The Doctrines of Psychology

Chris Scott, human givens therapist, addresses why a new approach to psychotherapy which breaks away from traditional dogma is needed.

Change and Decay?

In an article written in 2003 for Self and Society, I criticised the Church for holding on to doctrines and dogmas that have little or no congruent meaning in the Twenty First Century. I suggested that Christ could be understood as an archetype. This of course would involve a profound letting go of many 'sacred cows', something none of us find easy. But whilst in many ways the Church is an easy target because it has been so very reluctant to adapt to changing world views, other institutions and professions are no less guilty.

I was remembering my stay in a world renowned London teaching hospital some years ago. One morning a junior house officer came to take some of my blood. He looked as though he had been awake for at least forty eight hours. With dark rings under his eyes, a very dark shadow on his face and a slightly vacant look in his eyes, he advanced towards me with needle and syringe. As if this were not off-putting enough in itself, his hand was shaking uncontrollably. The poor fellow was totally exhausted and sleep deprived. Yet this is how it was then. It was expected that junior doctors worked totally unreasonable hours because, well, that's the way it was. Consultants had had to do it in their day, and it had 'made men of them' (they were largely men in those days) and so they were quite happy to inflict the same conditions on those who came after them.

As I recall, the impetus for a change in the pattern of working ridiculously long hours did not come from the medical establishment, but from junior doctors themselves and outside pressures. Establishments and institutions are notoriously reluctant to change of their own volition. Patterns repeat themselves. The bible says that God will "visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation."[1] But it requires no vengeful God to 'visit' the sins on to later generations, we do that quite well for ourselves. We repeat the patterns we are used to, either as individuals, as families, or in communities or institutions. Those of us who are engaged in the profession of counselling or psychotherapy know this only to well. It is the presenting past.

It takes great courage however, to look at one's history and repent. I use this term here in its true sense, meaning to turn round and change. An on-going debate in the Roman Catholic Church is the necessity of celibacy for its clergy. This has been thrown into sharper relief in the past decade because of married Anglican priest who joined the Church of Rome at the time of women's ordination. There are now in fact married Roman Catholic priests with families. The matter was always one of church discipline rather than theology, but there is a lot of history to reform. Who will be the man brave enough to say, in effect; "the sacrifice that I and thousands of others have made was not really necessary"? How do you say to a man who would have loved to have been married with children; "sorry, we are changing our mind now"? It took the Anglican Church a very long time to be able to change its position on re-marriage after divorce, and it's presently tearing itself apart over the issue of gay clergy. The 'iniquity of the fathers' is often visited upon later generations because the 'fathers' have not got the courage to say "sorry, we got it wrong." Or it may not even be a case of getting it wrong; one just needs to admit that what seemed to be right to us, is not necessarily so for the present and next generation. Cardinal Henry Newman said: "To live is to change; to be perfect is to have changed often". Pity the Church doesn't live by that. It would also be a good philosophy for the psychological community to espouse.

Psychological Sacred Cows

So what of our profession? How many sacred cows do we have? I can remember how, in the late 80's I began moving more in the direction of psychology, counselling and therapy, and how I expected something quite different from what I was used to. As an ex-monk and then Anglican priest, I knew all too well about doctrines and dogmas and was hoping for different attitudes. Clearly I was naïve and inevitably disappointed. The world of psychology and therapy[2] has just as many sacred cows as does theology, and they can be clung onto with equal tenacity.

It is interesting to note that the BACP no longer requires people who wish to be accredited with them to undergo their own therapy. This is a huge reversal in policy. They now require evidence of personal development, which seems to me far more sensible. But for years it has been, and still is for many schools, an absolute requirement for those training in the field. The scope of this requirement varies hugely, from a 'mere' forty hours to five, six, seven hundred hours and beyond. I myself underwent several hundred of hours of Jungian analysis. Yet the evidence is unequivocal; personal therapy does not make people more effective in such work[3]. My own Jungian analysis certainly enabled change in me — one would hope for the better. But has it specifically made me a better therapist? I'm not sure. Several hundred hours of listening to Mozart, reading the classics or having good body massage would probably also change me, but I'm not sure that they would specifically and necessarily make me a better therapist.

How much, I wonder, is this a sacred cow of the therapeutic community? How much has it become a doctrine or a dogma to be followed despite the research evidence that would appear to make it null and void? Is this very different from celibacy in the church? Is it perhaps not a case of repeating patterns; the iniquity of the fathers…? It would indeed take a brave organisation which could say "you've spent hundreds of hours and thousands of pounds on personal therapy or analysis, but actually, in the end, it doesn't make you a better therapist at all." No, we have I think to be honest and realistic here; there are far too many vested interests, too many protected egos, too much financial investment involved for this particular sacred cow to be slain very quickly. A colleague told me recently that he had gone for some therapy to a Jungian analyst. Her opening remark to him was: "this will take a long time and it's going to be painful". This even before she knew why he had come! With expectations like that, what possible hope was there that the therapy would be anything other than long and painful? Certainly painful on his wallet.

The truth is that none of us much like change, and we like it even less if it challenges some of our deepest or longest held beliefs and practices. Now that the BACP has withdrawn the requirement for personal therapy or counselling for accreditation, where does that leave the therapeutic community? Surely we have some radical re-appraising to do.

What we need I believe, is something that will help the psychological community to look at itself with the same rigor and candour as it would expect to use therapeutically with its clients. I think that with the arrival of 'a new kid on the block' we might just have that tool. The 'new kid'[4] is the Human Givens (HG).

The 'New Kid'

Human Givens is not so much a therapeutic training — although it is that — but a whole organising idea. The founders of HG are Joe Griffin, a research psychologist and practising therapist, and Ivan Tyrrell, therapist and researcher into therapeutic effectiveness. Both men write and teach extensively, as well as having their own therapeutic practices. In the past both they, and the Human Givens Institute, have received a great deal of criticism for saying that personal therapy should not be a pre-requisite of being a therapist. At one point the BACP journal would not accept advertising from them for this very reason. Not surprisingly, the psychodynamic community have been particularly dismissive of HG. But now the BACP have come to the same conclusion themselves, so maybe we need to start listening to the 'new kid' if we are not to become as institutionalised, if not to say fossilised, as the church.

I need to declare an interest here. I do not come to this subject as a neutral observer, but as a member of the Human Givens Institute. I have listened to their arguments, completed their diploma and, very largely, use their methodology in my therapeutic and training work. I therefore speak as a convert. But I am a convert not to a closed system, but to an ever evolving research based methodology that has 'open sides'. HG does not dismiss what has gone before, but rather seeks to use everything that is effective in the therapeutic process, from whatever discipline. It also jettisons those aspects that have become dogmas or doctrines, there only because they always have been. HG is truly person centred in that it will use almost anything (as long as it's legal and ethical) that will enhance the therapeutic process and lead to rapid healing. One of the aims as stated for HG therapy is that it will "Take as few sessions as possible."[5] No expectation here of years of twice or thrice weekly sessions (a nice earner for the therapist, but most clients simply don't need it). Working with the best of the old, new insights from neuroscience, and from research into dream sleep conducted by Joe Griffin over a twelve year period; HG methodology does deliver remarkable results in short periods of time. Of course occasionally some people with deep personality problems or those suffering the results of long-term childhood abuse do need longer treatment; but these are the exceptions rather that the rule.

Mindfield College, which is the training arm of HG, has seen tens of thousands of people attend its one-day lectures and seminars over the past few years. In the three years since it started its diploma course, over four hundred and fifty have signed-up for or completed part 1 (attendance at required seminars and workshops) over two hundred and seventy have completed part 2 (two week full-time intensive with examination) and ninety four have progressed to part 3 (practitioner status — assessed casework)

Graduates from the diploma include medical consultants, GP's, psychiatrists, psychologists, counsellors, psychotherapists, CPN's, social workers, teachers etc. All bring with them considerable experience and expertise which is used in conjunction with their HG training. The end result is a therapist with a formidable 'tool-bag' to treat each individual according to their needs. And this is the key; the client and their difficulties dictate what tools and methods are used. Within an ethical and professional code, almost 'anything goes' if it will serve the end of helping the client get better. For example: a colleague and friend of mine, whose first counselling training was 'conventional', followed this by doing the HG diploma. As part of the therapy with a client, she took her out to a café for a hot chocolate (the client had problems with agoraphobia). Her supervisor, who was humanistic in orientation, could not cope with this at all and felt she could no longer supervise her. Of course my colleague's action ran absolutely contrary to psychodynamic 'doctrine', and proved too controversial for her supervisor, but actually it was hugely useful in helping this particular client to resolve her problems.

I sometimes think that as a therapeutic community, we have become like the religious leaders portrayed in the New Testament. Rules and doctrines have become more important than the people we are meant to be serving. I have myself seen a client who has been seeing the same psychodynamic analyst for well over thirty years. I am sure he abides strictly to the psychodynamic 'rules of engagement', but I'm inclined to wonder who actually has the dependency.

As therapists, trainers and educators, those of us who practice from a humanistic viewpoint are used to helping people see, and inculcate in their lives, new ways of thinking and acting. We facilitate repentance (again, using the word properly) and a metamorphosis which should reflect a deeper congruence in an individual's life. But how ready are we to 'repent' of practices that have become doctrinaire rather than pragmatic? For good therapy should, above all I believe, be practical and humane. Many people will have read in The Daily Telegraph a few months ago the experience of a woman in therapy. On one occasion she was left standing out in heavy rain because she had arrived before the appointment time. When she was finally admitted, soaking and cold, she was offered no towel or hot drink, but had to sit cold and wet for her session (which I would guess would have been exactly fifty minutes). If this story has been accurately reported, it seems to show a lack of basic humanity, and a 'sticking to the rules' that is nothing less than neurotic.

Many areas of psychology, including therapeutic psychology, have in the past been, and some still are, very critical of the damaging effect of dogmatic religion — and rightly so. Those who believe that their particular version of 'the truth', and only their version, will lead to 'salvation' are in my experience to be given a wide birth. But the therapeutic community is full of such people, and full of cult-like doctrines that have more to do with maintaining neurotic belief systems than healing patients and clients. Like religion, there is much about therapeutic psychology that has got itself into a blind ally and doesn't

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References

This article first appeared in Volume 33, No, 5 (2006) of Self and Society - A forum for contempory psychology

CHRIS SCOTT works part time for the HNS in a Primary Care Trust as an organisational consultant, and is also in private practice. A one-time monk, he has been an ordained Anglican priest for over twenty four years, and is also a member of the BPS, AHPP. HGI and BACP. His recently published book Lifting the Lid on Depression is a self-help book using Human Givens principles.