Sham Psychological Therapy Rules

Bernard felt ‘ten times worse’ after his first session of IAPT, Group CBT. He didn’t return for further sessions. IAPT advised him to seek individual therapy via his GP, which he did but none was ever forthcoming. When I saw him it was three years after his industrial accident that rendered him unable to work, his depression had continued unabated. The GP records simply recorded that he did not attend 3 sessions and so was discharged, the implication was that he was at fault!

What had actually happened is that following an IAPT telephone assessment he was invited to therapy at a local centre. On arrival he and others were given a questionnaire to complete. He and about 15 others were then ushered into a room, but there were not enough chairs so some stood. The group leader began asking each of them in turn what their problem was. Bernard protested ‘ I can’t tell my problems in front of all these’, he said that he could see that the young men in the group were agitated and one ‘girl’ on the verge of tears. ‘it was more like a lecture with flipchart and screen’.

The IAPT treatment bears no relationship at all to the group CBT detailed, in my book ‘Simply Effective Group CBT’ published a decade ago by London: Routledge or to what I am trying to promote as Co-chair of the BABCP Group CBT Special Interest Group. A year ago the IAPT Manual was published but none of it confers any protection for a client suffering the same fate. The worry is that in the interest of a numbers game more people will suffer Bernard’s fate.How long is the cover up going to go on!

Dr Mike Scott