Talking therapy was commoditised in 2023 when the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT ) Service was re-branded NHS Talking Therapies. But it has not been possible to discern an added value of the latter over the former. The term is a ‘fuzzy’, and unsurprisingly therefore, there has never been an independent evaluation of ‘talking therapy’. For marketing purposes the term is equated with ‘psychological therapies’, but the latter are qualitatively different. Psychological therapies refers to disorder specific protocols. But neither NHSTalking Therapies or its’ predecessor make diagnoses. Further ‘psychological therapies’ employ measures of treatment fidelity, the latter are conspicuously absent in NHS Talking Therapies offerings. In summary, Talking Therapy is a ‘con’, costing the UK taxpayer about £ 2billion a year for Adult and Child Mental Health Services,
Psychobabble – to speak this language just repeat without explanation: ‘my formulation is…..’, ‘your score on the test probably indicates you suffer from anxiety/depression’, ‘you had bad childhood experiences that you have probably not worked through’, ‘you have not properly processed X’, ‘you are best put on the ADHD/ASD pathway’, ‘we provide trauma-informed care’, ‘we provide evidence-based treatment’. If challenged refer to your years of experience and/or ‘my clinical judgement’ and that you deliver ‘accepted best practice’. These statements rarely withstand cross-examination, yet are taken for granted in CBT circles. Departing from them on CBT courses is professional suicide. They are open to challenge along 3 axes:
validity – how true is this?
utility – how useful has this proven to be?
authority – who says this is true?
Career progression depends on fluency in psychobabble, a prime focus in many workshops.
Dr Mike Scott