Not All Professional Bodies are Equal
If I were a potential client or student of hypnotherapy or psychotherapy, I would be absolutely bamboozled by the number of organisations which claim to represent practitioners. All of these bodies claim to have codes of ethics, many have very good websites and of course all of them come with letters to place after a person’s name. Surely, they are all the same and it doesn’t matter which organisation a practitioner belongs to does it? Well actually it does.
Many organisations are what are referred to as “tied” organisations. This basically means that the members of this group are all graduates of one particular school, the school which created the organisation. This is a practice which I am sorry to say has existed for decades and is unlikely to change in the future. It insulates graduates and does not place their training or practice under healthy scrutiny from the outside world. These bodies have really outlived their usefulness as there are now enough independent organisations for practitioners to join and be regulated by. The only exception to this rule are organisations held by UKCP accredited schools. These organisations are created primarily because their trainings are much longer and therefore the school must be accountable for their students/graduates for a longer period of time than ordinary hypnotherapy schools.
Another penchant is for bodies to add the word psychotherapy to their titles without any evidence that they are involved with legitimate psychotherapy. Take my article about being qualified as a psychotherapist in 5 days as an example of organisations which attempt to elevate its membership with titles that they are not entitled to.
When consulting a therapist for the first time, be sure to do your homework regarding the professional body that the practitioner is a member of. This will give you some insight as to his/her professional standards and standing.
