Professional Conduct notice / BH

March 2025: Barbara Hart, Reference No 00546702, Registrant ID 12664

Outcome Details

Consensual Disposal

Reasons

1. Barbara Hart, a former BACP member, agrees to the following outcome of the investigation into a complaint of a failure to meet the Professional Standards under reference PCP[…].

Background

2. On 3 November Year 21 a complaint was received about the former Member’s conduct, in summary:

[…] (the Complainant) complains about Barbara Hart, an individual former Member of BACP (the former Member), who she saw for 20 therapy Zoom sessions between 5 June Year 21 and 15 November Year 21.

The former Member ended the therapeutic relationship abruptly and unfairly without providing the opportunity to repair or transition the Complainant safely to appropriate support; this led to re-traumatisation of the Complainant through abandonment and loss and made it impossible for the Complainant to access therapy in the future. As a result of
poor email boundaries from the former Member, the Complainant ‘pushed her away before she pushes you away ’as the Complainant was terrified of rejection and abandonment, saying she ‘would like to leave it all’. The former Member’s reply to an email had made the Complainant feel unimportant.

The former Member sent a cool and brief email saying ‘I have read your email and understand that you wish to end your counselling sessions with me. I appreciate my response did not meet your needs’. This devastated the Complainant and confirmed her fears of rejection and abandonment.

The Complainant sent a further email asking for a ‘ session to end things better or make a repair’, apologising for her overreaction and explaining how she was triggered, reiterating her fears of being unimportant/rejection/abandonment. The former Member replied saying she would be pleased to arrange an ending and offered two alternative sessions – it was not part of the former Member’s planned approach to offer this and it was only offered because the Complainant asked. The Complainant replied asking if the former Member was open to repair or whether this was an ending – she felt sick and rejection fears rose up. The former Member confirmed it would be an ending with no scope of repair. The Complainant called the BACP ‘get help with counselling concerns ’service who explained that the former Member should have been open to trying to resolve things and reassured the Complainant she had done nothing wrong. The Complainant attended the session.

During the session the former Member was unable to take on or reflect more than she had come prepared to say. She agreed she had not set clear boundaries and expectations which led to the Complainant’s triggering. The former Member said it was not in the Complainant’s best interests to continue as transference had become too powerful, that Zoom was not suitable and that the Complainant would be best helped with a different kind of therapist. When the Complainant tried to discuss the harm caused by the ending the former Member repeated the same thing or avoided the question and did not understand her responsibilities. The Complainant felt blamed by the former Member, by the former Member asserting several times that the Complainant had ended the therapy, by failing to recognise the ‘push-pull’ of an abandonment wound and that even if she did take it as a final ending, the former Member had an opportunity to repair so that the negative pattern of abandonment was not completed.

In this final session, which was rejecting and abandoning, the former Member said to the Complainant that she had told the Complainant that she would not always be able to reply to emails immediately, but she never said this nor was it the Complainant’s expectation (as evidenced, the Complainant says, on audio recordings of the sessions). The former Member also said how childhood trauma was outside of her scope; however, this was not the case earlier in the sessions. The former Member said she could not work with transference, but again this was recognised and discussed much earlier in the sessions. If the former Member had concerns about this she should have discussed an ending well in advance and carried it out safely. The former Member also backtracked on things she
had previously said about commitment, care and ‘being in it for the long haul’, damaging trust.

Boundaries of email contact between sessions were not communicated clearly with the Complainant sometimes waiting minutes for a response, other times waiting days. This led to expectations which contributed to feelings of abandonment and rejection precipitating the above failed ending. The former Member apologised for this during the ending session. The Complainant was also encouraged to email between sessions which, too, led to expectations about how and when the Member would respond.

The former Member worked outside of her scope and encouraged work on childhood trauma when unable to safely work with this, also the issues of transference, abandonment and rejection wounds, and was unable to assess the extent of the Complainant’s trauma and respond appropriately (which is evidenced by the ending as above).

The former Member contracted poorly, providing no information on session lengths, times, contact between sessions and the use and storage of notes. This contributed to the difficulties in building trust and security in the relationship and gave uncertainty towards boundaries which contributed to the sudden ending. The contract was verbal, not written, which means nothing could be checked when issues arose, or now. The former Member would not tell the Complainant how long sessions would be, did not give any information on out-of-session contact, that sessions would not have a set date/time until session 17 when the Complainant asked for it due to insecurity and lack of trust. Nothing was said about notice for holidays/cancellation, there was no information on record keeping/note taking and nothing on endings.

Trust and rapport were difficult to build as the former Member would forget important information and would read emails/notifications on her screen during sessions. This was distracting and made the Complainant feel that what she was saying was not important to the former Member and that the former Member was not focused on the session. As a therapist working on Zoom, the Complainant feels the former Member should have ensured her screen was solely on her as the client throughout. When this was raised, the former Member thanked the Complainant for feedback but did not apologise. The former Member forgot important things which made the Complainant feel the former Member was not focused on her and her situation. Since receiving her notes, the Complainant details that the former Member forgot things even when she had made a note of it the session before; for example in session 2 the Complainant told the former Member her […] and reminded her in session 6; then in session 7 the former Member asked if her […]. There were errors in memory overall and in the session notes too, with the former Member getting details wrong for trauma examples and locations. This affected the Complainant’s ability to trust the former Member.

The Complainant felt scared to raise these failings during sessions.

To some degree the former Member recognised her responsibility around poor communication of email boundaries and apologised for this in the ending session, but did not grasp the extent of her part in what happened or the extent of the harm the sudden ending or refusal to repair caused.

The Complainant has quoted parts of the BACP which she feels come into play.

Admissions

3. The former Member makes the following admissions.

Allegation 1

1.1 The former Member did not make clear or sufficiently clear to the Complainant at the beginning of and/or at any time during the therapeutic relationship:

(a) whether there was to be contact between them between sessions and/or
(b) if there was to be any contact between them between sessions:

(i) how this contact was to take place and/or
(ii) how frequent such contact was to be, and/or
(iii) what was to be the content of such contact, and/or
(iv) the timeframe within which the former Member would respond to any contact from the Complainant.

Allegation 2

2.1 The former Member did not contract or contract sufficiently clearly with the Complainant.

Mitigation

4. The former Member puts forward the following mitigation which has been taken into account by the IAC in deciding the appropriate outcome.

The former Member has retired; she made the decision to retire before receipt of the complaint.

The former Member is an experienced therapeutic counsellor; she was a member of BACP from Year 1 as a trainee until her retirement in Year 22. She has no previous complaints or findings against her.

The former Member states she endeavoured at all times to work as ethically and professionally as possible with the Complainant, as with all her clients over 22 years of practice, and sincerely only ever wished to support the Complainant and her intentions were always in the Complainant’s best interests.

The former Member entered into a verbal therapeutic contract with the Complainant. The former Member did not provide the Complainant with a written copy of the verbal contract after their initial session. This was an oversight on the former Member’s part and was not in accordance with her standard practice. The former Member apologies to the Complainant for her oversight.

Through emails in between sessions the former Member did her best to acknowledge the Complainant’s feelings and to assist with her enquiries. The former Member acknowledges that, although she stated that she may not be able to respond straight away to emails,
that she had not made it clear enough to the Complainant. In the last session with the Complainant the former Member acknowledged that she could have established a clearer boundary in this regard and apologised to the Complainant.

Conclusion

5. The issues identified and admitted by the former Member amount to breaches of the professional standards reasonably expected of the Member having regard to the Ethical Framework for Good Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy 2018 in particular:

1.2 The former Member thereby failed to meet professional standards, including in particular by acting in a way which was inconsistent with paragraphs 12 and/or 31 a. and/or 33 a. of ‘Good Practice ’in the Ethical Framework for the Counselling Professions 2018 which state:

12: We will do everything we can to develop and protect our clients ’trust.

31: We will give careful consideration to how we reach agreement with clients and will contract with them about the terms on which our services will be provided. Attention will be given to:
a. reaching an agreement or contract that takes account of each client’s expressed needs and choices so far as possible.

33: We will establish and maintain appropriate professional and personal boundaries in our relationships with clients by ensuring that:
a. these boundaries are consistent with the aims of working together and beneficial to the client

2.2 The former Member thereby failed to meet professional standards, including in particular by acting in a way which was inconsistent with paragraphs 31 d. and/or 31 e. of ‘Good Practice ’in the Ethical Framework for the Counselling Professions 2018 which state:

31: We will give careful consideration to how we reach agreement with clients and will contract with them about the terms on which our services will be provided. Attention will be given to:
a …
b …
c …
d. providing the client with a record or easy access to a record of what has been agreed
e. keeping a record of what has been agreed and of any changes or clarifications when they occur.

6. One of the aims of the Professional Conduct Procedure is to protect members of the public. The IAC in considering the appropriate outcome and sanction for the admitted breaches in this case have taken into account the interests of public protection and determined that it is reasonable and proportionate to conclude it on the terms set out below.

7. In relation to the findings above the IAC considers it appropriate that, if she had remained a member, the following sanction would have been imposed on the former Member:

To provide to BACP, within 4 weeks of entering into a Consensual Disposal Agreement, a sincere and genuine letter of apology addressed to the Complainant acknowledging those points in your dealings with her identified by BACP where you made the wrong decision, apologising to her for the impact of those decisions on her and how, had you remained or if you were to return to practice, you would have/would amended your practice in light of her complaint.

8. The former Member agrees that this Agreement will be published by the BACP in line with the Publication Policy.

9. The former Member agrees that she will not act in any way inconsistent with this Agreement such as, for example, by denying the admissions in paragraph 3 above.

10. If the former Member acts in a way which is inconsistent with this Agreement the matter will be referred to a sanction panel for consideration. A sanction panel may determine that, if she had remained a member, the former Member’s membership would have been withdrawn. Such a decision would be published.

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