ABSTRACT
Psychoanalysis and the psychotherapies are expected to replace their antiquated speculative systems and outdated therapeutic aims with new standardized evidence-based models. Regulation aims to ensure that these new professional standards are upheld and, crucially, that talking therapies conform to criteria imported from the field of service provision. This chapter focuses on three aims of regulation: protection of the public, good practice, and the scientific development of the discipline. Any discussion of state regulation should begin with a differentiation. Forms of regulation have been present in the field of the talking therapies for decades, and the training organizations currently operative in Britain have codes of practice, requirements, and usually quite stringent criteria for admission, training standards, and qualification. With the government intent on regulating the talking therapies, there is every danger that these changes, together with the emphasis on sanitation, will produce a new “adapted” psychoanalysis.
