"We must protect ourselves! We can measure - we will be safe!"

"what measures/procedures there are out there for therapists to get solid feedback from clients on how therapy is going / has gone for them. Efficacy! Can any of you recommend one?"

The above quote is from a request posted on a network site to which I am connected; this is my response. -

Much thanks to Ben James for his broad view on the sad and fearful regulatory corrals that now surround and invade the real work of therapy.

I am not able to be so rigorous in my examination of this state of affairs as Ben; suffice it to say that if I want to know whether I am being helpful, I ask my clients. To use a universal examination is to insult and infantilise each individual. 

And... as Ben so appropriately points out, I only see my client for 1/168th of a week; to assume that I might be responsible for someones' depression lifting, someones' anxiety diminishing is both arrogant and ignorant. If we, as therapists, cannot bear to live with the uncertainty and ultimate immeasurability of being here then we are in the wrong game.

What is it exactly that we seek to measure? Whose story/context/content/culture would you have me use as the measuring stick? This whole issue of regulation is riddled with fear. Who do you trust?

My first therapist gave me a book to read some thirty years ago - "The Wisdom of Insecurity" - (Allan Watts). I am ever grateful.

The slogan of regulation - "We must protect ourselves! We can measure - we will be safe!"