Derek Draper is unfit to practice psychotherapy *update*

Derek Draper, educationally diminished psychotherapist, is all over the political blogosphere and Sunday papers today (Times and NoTW have all the detail) for his involvement in a campaign, organised by a government official – Damian McBride to smear several opposition politicians over allegations of sexual health problems, drugs and prostitutes, affairs, outing a homosexual, and the mental health of a politicians wife.

This blog isn’t particularly interested in the prurient details of the allegations, nor the politics that gave rise to a planned campaign to use them – while disgusting and despicable in their conception and planned utilisation they are not atypical of the depths the political blogosphere occasionally plumbs*.  I am, however, interested in Derek Draper’s involvement, the man is a psychotherapist with professional responsibilities and privy to the confidences of his clients who need to trust in his credibility, judgement and demeanour.

Guido and I have already shown that Draper’s qualifications are not as he has stated, his MA is in Psychology not Clinical Psychology – an important difference when you consider that Clinical Psychologists are statutorily regulated whereas Psychologist is an unprotected title, and I have repeatedly asked him to correct this on his personal website.  He has repeatedly ignored this request and resorted to threating me with his lawyers by way of a response.  It is also clear that Draper is happy to promote misleading and nonsensical advice on his website as well as displaying an acute lack of expertise in public pronouncements on gender differences and history, amongst others.  Now it seems he has reached a new low.

Iain Dale has reproduced an email that clearly shows Drapers involvement with and support of McBride, including an express desire to cover these stories on the Labourlist website, of which he is editor.

These are absolutely totally brilliant Damian.

I’ll think about timing and sort out the technology with Andrew this week so we can go asap.

Do we want to tip off anyone about Red Rag having set up? Walters? I could do it and say LabouLlist had been sent the link anonymously.

PS Don’t forget LabourList Damian!

Draper insists on his website that he is professionally competent and that he is

[...] a member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and adhere[s] to their ethical framework (PDF)

I have previously complained about his breaches of this ethical framework in relation to his qualifications but this latest scandal is far more damaging, there was no allegation that Drapers qualifications rendered him unqualified to be a psychotherapist, his latest actions suggest he is.  While ordinary members of the public, bloggers, and even government advisers are free to behave publicly and privately as they choose within the bounds of the law, those who sign up to membership of a professional organisation are making a formal acknowledgement that they are committed to upholding a stated standard of conduct and practice.

The BACP demand that their members display the following personal moral qualities:

Empathy: the ability to communicate understanding of another person’s experience from that person’s perspective.
Sincerity: a personal commitment to consistency between what is professed and what is done.
Integrity: commitment to being moral in dealings with others, personal straightforwardness, honesty and coherence.
Resilience: the capacity to work with the client’s concerns without being personally diminished.
Respect: showing appropriate esteem to others and their understanding of themselves.
Humility: the ability to assess accurately and acknowledge one’s own strengths and weaknesses.
Competence: the effective deployment of the skills and knowledge needed to do what is required.
Fairness: the consistent application of appropriate criteria to inform decisions and actions.
Wisdom: possession of sound judgement that informs practice.
Courage: the capacity to act in spite of known fears, risks and uncertainty.

Draper’s involvement with McBride’s planned smears do more than question his sincerity, integrity, respect, humility, competence, fairness, and wisdom, they firmly dissociate him from these traits.  How can one of Drapers clients look him in the eye knowing that he has no qualms about smearing somebody over allegations about their sexual health, morality, sexuality or mental health?

He has signed up for a set of standards in his role as a psychotherapist that he ignores as a blogger removing any pretence at sincerity.  His integrity is compromised by his dishonesty and lies over his relationship with McBride and his misrepresentation of his qualifications.  He has shown no respect to the targets of McBride’s smears, preferring instead to express his glee and support.  He has no humility, no understanding of his own strengths and weaknesses by his involvement in this affair.  No competence, not just in his ignorance in newspaper profiles, but in his failure to understand appropriate behaviour.  His fairness is clearly questionable as he is happy to smear individuals over problems that he would be demanded to be considerate of in a professional capacity.  His wisdom is lacking as his poor judgement in supporting McBride, and his attempts at legal bullying, shows.  Perhaps, charitably, the only traits above Draper displays are resilience and courage, but probably not in the manner the BACP expects.

Derek Draper has been walking a tightrope between his activities as a blogger and his practice as a psychotherapist, a few months a go he would have been well advised to choose between one or the other so as to avoid situations that might challenge his professional activities.  It is now too late, his involvement as a semi-official Labour blogger is almost over, his fitness to practice as a psychotherapist certainly is.  In my opinion he has brought the profession into disrepute through his actions, something the BACP take strong views on:

A finding of bringing the profession into disrepute signifies that the practitioner has acted in such an infamous or disgraceful way that the public’s trust in the profession might reasonably be undermined, or might reasonably be undermined if they were accurately informed about all the circumstances of the case.
A finding under this head must amount to ‘disgraceful conduct in a professional respect’.
This involves consideration of three elements:
Conduct that is regarded as ‘disgraceful’ need not amount to moral turpitude or be restricted to acts of serious immorality.
The conduct must have had some connection with a professional role in order to be considered as falling ‘in a professional respect’. It ought not to be concerned with matters that can reasonably be viewed as solely personal and private.
Conduct ‘in a professional respect’ is not confined to the pursuit of the profession in question.
What is not considered to be disgraceful to an ordinary person may be considered to be disgraceful to a professional person.
A finding of bringing the profession into disrepute will result in withdrawal of membership.

Draper has used his psychotherapy practice to offer opinions to newspapers and frequently as a shield to avoid criticism.  That he has not mentioned it in the McBride affair is irrelevant, he has firmly associated himself with psychotherapy in the media.  Furthermore, it cannot be argued that his involvement with McBride was personal and private as it concerned attempts to smear public figures in public forums.  That his behaviour is disgraceful is beyond dispute, even to ordinary people, let alone professional persons – one only has to look at the outrage expressed on Labourlist.

I strongly encourage anybody named as a target by McBride, and any concerned members of the public,  to submit a complaint to the BACP regarding Draper.  I also encourage Draper to show some semblance of professional responsibility, if only in the dying of his career, by resigning from the BACP and publicly stating he will not continue to practice as a psychotherapist.

* Although the involvement of government officials really is profoundly sad, government should be above this, there are considerably more pressing issues that they should be concerned with.

thanks to Guido and Petra.

update
Dr Petra Boynton has put together an excellent analysis of just why a psychotherapist should not be smearing people in the manner Draper has and the issues this raises for the regulation of psychtherapy.

But what do you do with this latest case of Mr Draper? That’s taken us to a whole new level where someone isn’t just speculating on a case study. From the media coverage of this case it appears Mr Draper is endorsing invented scandals to be used within a media context to discredit people.

While the media’s been obsessing over blogs and politics I think they’ve missed a major shift within ‘media therapy’. We’ve seen therapists speculate and judge to benefit their own careers, but now we’re seeing the potential case of them creating problems in order to benefit themselves AND which have the ability to deliberately harm others.

I wish there was another way of looking at this case, but I can’t see it. And it scares the hell out of me.

[BPSDB]