The Talking Cure

Dear Editor

Thank you for your letter of 11 June inviting us to reply to Mr Don Feasey's letter.

I'm sorry that Mr Feasey did not receive a response to his original letter, which objected strongly to the television programmes. I think this was due to the large response we had to the programmes.

It is true that the decision to make programmes about the clinical work of the Tavistock was not an easy one. A great deal of thought was given to this decision within the Clinic. At length it was decided that it was possible to find an appropriate and ethical way of making a series of programmes about assessments in psychotherapy and family therapy. We did not feel it would be possible to make programmes about ongoing psychotherapy without disrupting the process. We believed that, by allowing a full discussion with the patients involved and seeking their permission for all the material that was shown, it was possible to give them an opportunity to make a genuine decision about their involvement in the programmes.

I do not agree with Mr Feasey's assertion that the patients involved were unable to give informed consent. In fact the patients felt that what was shown of their interviews in the programmes was respectful of them, and also they felt that others might benefit from their experience. Both the Tavistock clinicians and the BBC team gave a lot of time and thought to enable them to make the decision with full regard to the consequences. In the first place the patients had responded to an advertisement which indicated that the BBC was making a programme about the Tavistock's work. In several cases they felt that this gave them the opportunity to find help that they did not believe was easily available to them. The patients formed a strong positive link to the BBC, which had to be taken into account in the clinical work.

We felt that the programmes were a serious attempt to demonstrate how psychotherapy and family therapy take place, and that the producers of the series, Beth Ho