The Talking Cure

Dear Editor

I enclose a copy of a letter that I sent to the director of the Tavistock Institute shortly after the broadcast of the television programme The Talking Cure. I am saddened by that fact that I never received an acknowledgement of this letter, nor any response at all from the team shown in the programme.

From my standpoint I cannot believe that I was the only person, the only therapist, to be shocked and offended by this display of apparent unconcern for the ethics of confidentiality in psychotherapy. In my opinion I believe that most psychotherapists do their level best to protect the client, not only from breaches of confidentiality but also from impulses to make inappropriate disclosure.

In my view one of the most inane and revealing moments in the film occurred when the psychotherapy team discussed the client's wish to appear on television as a kind of desire for exposure, without attributing the same motives to their own behaviour.

I am mindful of your wide circulation and it is with this thought in mind that I send you this letter for publication, so that it might not be thought that the television programme was of no concern to psychotherapists who try to maintain a concern for good practice, in a world which sometimes appears to treat our concern without proper regard.

It is a sad commentary on our times that I can recall that some 20 years ago, when I was involved in television programme-making, if such a programme was planned, the producers would have employed many techniques to protect the patient from exposure to the public at large. It is not that difficult to do but, of course, it does not make for such ‘compelling television’. It could be argued that the participants, by their very presence in the programme, have given consent to their performance. Logically this must be true. However it is a naive position to hold. This kind of consent is not an ‘informed consent’. The participants have no control at all over what will be shown in the programme.