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The first conference in 1982 was organised “to discuss the registration of psychotherapists”. It became apparent that the problems were enormous, but there was great interest in trying to solve them. The programme of the 1983 conference accordingly reflected the view that a Standing Conference was a more realistic mode of working at that stage, as it was more appropriate to the bringing together of people from different organizations involved in psychotherapy. Discussion concentrated on training and ethics, as well as on the continuing need for a Standing Conference of some kind.
The 1984 conference was designed to give time to the issue of voluntary registration, to continue working on the themes of training and ethics. It also gave time for special interests put forward by participating organizations. Three of these were chosen: psychotherapy and the NHS; confidentiality in psychotherapy; and the possible launch of a psychetherapy journal in association with the conference.
The 1984 conference was attended by 40 people from 30 organizations, larger than the one in 1983 when 32 people came from 28 organizations.
The conference was organized by a Working Party set up by the 1983 conference.
Robert Gottesman chaired the opening plenary on Friday evening. The delegates were welcomed and the speakers introduced. The various organizational items of the formation of small groups and the list for the special interest groups were spelled out. We then had a position statement from Jonathan Pedder in favour of voluntary registration. He stuck mainly to the content of the Royal College circular that we have all seen, making the point in favour of functional not indicative registration. A model would be the G.M.C. for raising standards, the question of recognition, protection of the public, the general move to register professional bodies and also the conferring of status by having a named body and a career structure comparable, for instance, to that of child psycho