Dr. Aideen Brides:

This is a very real concern. As I mentioned earlier, in primary care we have essentially no access to talking therapies. Often when I have a patient in front of me who is in extremisI resort to Google just like anybody else. Unless I have had a personal recommendation or know from previous patients how somebody performs, I have nothing else to go by. People are paying money to these people, money they often do not have. However, as they are so desperate to access services, this is what they will do. Anecdotally, one often finds that people who may have accessed counselling services themselves previously then want to go on to counsel. All of us - doctors, social workers or occupational therapists - are part of a regulatory body and we have to meet certain standards. If people are having a very big impact on another person's life, and that is what happens in these talking therapy sessions, they have to conform to some type of regulatory body.