Gaining prescription rights: A qualitative survey mapping the views of UK counselling and clinical psychologists

Horton, Alice

Abstract

Background: Over the last 5 years the British Psychological Society (BPS)has been exploring whether its practitioner members are interested in gaining prescription rights for psychiatric drugs and what such a ‘privilege’ might look like.

Aims: This qualitative study aimed to survey the views of UK -based, qualified counselling and clinical psychologists with regards to gaining prescription rights.

Method: Qualitative data was collected via 82 online surveys. The sample consisted of 37counselling and 45clinical psychologists with a mean age of 41and an average of 10years post qualification experience. The data was then analysed using reflexive thematic analysis to develop themes.

Findings: The overarching theme –Gaining prescription rights: a crossroads in the professional identity of the psychologist: “why try on someone else’s clothing? ours is fine” explores how psychologists grapple with their professional identity within existing structures dominated by the medical model of distress, and how gaining prescription rights may contribute to some of the issues they already experience. 4 additional themes sit under this overarching pattern that weaves throughout. Theme 1 explores participants’ assumptions about psychiatric drugs as those assumptions serve as a springboard to their views on gaining prescription rights. Theme 2 examines the belief that gaining prescription rights will result in increased status and power for psychologists. Theme 3 illustrates how psychiatric drugs infiltrate the therapeutic space already (i.e. irrespective of psychologists’ prescription powers) and how psychotherapeutic sensibilities and implicit relational dynamics might weigh into the debate. Finally, theme 4 explores the notion that psychologists have a desire to gain knowledge on psychiatric drugs and the type of knowledge they deem important to be competent psychologists and/or prescribers and whether this would be best achieved through gaining prescription rights.

Conclusion: Research from other countries and opinion pieces suggest that this is a controversial debate, spanning a broad range of views. Views on prescribing rights for psychologists speak to issues of professional identity, what psychologists do or believe they should do in practice, but also about who they are as people. Implications for practitioner psychologists, the people they serve, and wider society are discussed, with a particular emphasis on what this debate means for counselling psychology. More specifically, the discussion highlight show psychologists “silently collude” with the medical model of distress despite many being critical of it.

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Jan 8, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 13, 2023
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/8536804
• Award Date: Oct 3, 2022