The
therapy market and the recession
HypnosisAustralia,
November 2008
By
Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH, Clinical Hypnotherapist, Psychotherapist &
Counsellor
Editorial Director of HypnosisAustralia Online.
2008 has
been a disastrous year for the average counsellor, psychotherapist and
hypnotherapist in Australia. First the accumulating effect of being left
out in the rain as people choose to go to their GPs and get referrals
to psychologists so they can get Medicare rebates has caused many non-medical/psychology
therapists to close their doors, possibly for good.
Then the
tardiness of the Australian Counselling Association (ACA) and Psychotherapy
and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA) in forming the joint Australian
Register of Counsellors and Psychotherapists (ARCAP) caused the profession
to be seen as unprepared when their eligibility for Medicare rebates was
mentioned in Parliament, and the idea was rejected. What was meant to
be completed in June still sizzles away on a slow back burner at the year
end.
Ultimately
the collapse of the world credit markets impacted the professions, as
we surveyed several therapists whose phones had simply stopped ringing.
The banks and mortgage companies were not passing on the declines in reserve
bank interest rates to business and the middle classes, who have always
been the core clientele of the private therapy market, panicked and stopped
spending, as mass redundancies prepared for an economic recession. A huge
existential crisis of being beset the nation as the fear of an economic
depression looms. Therapy has now been relegated to the classification
of a luxury item as five and dime supermarkets pick up impulse buyers
between their own brand biscuits and discounted toilet brushes.
If there
is anything to learned from 2008 for therapists it's that the business
of therapy needs to precede the well-intentioned psychological professionals
desire to be seen as doing good deeds. Good intentions are not enough
for the heads of professional associations, we need business-oriented
people who work smart not hard to lead us and we need to hire and fire
by results or failures. Now, when many household are under extreme financial
stress and relationships begin to crack, is the time when Australians
need access to counselling the most. It is the time, however, when those
services will be the least accessible for many people, unless they are
prepared to be labelled as mentally ill by their GPs in order to see a
psychologist or psychiatrist on Medicare.
©HypnosisAustralia,
November 2008
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