Remarks made by UKCP chair, Professor Andrew Samuels, in the opening panel of the Confer debate on State Regulation of Counselling and Psychotherapy. Conway Hall, London. Saturday, 23 January.

Other panellists were: Marc Seale (Chief Executive of HPC, Professor Di Waller (Chair, HPC Professional Liaison Group, Julian Lousada (Chair, British Psychoanalytic Council, Lynne Gabriel (Chair, British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy), Professor Darian Leader (Alliance for Counselling and Psychotherapy - Against State Regulation), Michael Fischer (Senior Research Officer in Healthcare Management, Kings College, London).

I'd like to thank Confer and Jane Ryan for their exceptionally courageous and creative programming of this event. I love the way you have set this up - it is something the political world can learn from.

As the very newly elected chair of UKCP, I have decided to read a brief opening statement to avoid any misunderstandings. It lasts for five minutes.

The therapists are divided. The government is powerful. If the therapists were less divided, or could manage their divisions better, then the government becomes less powerful. I approach today in the spirit of managing our divisions better, so that the government and its agency, the HPC, become less powerful. I believe that less raw power for HPC could be good for the public who seek therapy, good for the therapists and good for society.

There is going to be some kind of independent statutory regulation - better to accept that as a fact. But how we evaluate this, however you feel, let it be as socially responsible, appropriate, equitable and enduring as possible in the interests of those who use therapy and those who offer it - and (lest we forget) in the interests of an emotionally disordered society and a suffering and broken culture.

I hope - no, I expect - no, I insist - that HPC commit today to making some major, major, major changes that, whilst perhaps reducing its power, lead to a better outcome than seems likely at present. Fundamental changes to your underlying philosophy, conceptualisation and practice. I think HPC wants to be fit for practice and is well able to withstand constructive critique. As Juvenal, the Roman poet, put it: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will police the police? Who will watch the watchers? Who will guard the guardians? Who will register the register?

UKCP is a divided organisation. But before anyone gets too smug about that, I have to say that all the other organisations in the field show similar divisions. The field is divided. Just as society is divided about therapy. But the schisms that are interesting are not really between UKCP, BACP and BPC - they are within them - and they are set to grow and grow.

Let me explain this by reference to UKCP. There is a significant segment of our membership that welcomes HPC as the regulator, usually with the proviso that there is much negotiating work still to be done to get HPC fit for purpose for us. There is also a significant segment of our membership that would welcome independent statutory regulation but not via HPC; they prefer to explore the idea of another regulator. There is also a further significant segment of our membership that clearly intends not to register with any statutory register, entering principled non-compliance or some kind of alternative professional accountability.

But everyone in UKCP accepts that, whether they sign up or not, there will be independent statutory regulation of some kind.

Now - I want to reframe the problem of our division so that it becomes, not only a base for constructing a political solution, but also a way of thinking that could help us today, and, I believe, into the future.

We in UKCP call this the multi-track approach. We call it multi-track, but it really only has three tracks. All are important.

Track one involves accepting that HPC is the likely regulator and negotiating hard, constructively and in detail to improve things like the fitness to practise system. We are doing this all the time. You'll hear about track one a lot today.

Track two involves exploring the possibility of another regulator. There are so many ideas out there that have not been considered - as, legally speaking, they should have been. Hence the powerful relevance of the moves towards judicial review of HPC. If the government won't convene the Convention on the Future of Psychotherapy and Counselling which UKCP supports, then we'll have to do it ourselves or with colleagues.

Please don't tell me that holding the tensions between tracks one (negotiate) and two (look for an alternative) is too difficult. In the real world, negotiators do it all the time. To anticipate confusion is to invite it - never mind dissing the capacities of both politicians and therapists to manage a bit of complexity.

Track three is principled non-compliance or as it is becoming called alternative professional accountability (APA). No soft option, as those of you who aren't familiar with it will hear later during the conference.

On the basis of multi-track, today, now, UKCP says again, in public and in a collegial spirit to the chairs of BPC and BACP: join us, join us in writing to the Department of Health within the next two weeks asking if they will meet us to discuss the numerous ideas that occupy track-two thinking - regulatory alternatives to HPC. We should also write to Anne Milton about it. Lynne, Julian, we would benefit from answers today to these questions: will you come with UKCP to the government? If not, will you commit to a convention of our own?

Thank you for your attention. I have tried in quite a low key manner to offer a way of thinking for today that arises out of UKCP's own experience. In less low key manner, I have invited my distinguished co-chairs to rise to the challenge of leadership of the professions. We must do more than merely explain to our members that the threat from HPC has been exaggerated. The threat to our values of self-awareness, autonomy, potential and grow. The threat to our traditions of scholarship, training and practice. The threat to our actual daily delicate and difficult work with clients. It isn't our job to mediate government to the therapists. That is HPC's job. We must avoid developing a new ego defence of 'identification with the regulator'!

The people on this platform have to cope with managing the expectations of the public, the politicians and the practitioners. As 'good-enough leaders', to use my own term, we will live close to failure all the time. To paraphrase Winnicott, I know I will fail UKCP members, but I want to do it in the members' own way. More expansively, the Sufi poet Rumi put it well: 'Failure is the key to the kingdom'. And Samuel Beckett could perhaps turn out to have written the review of today's highly theatrical conference by telling us to 'fail better'. 

Finally, as an offering for today, my favourite quote from Hillel, the first century Jewish philosopher: If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?