Nothing that the BACP have said has alleviated that concern. Ballantine-Dykes argues that the “framework will be inclusive and will represent humanistic, person-centred therapy at all three levels”, but nothing I’ve seen agrees with that assertion. The language was not improved upon enough for Category B and C therapists.
I’m looking for the BACP to confirm: how do the BACP, UKCP and BPS expect humanistic therapists to slot into this framework? This includes the concept of the medical model, as psychoanalytical and behavioural therapies tend to posit the medical model as superior, whereas humanistic therapists have moved away from this. The framework language still favours the medical model, particularly at Category B and C.
I feel that there is an issue to raise. Ballantine-Dykes says the following:
“If the project, with the support of the memberships, were to lead into another phase, that looked at implementing something more, we would work with members in this process.”
— Fiona Ballantine-Dykes, SCoPEd: Answers to Members’ Questions
A project such as this should not be implemented before the BACP, UKCP and BPS have clarified the key issues that have legitimately been raised. You can’t say “we’re still in the planning stage so can’t explain this thing” and then implement a framework that affects 70,000 people. That of course is creating a lot of anxiety, and over 12 months later, people are still asking the same questions.
I could go on and on, responding to every question. But I don’t have the time to do that on something that happened a year ago. Instead, I hold high hopes that the Q&A session tomorrow will alleviate some of these concerns. But if not, I guess I’ll be writing another long article!
buddingtherapy.com 