Rethinking Accreditation: Nick Totton's Independent Practitioners Network

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As trainees entering the psychotherapy profession, it can sometimes feel as if the route ahead is already mapped out. Most trainees assume that becoming a therapist means joining one of the established professional bodies, such as the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) or the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society (NCPS), and working within the structures they provide. And that's not suprosing since there don't seem to be any other options.

But Humanistic psychotherapy has always been a field that questions assumptions, including assumptions about how we organise ourselves as practitioners. Humanistic psychotherapy, in particular, grew out of a radical challenge to the dominant models of therapy, pushing back against expert-driven, hierarchical approaches and emphasising relationship, authenticity and trust in the person’s own capacity for growth. If those values shape what happens in the therapy room, I think it's worth asking how they might also shape the way we organise ourselves as a profession.

A recent short book by Nick Totton: The Independent Practitioners Network: A Radical Experiment in Self-Managed Therapist Accreditation, explores a way to do exactly that. The book looks at the ideas behind the Independent Practitioners Network (IPN), an experiment in creating a more cooperative and relational way of organising therapists.

Rather than a central authority assessing and regulating practitioners, the IPN is built around small peer groups of therapists who know each other’s work well. These groups support, challenge and take responsibility for one another’s practice, and then connect with other groups in a wider network of mutual accountability. The idea is simple but quite radical: accountability arising through relationships and dialogue, rather than through a top-down professional hierarchy.

You don’t have to agree with the model to find the questions it raises stimulating.

• What kinds of structures actually support good therapeutic practice?

• How much regulation is helpful, and when does it start to shape the profession in ways that may not reflect our values?

• Could peer-based and cooperative structures offer something valuable alongside or as an alternative to traditional professional bodies?

At Homa we’re lucky to know Nick well, he's one of our valued visiting tutors and we invite trainees to read several of his books, including How to be a BAD Therapist and Humanistic Therapies - Strengths and Weaknesses. We value his work precisely beacuse it often invites exactly this kind of thoughtful questioning of our profession.

Talkig to Nick and reading about the IPN also made me reflect personally. Part of me would love to have the time and energy to help set up something like this myself: a cooperative, peer-based network of practitioners rooted in humanistic values. The truth is that I just don’t right now. But I do find myself wondering... hoping... that someone will. Maybe some Homa graduates or trainees?

As you move towards qualification, it’s worth remembering that the profession you are entering is not fixed or finished. It’s something that we therapists can shape collectively. The question isn’t only how will I fit into the profession? It could also be:

What kind of profession do I want to help create?