Sideways..

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For a conflict to be resolved through meditation certain factors need to be present. If both parties care enough about the relationship, if the power difference can be levelled out so that both parties feel safe enough, and if both parties feel as if they have some control over the process, mediation will probably be of a considerable help.

The therapist and I? A good mediation would not make!

Some of that is historical, his history. Most of it is a problem created by therapy culture. The complaint 'formulation' is in itself a bad start.

So, what am I saying?

The problem begins with the ethical body needing to determine that the therapist has committed an infringement of their rules. Though it couldn't really be their job to do anything else, as membership is an agreement to be judged on those rules..

Nevertheless, clients can find therapy a less than useful experience. They make a complaint and if the therapist is working for a charity for instance, the manager investigates. Fundamentally though, the criteria for deciding what to do focuses on finding something very wrong. Client's complaints don't register unless it is about the fundamental rules..

So where does that leave a client who is desperately unhappy, and in their mind that unhappiness has been caused by the therapist? I suppose the question is, can a therapist make a problem worse and the ethical body dismiss it? Fact is, you would have to be able to provide evidence...My view is that the client's distress isn't a test of of the ethical body's code of conduct. The client feels that there is a problem. So, there is a problem. 

So I think I'm saying that therapists have a duty (this isn't in the ethical codes) to resolve a conflict! I think I'm saying that we don't need to be able to 'cure' someone, but if a client leaves feeling that therapy is contributing to suffering, this should be investigated in some way - sorry, no answers yet!

I don't think clients complain because therapy hasn't fixed them. All clients should know that it is possible that they might feel worse during therapy because talking about upsetting things is tough.

But if they leave therapy feeling pushed out of the room, or abandoned, or? The therapist really has a duty to address this in a way that leaves both of them perhaps sad, but with a feeling of it being ok.

I don't have much experience of making a complaint, but possibly a bit more now than most? And it seems to me that things could be less conflicting and kinder if the ethical bodies added conflict resolution to their codes. Beginning with a requirement that a therapist subject to a complaint must explain to them why they have not resolved the issue with the client.

This explanation letter would be from their supervisor explaining the therapist's problem, and a letter from the therapist describing how they will avoid similar problems in the future.

Meanwhile the client has been left to drown in whatever went wrong. 

So the ethical body should contact a therapist local to the client - and this therapist must practice non-pathologising collaborative therapy - to create either a repairing session, or a preliminary mediation session.

If mediation is good to occur (both parties agree) the therapist talks to the client's therapist, and the mediation session occurs later...

If the situation isn't resolved by mediation then and only then should the ethical body make a judgement.

So what I've learnt from my attempt at making a complaint is, the procedure is far from helpful for upset clients. I already know how awful it is for therapists because there is at least one website that offers them support. 

And probably something about the complaint procedure had badly affected the therapist whose sessions are recorded here. This experience made him unable to see beyond panic..

UKCP say on their site that mediation could be a part of resolving a conflict. But, requiring a client to write, in effect, a first session of the mediation process without asking the client to say what they wish to happen, without their 'best hopes' risks leaving the client stuck in a binary opposition of right/wrong/good/bad. There isn't any space for mutual understanding! 

I thought that my complaint explained that I wanted mediation. But if the LLM wasn't able to understand that!

And if it wasn't a LLM? 

Then really there is no hope! 

Anyway.

The complaint form as designed by UKCP is very likely to create the dynamic a mediator does her best to sidestep. The complaint procedure risks turning a bewildering mess of guilt , fear, shame into a drama triangle, 

The ethical body playing the role of persecutor and rescuer, while client and therapist play victim or persecutor...no one hearing anyone else, or understanding what's going on.

So I think you can see from what I've said here, I don't see any point in me attempting to move this complaint against the therapist, forward.

Instead I will use the knowledge I've gained, and see where it takes me!

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