From Novara Media: “For practitioners of client-centred and open-ended relational therapy, for those who have seen their GP or third sector services decimated or mutilated to maintain funding for IAPT [the government’s flagship talking therapy service, Improving Access to Psychological Therapies], for hundreds of thousands of IAPT clients who are left feeling barely met, and for so many of the service’s psychological practitioners, who trained for a people-serving vocation, belief in IAPT is an ask too far. To be a little over dramatic, Layard and Clark’s positive-thinking crusade to reduce depression and anxiety nationwide is an archetypal neoliberal scam.
IAPT is helping some people. Just to have your pain and distress heard at all can be a terrific relief. But the almost-total control it holds over psychotherapy and counselling in the NHS is a scandal.”
