Researcher wants to study the 'transprejudice' of therapy clients

[isitanywondernow]

Seems like a bit of a loaded term to me.

And also, therapy is confidential (with limited exceptions) so I don't see how therapists would be able to share what clients have said in their sessions without consent from the clients.

It's interesting as I have seen a lot of psychotherapy research papers and they generally (for understandable reasons) focus on the client's experience and how to meet the client's needs.

Not sure what the purpose of this one actually is...

Are you angling for an invitation to come up and look at my etchings?

There's no melodrama though is there? You've made it quite clear that you don't understand the rigours of academic research, and that's fine.

But the rest of us do and that's what we're discussing here.

I sit on a university ethics committee. Aside from the language and grammar being very confusing (which would have required amendments/complete rewriting from my committee) I don't think this study is automatically problematic. Questions need to be asked around how anonymity can be maintained for participants from a very small potential sample (ie. therapists who are trans) - we don't know how this is being addressed, and it would be logical for this to appear on the recruitment material. This would include information about how data will be reused, although I don't deal with ethics at a masters level so I don't know if archiving happens anyway.

If I'm being very charitable, the 'non-binary' statement could indicate that the researcher is being reflexive and aware of their own bias - this would need to be reflected in analysis though.

But yes, the language. Can't believe that got approval.

Of course it's fascinating it's pages and pages and pages of these 👇

It's like trainspotting. Seemingly boring as shit but actually as addictive as crack.

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I'm pretty sure it would breach the BACP / UKCP ethical codes for counsellors and psychotherapists to participate in this.

Would need to know what the definition of transprejudice is, however.

If it's a client who says "I don't want to work with you because you're trans" that's one thing.

But if it's a female client talking about how vulnerable she feels using unisex toilets that's something else altogether.

To be fair, while I do work with an ethics committee from time to time, this isn’t really my area. Nevertheless, I’m surprised that details of a therapy conversation, which the patient believes is confidential, can be repeated to the researcher. That would make me very uncomfortable about using that therapist. I wasn’t commenting on the ‘trans’ nature at all Beagle. Where’s the melodrama?

No, that is perfect.

I'm pretty sure it would breach the BACP / UKCP ethical codes for counsellors and psychotherapists to participate in this.

Both organisations are extremely captured though, so normal ethical standards don't apply if you say the magic words.

@isitanywondernow

I mentioned this to a friend who works in research ethics and they were interested in taking a look. Could you please post the link where the screenshot comes from? Thanks!

If it's a client who says "I don't want to work with you because you're trans" that's one thing.

I think this would be perfectly valid. Apart from the question of being more comfortable with a certain sex and whether this was clear before they turned up, being gaslit that what you see is not what is real during a therapy session sounds profoundly unhelpful. Being ‘trans’ also indicates you subscribe to a whole ideology that is likely to frame your work and your reaction to what I share. It would certainly limit what I might want to say.

It was on Twitter, here: twitter.com/TPCAorg/status/1633841907456692224

Thanks so much, OP.

There’s loads of research looking at experiences of therapists, it doesn’t inherently break ethics or confidentiality. They wouldn’t name clients or repeat the conversations verbatim. Similar research to this is done all the time - on counselling and therapy training courses in particular. It would be classed as research looking at professional practice.

But in this case it appears 1) to require the therapists to make a judgemental decision that their clients are "transprejudiced" and 2) to possibly reveal the identity of the participants, given the limited number of "trans and gender-diverse person-centred therapists" out there?

I'm also a therapist and the subject of trans hardly ever comes up. I've had a few clients who have had trans kids or trans partners, or kids with trans partners, but it's only ever mentioned in passing to give context. It's never been a major theme of the work itself.

I agree that the premise of the thesis is that therapists are judging their clients for being prejudiced against trans people. When there's absolutely no evidence that it's even an issue in the first place.

Clients are entitled to not work with you for any reason.

I've had a clients tell me they didn't want to work with me because they didn't feel we were a good fit. And that's totally fair enough.

Therapy is supposed to be client-focussed. The idea that a client ought to be worried about hurting the therapist's feelings is antithetical to therapy!

I've never said that clients don't have the right to choose who to work with.

I'm just curious about how this particular researcher is defining the concept of "transprejudice".

The language should definitely be more open, I also think this is probably a student project. But I can think of three trans therapists off the top of my head (I’m in a related field) so don’t think it would necessarily out anyone.

Creepy