Protecting the client experience: A catastrophe theory map of civic accountability in the psychological therapies

Abstract

Drawing on catastrophe theory, it is proposed that the way in which practitioners balance self‐responsibility with external responsibility in the presence of coercion and threat explains a range of civic accountability behaviours in the psychological therapies, defined by levels of values congruence. If the level of coercion and threat is severe, for example from the state, practitioners are likely to congregate in two divergent groups where core values of the field are either honoured or compromised. So far as practitioners draw on their capability for emotional competence to hold coercion and threat minimized, the map points to a third civic accountability option that can balance external and self‐responsibility. The catastrophe theory map supports the premise that erosion of practitioners' values due to the coercion and threat that implementation of state regulation entails will harm the experience of psychological therapy clients.