Two years on from the publication of the IACP’s 2013 report following their members’ survey, and I’m still intrigued by the findings. For me the most striking comment is:

The major issue in the profession is the depressive effect of the recession, in terms of impact on clients and their perceived inability to fund treatment. A near majority of respondents have difficulty attracting clients.

Note the use of the word “perceived.” Does the writer believe that this perception is a less than accurate one? It might be worth exploring that idea. A poll by the Irish Times showed how skewed our perceptions can be. If our perceptions of where the bulk of the social welfare budget goes, the number of immigrants living here, or the income tax paid by the top earners is flawed, isn’t it possible that our perceptions of people’s ability to pay for counselling or therapy might also be flawed?

While it is true that people are indeed struggling financially as a result of the recession, the struggle does vary hugely. While most of the population have been affected in some way, not all have been affected equally. Look at the numbers boarding planes in Dublin Airport, or the 2014 registered cars on the roads to see that not everyone is finding the pinch too much to handle.

What might this mean for us as therapists? Perhaps we don’t want to see that people are choosing to spend their money on other things? Perhaps the recession is a handy scapegoat for us to blame so that we don’t have to adapt our practices to the changing environment we are practising in? And the pace of change is huge. Even within the last ten years, the face of our profession has changed hugely. New training colleges have sprung up. Technology has changed the way in which our services are promoted and delivered. Regulation of the profession is on its way. And a client looking for help with an issue has a myriad of choices available to them which may not have been available or apparent in the past.

Clients are also increasingly highly informed, and well researched. The position of the initiated in our society (be they bank managers or priests or doctors or therapists) as experts who command a special respect is changing rapidly, and many will argue that that’s how it should be. However, one effect of this is that where in the past the routes to healing were fairly well defined, now they are increasingly blurred.

A client who in the past would have come to therapy through word of mouth or referral from a doctor is increasingly self-referring, often based on a self-diagnosis from information available on the internet. The perception that therapy may be a long and arduous route with no great certainty for success at the end of it, may mean that our services are eschewed in favour of those provided by others who are more likely to blow their own trumpets. Our desire not to be misleading about the results that may be achieved in therapy may lead us to downplay what is possible.

I am not suggesting that we throw out the baby with the bath water here, as the old saying goes, and that we all suddenly move to the hard sell of the snake oil salesman. But neither does it seem appropriate to meet the changing environment within which we practice with a blank refusal to change our selves or our approach to generating work. It seems to me that there is an onus on us to make ourselves relevant to the world we are now living in, and the one we will be living in in the future, not the one we would like, or the one that existed when we decided to train.

Therapy has never been a static profession. One of its hallmarks has always been that there is an ongoing dialogue about the work, about its evolution and meaning, and about its value.

We as practitioners are growing and evolving too. Each generation of trainees receives the accumulation of wisdom and knowledge of those that have gone before. Practising therapists continue to benefit from the experiences of others through ongoing CPD and supervision. I have never met a therapist yet who does not believe passionately in the value of the service that we provide.

And yet when it comes to standing up for what we know is the value of our work, we are strangely reticent. Perhaps the time has come to be more proud of what we do and the benefits it brings our clients in particular and society as a whole.

If you’d like to learn how you might develop your practice to meet the changing needs of today’s world, I’d love to help you. Please leave your comment or question in the box below, or contact me here for a free 20 minute consultation.