Regulation of therapists.

mp500 said:

she did state once that when dealing with autistic patients you basically have to rip up the therapy rule book

Indeed. For NT you are usually trying to regulate emotions, then gradually get them to talk to process their emotions. You don't go too deep.

For ASD often there are limited emotions, I show nothing in public. What people are after is understanding the problem. It is understanding that leads to nervous regulation, as it is the mismatch that causes problems. So going deep helps. The problem is whether you can get to the bottom of it, with all the looping taking up time too. I just used hundreds of hours on AI to do this.

It is what typical therapy doesn't help.

I'm a bit concerned that things could easily get *too* regulated. I think patience, understanding, and real life experience are far more important than qualifications/licensing.

The therapist I saw was appropriately qualified/registered but her autism knowledge was mainly from experience and she did state once that when dealing with autistic patients you basically have to rip up the therapy rule book.

Same with ‘coaches’. An unregulated term. Most do a 12 week course and magically they claim to treat people with complex conditions usually involving PTSD, ADHD, ASD and other trauma, often combinations. This is why I will only ever see an appropriate chartered psychologist or psychiatrist (real doctors in the field). It’s my mental health and I don’t want just anyone treating me. I’m so bored of also seeing such coaches and therapists claiming that they too have the same condition and somehow that qualifies them as doctors to treat complex conditions. Sure, they may offer surface level suggestions, but they are almost never doctors trained in picking apart mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions while having the cheek to charge similar rates, sometimes more. It’s people cashing in our vulnerable people in a large amount of cases. 

Stuart333 said:

Anyone can call themselves a therapist.

The trick is to only use licensed therapists as the are regulated by a code of conduct. Details of it are here:

https://www.hcpc-uk.org/news-and-events/blog/2023/understanding-the-regulation-of-psychologists/

It is a bit like if your cars engine is making a knocking sounds, you can give it the the bloke on your street who says he can have a look for you but no promises or you can take it to a qualified mechanic and get someone who is trained and experienced to give an opinion, quote and be able to fix it.

Go cheap with the unlicensed guy and you will probably have the problem back in a week and still be out of pocket with no recourse.

It's shocking. I'm not in UK, but here I also saw such app. I have a therapy with a "pain management and psychotherapy" paid by my insurance and this doctor is clear. My experience with him is also positive and he has strict boundaries,  I don't know anything personal about him, he does not touch me in any way and we don't get disturbed by any phone calls etc. I can say I'm lucky that I landed in his office, he practises anesthesia and psychotherapy.

This is really shocking! Its bad enough that it's not regulated in the private sector but surely the NHS should be checking out who they are employing. There isn't many people that you put more trust into than a therapist.

I was surprised about psychologists not being regulated.

There is an article about psychologists here:

https://acpuk.org.uk/how-to-find-a-highly-qualified-and-regulated-psychologist/

Thank you for sharing. 

I knew this and have always found it disturbing.