THE AHPP PRACTITIONERS GROUP: AHPP
AHPP Practitioners Group Website
Since 1980 there has existed a professional group within the Association for Humanistic Psychology. The object is to raise and maintain high standards in all the areas of humanistic practice - personal growth, counselling, psychotherapy, education, management training, organisation development, research and so on. Individuals are accredited in a specific area of practice for three years only, after which they come before a Review Board for re- assessment.
This is the place to come if you or your organization want a practitioner yourself for any reason.
Members of this group have to satisfy strict criteria of training and experience, and since education is seen as a life-long process, they are required to continue their own professional and personal development while they are members. They must subscribe to a code of ethical conduct and professional practice, which means that any dissatisfied client has recourse to a complaints procedure which has ultimate powers of expulsion.
This means that clients who come to members of the AHPP can be sure that any practitioners they choose have the required training and experience to do what they do, and if for any reason they feel badly treated, exploited or otherwise offended, they do have someone to complain to who can set matters to rights.
The AHPP runs conferences and workshops to keep members up to date and to encourage them to develop. These are often stimulating affairs where people can meet the people they may have heard of but never seen, in an informal way, as well as getting the latest information about theory and practice.
It has developed a method of self and peer assessment which has been run as a group within AHPP, but which has also spread to many other groups and other countries. It consists in a formal sequence of operations, where a person conducts a live counselling session (or other activity) in front of a group of peers for 20 minutes or so, and then gets feedback from the group. This is extremely valuable for purposes of professional development.
The AHPP produces a list of members with a description of what each one does, and how they can be contacted, where relevant professionals or members of the public can see immediately who does what, and can contact the relevant person direct. This membership directory also includes thumbnail descriptions of each form of therapy, so that the reader can understand the entries against each person more easily. It includes details of the ethical principles, the code of conduct and the complaints procedure.
AHPP is a member of the UK Council for Psychotherapy, which aims at creating a fully-fledged profession of psychotherapy in this country. It has a federal structure, and AHPP is a member of the Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy Section. All the psychotherapist members of AHPP appear on the National Register of Psychotherapists maintained by the UKCP.
AHPP also acts as a watchdog to see that humanistic approaches are not ignored, attacked or wrongly described by the media, when publishing articles or broadcasting programmes about mental health or other relevant matters. The AHPP contact person for media purposes is Ian Doucet, 14 Mornington Grove, London E3 4NS (081 983 1492). This is also the contact address if you want a practitioner for any reason.
Suitably qualified people, already members of AHP(B), are invited to join AHPP. There are three types of membership: Associate Membership is for people who are still in training, but who are intending to become full members when they are ready to do so; Affiliate Membership is for people who are already accredited by other bodies, but who want to identify with the humanistic approach and meet like-minded practitioners; Full Membership is for people accredited by AHPP itself, and an application form gives full guidelines as to how to apply for this. In 1994 there were a little over 100 Full Members.
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Association for Humanistic Psychology