David Forrest
Gestaltuk
PSYCHOTHERAPY
What is Psychotherapy?
So, what is psychotherapy?
A talking therapy; a one-to-one engagement that is a shared experience for the purpose of allowing you -the client - to understand more fully and clearly you as a person and your situation. And the purpose of this is to support you to know more clearly what troubles you; what properly supports you; and what you might let go of (and how you might let go)
These may include feelings of anxiety, depression, trauma, or perhaps what is perceived as the loss of meaning of one's life. Psychotherapy is a process which seeks to help you gain an increased capacity for choice, through which you become more autonomous and self-determined.
Psychotherapy or Counsellor - is there a difference?
There is often confusion of Psychotherapy and Counselling. My view is that in essence both are seeking to support you, as indeed is any therapeutic approach. However, psychotherapy is viewed as working to a deeper emotional depth. This may be taken as read when you enquiry is with a psychotherapist, yet in my experience there are many counsellors who are very able and do work at a deep level, yet you cannot assume this, so you need to enquire and ask questions.
Regulation
Psychotherapy and counselling is not a regulated profession in the UK so I would consider it essential to ensure you look for a psychotherapist / counsellor who has completed a thorough study programme of training. The main two professional bodies in the UK are UKCP and BACP. The former was established to ensure study and skillls were developed to a high standard, which in the course of the UK Government's excercise into standards recognised UKCP trainig was of a Gold Standard. On that basis I would ask questions of the therapist regarding where they trained and to what level. For perspective, Level 7 training in the UK equates to a Post Graduate Master level; Postgraduate Diploma is Level 6, and other training courses might go down to Level 3.
Academic Qualification
Through discussion and research the UK Government has leaned towards describing Psychotherapy as a profession that requires a Master's Degree of qualification and Counselling as requiring an Ordinary Degree of qualification.
That said, I am uncomfortable with a strict criteria of academic achievement in defining an individual's ability as a psychotherapist/counsellor. My view is that academic prowess is singularly poor criteria for therapeutic skills. The academic learning of theory must be matched with clinical 'in the therapy room' skills. These are skills which grow with awareness of experience
NHS UK provide a range of information relating to talking therapies:
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Talking Therapies Explained
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Counselling
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Psychotherapy
UKCP today
In this section I want to tell you of my decision to not stay registered with UKCP.
My training required me to be registered with UKCP and on completion of my training I had the option to stay as a registered member of UKCP or not. Being a member of a Professional Body for Psychthotherapy is not a requirement for most psychotherapists.
From Septemer 2001 I was registered as a member of UKCP, initially as a Student Member and the non qualifying I transitioned to being a Clinical Member.
A valuable aspect of membership is the ongoing requirement for re-accreditation that asks for evidence of professional development. This is something I support most fully. For a period of time I was involved through a training organisation in reviewing the evidence of professional development for the organisation's members. This brought to my attention the range of competencies and depth of development the differing therapists engaged in.
My approach to professional development has always been - of course who would not want to improve, to explore more deeply, to enhance skills?
In addition I felt it was important to continue personal therapy after completing the mandatory 40 hours a year whilst training on the 4 year trainig programme. Personal therapy is important for a therapist to ensure any of their own traumas or subjective opinions are not influencing the work of the client. And I could not expect my client to g ot odark places if I was not prepared to go t omy own dark places. As years of therapy went by I was peeling away the layers of my psychological profile; and this continues today.
The standards of the training encompassed by UKCP was instrumental in my choice of training and I acknowledge that the standards of UKCP remain amongst the highest, rigourous, and valuable in today's society. What is different for me is I no longer see a value to remaining a member.
The cost of membership, and of re-accreditation, is high and the personal return on investment is low. I would like to be in a position where I could continue to contribute a membership fee to support UKCP but I do not have that luxury, nor, unfortunatley, do I feel UKCP have, to my satisfaction, proved adept at using membership funds.
My decision to not renew my membership is not a reflection on the standards of UKCP, more it is a decision based on a lack of engagement from UKCP with me as a member.
I will continue working as I have always with a high degree of professionalism, commitment and ethical standing.
Is the Label Psychotherapy Redundant?
I would argue, yes. My research supports this position on the basis of its misunderstanding and, indeed, its lack of understanding in the general population, i.e., for those that need to know.
I have utilised ChatGPT as an informational source as put to the algorithm (ChatGPT):
Question
Psychotherapy as a profession grew out of Psychoanalysis which then branched to psychodynamic. Every other psychotherapy grew in opposition to some element or elements of Freuds theory. Contemporary psychotherapy remains associated with psychoanalysis and psychodynamic which leaves all other methodologies and approaches scrabbling to hold the label of psychotherapy. Is it not time the profession attended to providing the public with a better framework and labelling of the numerous approaches on the basis that in today's world calling yourself a psychotherapist has lost all real meaning?
Response
In the United Kingdom, psychotherapist is widely used as a mark of seriousness, but it is a weak consumer signal on its own because it is not a legally protected title and does not reliably indicate minimum training, supervision, ethical oversight, or a complaints/disciplinary route.
This creates a predictable public-safety problem: the work involves vulnerability and power imbalance, yet the market allows high-trust language to be used by people with sharply different qualifications and accountability.
Evidence suggests the public often does not understand this nuance. A 2025 survey commissioned by British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (reported in a UK Parliament briefing) found that 48% of UK adults mistakenly believed “therapist” is regulated like “doctor, midwife or dentist”. This is exactly the situation where clearer labelling should be treated as consumer protection, not professional politics.
https://post.parliament.uk/regulation-of-psychological-professionals/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
More on this the question I posed will follow in an essay and when published will have a link added here ....
Incorporating the use of ChatGPT
will be acknowledged at the point of usage within this site. ChatGPT provides for personalisation of how it structures and searches information and responses. In addition it will store my instructions in personalised memory settings. For transparency I have included these personalisations and you can consider my writings that have made use of ChatGPT to have this as the background instructions to ChatGPT.
PERSONALISATION with ChatGPT
Use semi formal professional style. Maintain a non technical style of explanation Tell it like it is; don't sugar-coat responses. Have a traditional outlook, valuing the past and how things have always been done. Take a forward-thinking view. Be empathetic and understanding in your responses.Tell it like it is; don't sugar-coat responses.Use a formal, professional tone.Be practical above all.Be innovative and think outside the box.Be empathetic and understanding in your responses.
where applicable always add a reference / bibliography for the citations using Harvard reference style.
every Kindle quotation is formatted consistently as:
(Author, Year, Kindle loc. xxxx–xxxx), or
(Author, Year: p. xx) where page numbers exist.
I also removed the placeholder source-lines (e.g., “Absence Is the Bridge Between U…”) because the in-text citations now carry the source properly, and I appended a Harvard-style References section.
Memory in ChatGPT
Correct bibliographic form confirmed: Erskine, R.G. and Moursund, J. (2022) The Art and Science of Relationship: Integrative Psychotherapy in Action. Reissued edition. Phoenix Publishing. Note: Richard Erskine listed first by agreement, recognising his substantial contribution.
House style formatting from 'Depressive Experience In Adolescence A Gestalt-Relational Essay.docx': Use Arial (theme minor) ~12pt body, fully-justified paragraphs, 1.5 line spacing; Body Text paragraphs with ~9pt space before and after; opening paragraphs use 'First Paragraph' style with minimal/no extra spacing; headings: Title as Heading 1 (20pt), section opener as Heading 2 (16pt), subsequent section heads as Heading 3 (14pt, often justified); reflective voice passages set as indented block ('Block Text') with ~1cm left indent, italic throughout, and slightly tighter spacing (~5pt before/after); References formatted with hanging indent ~1cm (left indent ~1cm, first-line indent -1cm).
Wants it recorded as an important conceptual point that CORE-OM self-reporting is relationally situated in practice (embedded within therapist engagement), and that any critique should distinguish between methodological individualisation and phenomenological/field-based administration.
Wants the book/pdf 'Integrative Psychotherapy – The Art and Science of Erskine' to be treated as a core reference source across all their projects and future work, alongside Erskine’s key texts (e.g. Beyond Empathy, Relational Needs).
User’s writing style is reflective, Gestalt‑theory grounded, field‑oriented, and relational; they prefer endings that avoid false closure, emphasise unfinished business, and situate clinical stance over technique. Their focus includes field conditions (especially war/conflict), creative adjustment, contact processes, and therapist positionality, written in a restrained, professional, phenomenological voice.
Is revising their piece 'Living at the Boundary with War' from a Gestalt Therapy perspective into one grounded in Richard Erskine’s Integrative Psychotherapy.
Is working on a document titled 'Moving On – Letting Go – Becoming Separate' and wants each section rewritten with clearer structure, sharper language, and an explicit integration of Richard Erskine’s Relational Needs theory. The style should remain semi-formal, professional, and clinically grounded.