ABSTRACT
Retrospective introduction The article reproduced in this chapter is a discussant paper, that is, a paper/ article which discusses another one. The editors of the Transactional Analysis Journal (TAJ) were planning a special issue of the journal on “Dialogues in Ethics” and invited me to contribute an article which was to discuss an article on the licensing of psychotherapists by Smith (2011), which had been accepted for the issue (Cornell & Eusden, 2011). The broader background to this, which was known to the editors of the TAJ, was my interest in and research into professional regulation over (then) some 15 years, and my critique of increasing moves towards the statutory regulation of psychotherapy and the state registration of psychotherapists. I had first presented on this in 1999, and earlier in 2011 had published an edited book on the subject (Tudor, 2011e).
