ABSTRACT
One of the aspects of this ®eld that we ®nd especially interesting is the way in which competition, power plays, acting out, envy, hate, greed and the narcissistic pursuit of grati®cation appear constantly to be in evidence ± it seems that we live with the continuous and not very well disguised presence of the shadow side to what we do, regardless of orientation or professional allegiance. The interesting question is why this should be the case, especially within a profession that is supposed to have honed its re¯exive skills and which is ostensibly concerned with psychological health. Pilgrim (1997) offers an interesting analysis based on the history as well as the structure of the psychotherapy profession. First, the profession is made up of subgroups each with an initial professional identity covering, for example, psychology, psychiatry, social work, nursing and medicine inter alia. Second, there is the trend in professionalization towards the organization of learning and practice. Citing de Swaan's work on professionalization (de Swaan, 1990) he sets out the typical components of the professionalization process. These cover the establishment of a potentially full-time occupational group; the founding of a training institute with teaching programmes and possible university involvement; the establishment of structures of representation such as formal committees; the allocation of formal credentials to practitioners; and the imposition of a code of conduct on all members of the particular profession. While we can see that this process has occurred across numerous approaches to psychotherapy, there have been severe dif®culties in agreeing on general standards of practice, as well as a high level of competition among the various groups who are competing for power, recognition and economic resources. The current political scene concerning the potential state registration of psychotherapists appears to have brought out these processes in a more focused and also a more productive way. Perhaps it is
been within the stressful and challenging at times, appears to have led to some greater clarity about the central concerns of different approaches to psychotherapy, as well as the identi®cation of where signi®cant overlap occurs in the articulation of what we are trying to achieve, in the clari®cation of standards of practice, and in the setting of guidelines for practitioners and training courses. Along with most of our colleagues in the profession, we are following these developments with great interest.
