Should I worry that you don't show any testimonials?
In a world where everything from laundry detergent to uber drivers to Vinted sellers has a five star scale, it's a valid question to ask - why isn't there anything even vaguely resembling a star-rating, client quote or testimonial on this website?
The answer is simple and clear but worthy of explanation.
I am a UKCP-registered psychotherapist. What does that mean and why is that important? UKCP- registered means that I have had to fulfil rigorous training and examination requirements to meet the UKCP's psychotherapy membership criteria. It means I undertake ongoing continuous professional development and am regularly supervised by senior colleagues to ensure I am engaging with clients ethically, appropriately and effectively. You might be surprised to learn that at present, anyone in the UK can call themselves a psychotherapist or counsellor. Until the UK government agrees to make the terms "Psychotherapist" and "Counsellor" protected titles like Psychologist or Psychiatrist, accredited membership of organisations like the UKCP and BACP are the only real certainty members of the public have that the psychotherapists or counsellors they are approaching for talking therapy are actually appropriately trained, experienced, assessed and governed to be giving the services they offer. The details of my training and qualifications are shown here.
As a UKCP accredited psychotherapist, I am obliged to comply with their code of ethics and am governed by their standards of good practice. And their ethical code is absolute on the matter of testimonials.
UKCP Code of Ethics section 13
As a practitioner, you must not make any claims which you cannot demonstrate to be true or include testimonials from clients in any advertising.
This is not an area where there is a sense of "it is advised that" - this is an absolute requirement. This might seem odd at first glance given our profession is known for its transparency. But the best interests of our clients is at the heart of this requirement.
Let me explain why.
Isn't it better to get a recommendation straight from the horse's mouth?
Not in this case. The horse racing idiom "horses for courses" describes how one horse might be in need of soft terrain to run their best race while another might prefer running on firm ground. It's subjective and personal. The same is true of the match between client and psychotherapist. Whenever I meet a new client for the first time, I make a point of inviting them to approach a few psychotherapists to find the one that best suits them . What one client finds really useful about working with me might be anathema for someone else. Beneficial working alliances are highly personal and subjective and so it follows that any benefits described in a testimonial are just as personal - the results are unique to the combination of client and therapist. Giving testimonial could be mispresentative as the person reading them knows nothing about the client's personal preferences in a therapist.
Power and pressure
In any therapy room, there is potential for power imbalance. Whether it's a "troubled" client seeing their "untroubled" therapist, or simply the idea of a psychological"traveller" viewing the psychotherapist as their"guide", the psychotherapist can find themselves in posession of power, whether real or imagined, fostered or resisted. The psychotherapist welcomes the client into the room. They also close the session. We hold boundaries of time, confidentiality, access to sessions, and access to information about their private lives. The client talks about their lives with their therapist while knowing little or nothing about the therapist in return. The client arrives in therapy in need of the service the therapist offers in the hope that they will obtain some form of psychological relief from their presenting issue. In this sense, the psychotherapist can be seen as holding power by holding something the client needs or wants.
Given these implicit, and sometimes explicit power imbalances, requesting and receiving testimonials can get in the way of the work. What if the client doesn't want to give a testimonial? Will they feel they have to out of a sense of duty, fear of rejection or to somehow ingratiate them with the psychotherapist? While exploration of these feelings can be clinically useful or relevant, they might not be in the client's best interests at the time the
testimonial is requested. And what if we don't ask all clients for testimonials? Or if we ask for a testimonial that we then choose not to use in advertising materials? We could unwittingly leave that client feeling not good enough or somehow abandoned by not including their testimonial.
We also need to be cognisant that we could unwittingly be exposing ourselves to the risk of exploiting the client's goodwill for personal gain by asking for a testimonial that would garner us new clients. This breaches broader ethical requirements within the UKCP's framework.
Productive psychotherapy doesn't always feel "nice"
As suprising as it may sound, it can be important at times for clients to dislike, feel cross with, or even be angry with their therapist. In some situations, the ability to tell tell their therapist that they think they're terrible at their jobs can be clinically useful. This might be the case for example for someone who was not allowed to complain in their earlier life . If I, as the psychotherapist, am needing a testimonial to put on my website, I might shy away from sustaining this kind of negative projection. In this case, my business need to get a nice testimonial could get in providing acting in the best interests of the client and providing effective psychotherapy.
Keeping it confidential
Confidentiality in the therapy setting is sacrosanct, extended outside the therapuetic context only when there is a serious risk of harm to the client or those around them.
Giving testimonials puts confidentiality at risk. Even when pseudonyms are used, identifying aspects might creep into the testimonial either as obviously as "they really helped me through my divorce" or as subtly as somebody recognising the turn of phrase the client giving the testimonial has used. This risk increases in a rural setting or working in a speciality community.
Great expectations
When a client walks in to the therapy room for the first time, they will walk in with expectations, fantasies and assumptions about what it's like working with that therapist. I notice this when people who are referred to me by a practitioner they really like. There is some measure of "living up to the recommendation" that creeps into the work. When recommending colleagues to people, I tend to give a list of three to choose from so they can choose - this reduces the risk the client feels they have to like the person I recommend because I recommended them. Applying that thinking to testimonials, if a client read a testimonial saying "Therapist X is hands down THE best therapist I've ever worked with. I saw them three times and all my troubles disappeared", this would set an unrealistic expectation for sure! It would also call into question whether an undemonstrable claim was being made, breaching the first part of UKCP ethic 13.
Most importantly though in terms of the best interest of the client, I would be concerned about how a client would feel if they came to see me because of a testimonial like that and found their troubles had not disappeared after three sessions - could they be left feeling more broken than when they contacted me? "I must be a really difficult case because I'm not feeling all fixed yet". Their situation might be markedly different. They might have trust issues and need more time to build the working alliance with their therapist. It's also possible that the person leaving that kind of testimonial might be working really hard to convince themselves that they feel better. One way or another, the testimonial being given is not necessarily relatable or reliable.
So, the TL:DR?
You will not see testimonials from me on this website because it breaches my personal beliefs about usage of client testimony as well as my governing body's ethical requirements. From time to time, clients are gracious enough to give me feedback - I am always grateful to receive it and use it to sharpen my practice for their benefit and for the benefit of my clients more broadly. It will not be published or shared outside the confines of the working alliance. This is a firm commitment to me, my practice, my profession and most importantly, to my clients.
