9 ..9
In fact, how could we help our patients in what is really the sole objective of an analysis: to enable them to gain insight into and to understand their unconscious internal worlds; and to do so without running the serious risk that they might, if they were so minded, pursue a complaint against us under the concept of fitness to practise? Such action would rarely be capricious, even if this might appear so to uninformed others, but would almost always be rooted primarily within transference issues unique to the patient. Who, beyond the intimate encounter between analyst and patient, could possibly understand such issues, let alone assess them for the purpose of adjudicating within the context of a professional complaint?
But by far the worst aspect of the problem we and our patients would be facing is that any complaint would be heard, not by fellow practitioners but by a disciplinary panel comprising, almost entirely, persons without any training in any form of psychological therapy, let alone in psychoanalysis. How could any such non-trained person possibly understand and adjudicate on such issues?
What I have been saying provides only a taste of some of the difficulties we could expect to face, should complaints against us within our professional capacity, ever be dealt with under the principle of fitness to practise. It may become our misfortune to have this imposed on us via compulsory regulation by an agency of the state. There is, however, still time for careful reflection and deliberation, preferably with those from HPC who would be responsible for dealing with such matters, about whether, as a profession, we should willingly invite that beast into the lives of our patients. Could that be tantamount to abandoning one of the richest treasures ever offered to society? I would like to suggest that it might be just that.
It is my strongly held view that the concept of fitness to practise would become a millstone, not only around the necks of psychoanalytic practitioners but of our patients also; and of the discipline of psychoanalysis itself which would, in effect, be judged unfit to be practised in this country. If that were to happen, psychoanalysis would no longer be available to those very persons that the concept of fitness to practise is designed to protect. Could such an outcome ever be in the public interest?
Let us hope that there will yet be opportunities for exploration and discussion of these important issues, between all parties concerned, including those at HPC. If not or if those discussions should fail, we must then follow the example of the recent adamantine revolt against and within the UK Parliament. We must seek out a Joshua who will lead us and not hesitate to blow the trumpet that will bring crashing down the walls of the regulatory Jericho: lest it should otherwise, albeit unwittingly, fatally threaten and destroy that unique and golden discipline of which we, as practitioners, are merely its faithful guardians and acolytes; namely psychoanalysis itself.
Jacques China