The Confusion of Tongues and the Rugby Conference

I want to give some of my reflections on the language difficulties which have to be overcome if we are to achieve a unified profession of psychotherapy.

Having attended every Rugby Conference since its inception in 1982 and having been, before that, a member of the profession's Joint Working Party to consider the statutory registration of psychotherapists, I have always felt hopeful that a unified profession of psychotherapy will become a possibility in the foreseeable future.

It seems likely that in 1989 the constitution of the Rugby Conference, now in its eighth draft, will be accepted. The profession will have a federal structure in which each section will have its own autonomy with a representative on Council. The question of whether this will lead to statutory registration has been left in abeyance, but some form of registration will almost certainly be needed in 1992 to enable psychotherapists to make use of the new freedom to practise in the other OEEC countries.

The Rugby Conference, which arose out of a meeting between the profession's Joint Working Party on the Statutory Registration of Psychotherapists and the DHSS in 1981, has been succinctly described by Dyne (1988).

It seemed that the DHSS was in no hurry to call this meeting. After keeping our Working Party waiting for a very long time, it finally called a meeting giving us only a few weeks' notice for the end of July when some of the representatives were away on holiday. The DHSS had also invited representatives from other psychotherapy organisations not on the Working Party. At this meeting there was a confusion of interests and a confusion of tongues, and we were told to go away, deliberate among ourselves and come back when we could speak with one voice. It was a situation like the Tower of Babel, but with motives reversed. One got the impression that the DHSS no more wanted us to speak with one voice, so that it would have to listen and do something about us, than God wanted a Tow