Dr. Jay Beichman

In this episode of the #TherapistsConnect podcast, Dr. Peter Blundell interviews Dr. Jay Beichman about his life, work, and his latest book on pluralism in counselling and psychotherapy. Dr. Beichman shares insights into his writing process and explores how pluralistic approaches are a broad church and that there are many different conceptualisations of what it means to be 'pluralistic'.

The conversation also delves into pressing issues within the profession, including the SCoPEd framework and its potential implications for therapists. Dr. Beichman and Dr. Blundell discuss the challenges and debates surrounding professional regulation, access to employment, and the evolving landscape of the field.

Additionally, the episode addresses the realities of work-life balance for therapists. Dr. Beichman provides personal reflections on navigating these challenges while staying true to his values as a practitioner.

This engaging and thought-provoking discussion offers valuable perspectives for therapists, trainees, and anyone interested in the complexities of modern counselling and psychotherapy. Tune in to gain fresh insights and join the ongoing conversation about the future of the profession.

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Transcript

Dr Peter Blundell: 0:00

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Therapist Connect podcast. My name is Dr Peter Blundell and I'm back interviewing therapists about their life and work. Now the next selection of episodes that are coming out over the next few months are slightly delayed and they were recorded back in 2024 so some of the references that are made in in the recordings might be talked about in the past tense or times that have gone by. Um, and it's just been some issues in terms of editing and making sure that these got released. So apologies to all my guests for that delay. Um, but I hope you still enjoy these episodes as much as I did recording them. So, in this particular episode, I'm interviewing Dr. Jay Beichman, who is a humanist integrative pluralistic therapist, and we talk about each of these aspects of his practice in this episode. Jay has over 25 years experience as a therapist and has a private practice in central Brighton. He's also writing a book on pluralism and how this relates to therapists and therapy, which we also talk about. If you'd like to support this podcast, please share with colleagues and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Hi, Jay. How are you doing?

Jay Beichman: 1:07

Okay, thanks. How are you?

Dr Peter Blundell: 1:08

Yeah, I'm not too bad. Long time no see or speak. I dont know this about you, but what made you train as a therapist then in the first place?

Jay Beichman: 1:16

Yeah. Um, uh, well, I mean I along with the model of, I'm not sure that all therapists are wounded healers, but I think certainly a lot of them are, and I'm one of them. Um, basically, so my wounds, if you like, um, the first thing I was actually brought up in America until I was about six or seven. Oh. Um, and then. And then because my parents got divorced and my mum came back to England and my dad stayed in America, um, I kind of lost my home, uh, you know, which I didn't actually think about until I went into therapy. But, you know, when I did go into therapy in my late 20s, my first therapist, you know, said, um, oh, that must have been, and this is what's so great about, you know, like the way it validates her and it's big or makes you think about it. You know, she said, oh, that must have been tough sort of. leaving your home and country and everything when you're six, seven, um, nine. Yes. Yes. Maybe it was. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I hadn't really thought, you know, cause it's my normal, if you like. Um, um, but I do retrospectively see that as a kind of wounding and then, and the divorce of course. Yeah. Um, and then because of the divorce, my parents wanted me to be out of the way. So I had a brief spell in a boarding school, which was another kind of, um, pain loss wound. And, and then, uh, when I was 13, my father killed himself and that was huge. I mean, that's my biggest wound. I mean, you know, I think everything in my life really follows from that. Um, and, uh, and then, you know, I thought, Oh, great, you know, at least I still got my mom. And then my mom died when I was, uh, 21 or 22, um, which was another wound. And, um, so, and then I had sort of alongside that. adolescence, early adulthood, I had a sort of few, um, sort of went off the rails, basically. So I ended up on the wrong side of the mental health, you know, in hospitals. And so So I became very interested in that. And then, you know, I used to read RD Lang when I was in my sort of late teens. Um, and then, um, so eventually I ended up going to a therapist and then because I was seeing a therapist, I sort of saw this flyer for an introduction to counseling course. That was basically trying to flog a postgraduate diploma course, not the one I ended up on. Um, and then I thought, well, after I did that, um, uh, I thought, Well, I did end up interviewing for a postgraduate diploma at University of Brighton and, you know, the rest is history, as they say. Yeah.

Dr Peter Blundell: 4:18

There's a lot that happened before like the age of 22 or something. Yeah.

Jay Beichman: 4:23

Yeah. Yeah. So, and then also, I mean, I also think my mum was a nurse and my dad was an academic and I often say like, you know, if you cross an academic with a nurse, what do you get? You get a therapist. So maybe it was like inevitable. Yeah.

Dr Peter Blundell: 4:40

And the therapist is writing a book now, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so that's what led you into the profession. And then, and then how did your career develop then? So how long have you been a therapist for now?

Jay Beichman: 4:53

Um, I got my qualification in 1990, well the postgraduate diploma in 1998. Um, turned that into a master's in 2002, and then got the doctorate in 2018. Um,

Dr Peter Blundell: 5:09

Is it like a therapist, like 25 years or something?

Jay Beichman: 5:11

Yeah, I think it is. Yeah. Yeah, it's quite a long time. Yeah. Where did the time go? Yeah. What have I done in my career? Like, well, I mean, to begin with, um, I, like most people, couldn't get much work, um, as a paid therapist. Um, you know, so I did me voluntary work for a bit. Um, and, but also I think got a job in something that was, you know, basically I was a mental health project worker, which, um, you know, working in a residential homes, actually not just one, but, you know, a few of them. Um, and. And I was on the bank. So that was really a great way of doing it because the more clients I got, the less hours I would do at the mental health project until eventually I did build it up. So that the guy sort of rang me up and said, do you still want to be on this list, Jay? And I said, cause I hadn't taken any shifts in so long. And I, and I said, no, you know, and that was like quite a moment actually. No, I can let go of this. Yeah. Um, but you know, it very nearly didn't work out. I was that close to becoming a mind mental health advocate, which. You know, I would have loved doing, but you know, the reason I was going for that was because I wasn't getting work as a therapist. But then I kind of hit gold. Um, by, um, meeting someone from the East Sussex County Council, and they had their own in house counselling therapy service. And she said to me, oh, we really don't have enough male therapists, you know, maybe you should apply. And I'd applied for so many things by that point, I was kind of completely lost heart. But I thought, okay, Um, sent off me application in the post in those days and, um, less than a week later, I sort of sort of seeing my first clients with the counselor and that was great, you know, cause we were in house therapists, they treated us with real respect. We had. quarterly meetings where we'd sit around a table and, you know, sandwiches were provided and cups of tea and coffee. And we'd go through all the issues and stuff, you know, I mean, a golden era really. Um, and then I kind of got picked up work with the APs and insurance companies. I did spend one year of working for the NHS in a surgery, of course, not paid.

Dr Peter Blundell: 7:42

Um, really?

Jay Beichman: 7:44

Yeah. As an honorary counsellor. You know, I mean, it was only a couple of hours a week, you know, and I did it because, um, I combined it with, um, I did a specialist training in primary care at the Tavistock. That was great, you know, and that was only a few hours a week. So, but to do make it worth it, you need to have some experience. So, um, so, you know, basically I was probably taking. Almost a day out a week to sort of make myself NHS ready. But, um, well I was never ready enough for them because they, as you know, keep on moving the goalposts, um, you know, and there's always people more experience than you. I think I wanted results quicker than they were gonna arrive, and I certainly wasn't gonna work for more than a year for free at that stage in my career. So I gave that up. And, um, yeah, and then since then, you know, clients, EAPs, insurance companies, um, you know, the Masters, um, Doctorate, um, I, I, uh, got involved. I don't know how I've probably, um, crossed paths with you is maybe through the sort of more political side of things. Yeah. I ended up joining the psychotherapy and counseling union. Um, and. I don't know if that's how we met, like, online, because we've only met online, we haven't met in, in real life. Um, basically, I became involved with the EAP campaign group, because I work for EAP, so I became involved with the EAP campaign group in the PCU. And then through that, I became the South East Regional Representative. Um, I've left now. Um, But that, that's been a good experience. I still help moderate the forum for better or worse. Um, and then, I mean, for ages, I was part of this group called Sussex Counseling and Psychotherapy, and we put on seminars and socials and things like that. And I edited the, the newsletter that we did for a bit. Um,

Dr Peter Blundell: 9:54

I feel like political activism is kind of like being part of like, that's how we met and kind of feel like that's been part of your career in some way, shape or form.

Jay Beichman: 10:02

Yeah, I try not to get involved, but can't help myself. You know, because as you know, it can get quite time consuming. I mean, I've, I mean, I managed to give it all up for this year to write the book. Um, but yeah, being part of the PCU was great. pretty time consuming while it lasted. Um, but yeah, I mean, I, I do sort of miss that. And I really like the therapist connect idea because Um, that's sort of something that seems to be missing. I mean, you know, when I first started, um, as a student trainee and after Sussex counselling and psychotherapy was sort of the go to place for seminars and meeting other therapists and, you know, socials, you know, at seminars and, um, and all of that. And that, that seems to have gone now. Um, you know, there's a lot of online communities now, but trying to get people to meet up in real life. Yeah. So it seems to be quite difficult, certainly in a place as small as Brighton, you know.

Dr Peter Blundell: 11:11

No, I, I, I agree with that. And I think, I wonder whether, I don't know if you've seen a shift, like, you know, a lot of people went out the pandemic, but since the pandemic, I think a lot of people went online and then a lot of things haven't actually been returned for being in person.

Jay Beichman: 11:27

Yeah. And I, you know, there's good reasons for that. Um, but there's also a loss of things. I mean, that's what killed Sussex Counseling and Psychotherapy because we still had a market, if you like, for people who wanted in person events that weren't too expensive because it was a non profit. There are things that you can go to in person in Brighton, but they're pretty expensive, you know. Whereas we could put on a seminar for, you know, you could come and do it for 20 quid or whatever, you know, not much, you know, um, and then we'd have free socials and things like that.

Dr Peter Blundell: 12:04

And then that's the bit that's missing with online, isn't it? You don't necessarily get to chat to people like you would doing it in person. I mean, there is breakout rooms and stuff, but it's not quite the same.

Jay Beichman: 12:15

And then you just sort of community and, and, and like, um, helping each other more indirectly. I mean, say, say something like, um, there's a group which you probably know called private practice online. It's a Facebook page or it's called private practice. And then all this information you get there now, like about, um, different, uh, EAPs, insurance companies, how much they pay, what they're like, whether they don't pay and all that sort of stuff. Um, but this was all, all this information was gathered much more informally when I. Yeah. And then like, you know, you kind of keep who you're working for to yourself. You know, it's like, Oh God, everyone's telling everybody here who they work for. You know, and I suppose that's sort of fine now, but you know, in a local, you know, it's like, if you told everyone who you work for, I mean, they'd take all your work, wouldn't they? I mean, in the local. area, or maybe that's scarcity consciousness. I don't know. But anyway, we, me and me and my colleague, you know, we would, um, give each other all the information, but it's all hush hush.

Dr Peter Blundell: 13:21

But it's interesting that thinking about that change of how information is shared between people now and how much is publicly available. I mean, it's unbelievable, really, you know, it's pretty much any topic. You could have a good. Yeah, there'd be a forum somewhere with somebody talking about it, you know, so yeah, yeah.

Jay Beichman: 13:40

And, and yeah, and then that information like that sort of easier to get hold of, um, you know, which is great in some way, you know, and, and. Hopefully, in the end, from a political perspective, a union perspective, could lead to, could lead to better outcomes for private therapies, potentially, you know, if we know, and who to, who to boycott and who to invest in. Yeah.

Dr Peter Blundell: 14:08

I was just thinking that would make a really interesting research project to see the actual impact of some of those forums and where the information's held. Um, what do you, um, think is the biggest challenge that the counselling and psychotherapy profession faces at the moment?

Jay Beichman: 14:24

I mean, the most obvious thing is SCoPEd, isn't it? Um, you know, at the micro level, um, you know, in terms of just its content and the process it's sort of indicating. Um, but also the huge implications of. Um, the future of how counseling and psychotherapy, um, is aligned, viewed, going forward. Um, uh, because basically, I suppose it's trying to form a basic structure. And If you have a good basic structure to kind of house everything in, then everything else works. But if your foundations and structures are kind of a bit of a mess, then everything else isn't, is going to be a mess too. Yeah. Um, so it's not that I'm against the idea of some kind of structure, not at all. I think there should be a structure. But, um, I think, um, we need a, a more coherent structure now. So, okay. The people that invented it would say it's coherent, um, but it's coherent in specific ways. I mean, I go along with basically the people who are against the hierarchical nature of it, um, which I think could so easily be changed. There's a, there's a, um, when, well, I mean, I spoke about scoped in some, when it came out, like on some of the videos and, uh, and, and one of the people on the panels was Dr. Emma Radway Bright, I don't know what's happened to her, but, um, you know, she was talking about how you could even have something like scoped, but just get rid of the columns, just get rid of the columns, and then people could, um, sort of earn the badges, you know, from whatever column they wanted, depending on their interest. So, Um, so say for instance, I, I, I've got nothing to say, you mean like working in a psychiatric or, you know, establishment of some kind, whether it's a, um, you know, a mental health project or a hospital or a sort of eating disorder unit or whatever it is. Um, yeah, okay. You know, personally, I think people are just people, you know, you don't necessarily and, you know, and this idea that all they're so, so severe and enduring that, you know, unless you've kind of got some sort of specialist training, you can't possibly deal with their stuff. It's in a way like it's like stigmatizing, you know, and they're actually, you know, if you actually work in mental health with these, you know, you still have to, you know, the best thing you can do is just be. uh, human, as human as you possibly can. And, and that's, that's, that's like the beneficial, you know, um, it's not like you have to be an expert in diagnosis to work in a mental health project, far from it, you know. Um, but in any case, you know, if you thought you did need a badge, then you just kind of, okay, whether you're, um, you know, like A, B or C, you know, but you'd get rid of those things, you know, okay, you can get your mental health badge. You know, there's no reason that you have to study for 10 years so that you can work with people who are diagnosed with something. So, yeah, and then the related pressure around statutory regulation which I noticed is coming up again and in the mainstream media like the Guardian. And. I don't see the need or point of statutory regulation myself. I understand there's good arguments for it, but I think some of the arguments for it are misguided. I mean, like the main one being that it's going to protect the public. I don't see that statutory regulation is going to protect the public. You know,

Dr Peter Blundell: 18:19

I, I agree with that. I think I see a lot of discussions about that in different social media groups. And it seems to me that there's a talk about protection of the public. And then when people raise the issue of, Oh, it's not likely to do that because people can still be. practicing unethically as they do in all of the professions that are regulated. I see people quite quickly move to the argument of, oh yes, but it will increase the standing of the profession. And I think one of the difficulties that I have with that is actually who you're giving power to, to define what the profession is and how it looks. And I think that's my issue with regulation in terms of, I think we're kind of like opening the doors to something there that we're not going to have control of very quickly.

Jay Beichman: 19:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, like when you see what a mess the state is made of therapy in the NHS, really, this is who you want to control all the therapy, whether it's in the NHS or the state or the third or privately or third sector. And that's another thing. Um, like. Like it or not, most therapists operate in the private sector. So, um, so you kind of got this great big wieldy hammer of the state that's, you know, um, wants to be in charge of people who work as independent practitioners. Um, now maybe there's some justification for statutory regulation for people who work in the state. And effectively that's what they're already doing with their in house NHS trainings. But leave us,

Dr Peter Blundell: 19:54

yeah. But that's what happened to social work. Yeah. Social work became regulated and now The social work roles are statutory roles, most of the time, and they are are governments of agents of the government and doing, you know, legal stuff and statutory stuff and safeguarding stuff and which okay is important work in some respects. But then actually misses this whole other wealth of work that social workers used to be a part of, and that no longer are. And instead of being called social workers, they're called support workers, and they get paid a lot less money.

Jay Beichman: 20:29

Exactly. Well, and that's what happens in the NHS. I kind of say as well. It's like, okay, say you, um, the ideal is, is to regulate the titles of counsellor and psychotherapist, which is a problematic in itself. But say you do that, um, then. And people, all they have to do to avoid that regulation is call themselves something like, for instance, a psychological wellbeing practitioner. Yeah. Which, as far as I know, is not a regulated title even.

Dr Peter Blundell: 21:00

Or a therapist. Or a therapist, yeah.

Jay Beichman: 21:03

Or a life coach, you know? Yeah. Or, or, or whatever, you know. Uh, so you are always gonna have, it's so easy to bypass. Um, completely. Yeah. Therapist isn't, you know, regulated. Yeah. So, um, this kind of, um, you know, uh, yeah. And then also, I mean, I think part of the problem is, uh, you know, which is maybe more political and philosophical and, you know, that's sort of maybe part of my book is that, um, to me, I don't recognize any difference between counseling and psychotherapy. So, To me, SCOPE is all about, whether they say it or not, trying to institutionalize the difference between counselling and psychotherapy. So I don't agree with the premise. And I think, as far as the therapy field goes, it might be more useful if we agreed that counsellors and psychotherapists are doing more or less the same thing, and we're okay with maybe a gradation within that. You know, senior accredited or junior or something possibly. Um, or badges. I think badges. I like the idea of badges that you're basically qualified and you can get extra badges if you want. Yeah. And then that then I can see why psychotherapists want that because. You know, they train for twice the period and have twice as many hours on the point of graduation, not obviously over a career, but on the point of graduation. So then I think there needs to be an agreement. Okay, let's meet each other halfway. You're qualified, not after, say, two years or four years, but maybe three. Yeah. Or that for people that have only done two years with the accumulation of enough badges. They are, you know, get the same status as everybody else.

Dr Peter Blundell: 22:57

What would be the point of that, just to make people happy that their work was recognized in some way?

Jay Beichman: 23:05

Well, I mean, um, I think, I think there's I think there is sort of misperceptions of what's going on, you know, um, you know, and a lot of people sort of think of counselling and counsellors as a sort of lesser type of therapy, and they don't even know what it is, yeah, um, you know, and they'll, they'll like to find counselling is just supportive chat or something, yeah, whereas actually counsellors are just as likely studied psychodynamic. therapy, Gestalt therapy, person centered therapy, CBT, even, you know, um, you know, so this sort of myth that counseling is sort of some sort of lesser, lesser form of therapy is just wrong. Um, and. So, I mean, I think the starting point needs to be that it's the same thing, um, and then, then that would allow therapy to, I mean, as a pluralist, I don't necessarily, if I really thought that there was a huge difference between counselling and psychotherapy, I think, fine, yeah, hold on to your counselling identity, yeah, hold on to your psychotherapy identity, but I don't think there's any substantial differences. So pretending there are, um, it's just, it's just wrong. you know, not all the evidence, like, sort of shows that there's not much difference, yeah, anything substantial, and that it would be better for everyone if we kind of just got this, rid of this hierarchical distinction. You know, which came about because, um, actually because the medical profession wanted to own psychotherapy. So it goes back to people, other people wanting to own psychotherapy back in the day,

Dr Peter Blundell: 24:53

And that's where I think regulation might lead to in terms of who owns counselling and psychotherapy in the long run, but. Yes. You know, that's a much bigger discussion. Um, I was gonna skip the question about how you define your therapeutic approach, but you just said there as a, as a pluralist, but I wanted to know, yeah, have you always been a pluralist and, and has that changed over time or, or, yeah.

Jay Beichman: 25:18

I don't think, yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't think I would have even known the word very well until 2011. Um, I, I identified with humanistic and still do. I'm mostly a humanistic practitioner. Um, some people thought my. postgraduate diploma at Brighton was person centred, but I still got a handbook. It's very plainly stated that it's a humanistic course, because we also studied TA and Gestalt and stuff. Um, and, uh, so identify with that, you know, and, and definitely the values of humanistic therapy, you know, I'm, I'm not. medical model. Um, you know, I've got problems with the psychodynamic take on things, not, not the theory, but the practice. Um, and I also, you know, don't think, you know, behavioral is enough and it's not enough of an explanation. So I'm into the sort of more human potential orientated. therapies, uh, that are informed not just by medicine or psychology, but also literature and art and everything. Um, and then, you know, integrative isn't too much of a jump from that. So I suppose I was loosely integrative as well as humanistic, maybe humanistic hyphen integrative. And then now, I mean, my, on my card, I basically put all three words, I put humanistic, integrative, pluralistic, and you know, and I, and one of the arguments in my book is that integrative and pluralistic are actually quite, have quite different values.

Dr Peter Blundell: 26:58

Even though you label yourself as an integrative pluralistic.

Jay Beichman: 27:01

Yeah, yeah. In some ways it doesn't make sense. But you know, that's like a conversation that me and clients can have, you know, if we need to go that far. But, uh, yeah, I mean, I mean, to my mind, pluralistic. Encapsulates everything so pluralistic if you like is the word at the top of the tree and then underneath that you would have humanistic, integrative, psychodynamic, etc, etc. Um, but whereas for some people, integrative is at the top of the tree and pluralistic comes underneath integrative. Now I don't buy that myself. That's not the way I look at it, but I might be in a minority of one there I'm not sure.

Dr Peter Blundell: 27:44

Well, that's, and I think you're going to unpack some of that in your forthcoming book, aren't you? But I also think that that's kind of what's needed first, isn't it? Is that first book to kind of go, look, this is all the different types of pluralism, what we're actually talking about.

Jay Beichman: 27:57

Writing that chapter at the moment. I'm writing about a chapter called Common Factors and the Integrative Movement, in which I try and sort of say, look, it's not this quite, it's, you know, we like common, as a pluralist, I like common factors. I like the integrative movement, but it, there are dangers in it. Yeah. For instance, um, a push for a sort of unified. type of generic therapy where all your, your, it all has to be evidence based, including interventions. And some people suggest if it's not, that you might actually be unethical. Whereas I can't go, I sort of, as a pluralist, support the right of a therapeutic approach to be Irreducible, you know, and just the whole thing, you know, without every single aspect of it being evidence based, even if you could evidence base every single aspect of it.

Dr Peter Blundell: 28:55

And for me, that's where, I mean, as a person centred practitioner, I suppose I struggle because I don't always feel like we can fully evidence based what we're doing. Some of it is based on my experience as a therapist with my, with my clients and not necessarily on the research evidence that is out there.

Jay Beichman: 29:14

Absolutely. I mean, I, I mean, one of my big angles in the book and everything is that I, I see therapy is more of an art than a science and that it's like the quality of it is through practice. It's a practice. There's, there's a postmodernist therapist or psychologist called Polkinghorne who basically talked about the practice of psychology as sort of being the second psychology, you know, and that it should be looked at in a completely different way to the first psychology, which is sort of about theory and research, you know, but, you know, practicing being a a, a person whose in interaction with people. Your learning is actually on the job with people, but you know, there's a lot of people invested in it being different to that, um, you know, if you are a researcher, you're probably going to tell everybody that research really matters. You'd be out of a job if you didn't keep on plugging that.

Dr Peter Blundell: 30:21

Well, absolutely. And I suppose that's what I suppose I find that interesting because I feel like I am, I am a researcher, but also person centered practitioner and so I, I, I, I can understand how my world view might change if I stopped the therapy and only went down the research route and that kind of just re informing yourself. Oh, this is, this is, you're finding the solutions, you're finding the answers and this is the only path. And quite often working as a therapist, that challenges my own view as a researcher and what can actually be discovered and researched and found out. You know, um, it's interesting. And I imagine the same for you as the therapist and writing this book at the same time.

Jay Beichman: 31:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm actually, I mean, in terms of common factors. Um, I've sort of just plowed through yesterday, actually, um, the great psychotherapy debate by Wampold and Immel, you know, which just has so much research around why common factors might be the answer, aren't the answer. You know, this researcher says this and, you know, and like real kind of standard deviations. All that quantitative stuff as well as quality. Oh God. But I don't think I don't think I'm going to put it in there. I mean, it's too much for me. I think it's almost too much for my reader. I don't know. Maybe.

Dr Peter Blundell: 31:47

Does it help us become better therapists? I suppose that's my question. That kind of stuff. Like, does this help me to be in better relationship with my client?

Jay Beichman: 31:58

Yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it just, it just offers, I mean, I think, you know, he's just, he's got an agenda. Yeah. He wants to prove that, um, you know, these sort of common factors around the relationship of, or whatever, uh, what matters and that, all this, which I, which is really important because if, if you've got the medical model, which, you know, the assumption is, is that one treatment is better than another. So then you kind of, and then one, one thing that I kind of thought about putting in, which is I found the most interesting thing of my trudging through this yesterday was, um, there was one report, one study, I think it cites in America, um, basically comparing one therapy with another therapy, um, randomized control trial to basically come to the conclusion that there's not much difference. And then he kind of, the tangerine is, he says, and that trial. cost 11 million dollars and, um, and you, you know, the randomized control trials are hugely expensive. And if you think of all the money that could be better spent doing, not necessarily better research even, but just Actually giving people therapists.

Dr Peter Blundell: 33:16

Yeah. Yeah.

Jay Beichman: 33:18

You know, 11 million. That's a lot of therapy hours, isn't it? It is.

Dr Peter Blundell: 33:22

Um, yeah. Oh no, I think, I think it's gonna be really interesting. I'm looking forward to reading it, so, yeah.

Jay Beichman: 33:26

Yeah. Great. Great. Yeah. I'm looking forward to finishing it.

Dr Peter Blundell: 33:29

Is there anything surprised you right in the book when you kind of were exploring some of this stuff? Is anything come as a surprise?

Jay Beichman: 33:36

Yeah, how much I don't know. Because once you get into it, it's like just vast literatures, because the problem you see, because I'm trying to like, um, explain how the philosophy of pluralism can be applied to therapies and therapists. Yeah. Um, from a philosophical point of view, but you know, immediately you then got a split because there's the pluralistic philosophy. And then there's also the pluralistic political philosophy, which also has a few different meanings. Yeah. Um, depending on whether you're talking about Isaiah Berlin's value pluralism, which basically means that sometimes you have values, which are almost irreconcilable. You can't. have both. So, for instance, you might have, um, a value of freedom, which seems like a good value, uh, a reasonable value, but you also then might have a value of, um, the right to peace and quiet. Yeah. Yeah. So then, if you've got a noisy neighbor, Yeah, whose whose value is more important. Yeah. Uh, so that that applies to lots of things and that sort of political philosophy. But then when Americans talk about it, they kind of quite often the meaning that you've got different centers of power, you know, like the judiciary, the Congress, etc. And when the, UK people talk about it. They're kind of going back to, um, uh, sort of unions, you know, being a sort of center of power as well as You know, so there's all these different, that's just the political philosophy and then when you kind of get to the philosophy philosophy, you've got lots of people who either call themselves pluralists, or have been called pluralists, and they can differ quite a lot. So then you've got, say, William James, who's, um, pluralism really covers. Ontology, which is, um, you know, like, um, what you think the nature of being is. Epistemology, what you think actually can be known. Um, and ethics, um, and other things, but, um, methodology too. Uh, so you got James, like, you know, it's quite a broad vision of pluralism. And then you've got Levinas, who's also, um, a pluralist, but he's talking about, um, ethics over ontology, which is part of what the debate has been between, um, pluralistic people and person centered people. You know, whether ethics is more important than ontology and the person centered, people know that the ontology is actually really important about the, um, uh, I always forget the name. It's not organismic valuing tendency. It's the growth valuing process or organismic valuing process or the something tendency, um, actualizing, actualizing tendency. I don't know. I've got a real block on that.

Dr Peter Blundell: 36:47

It's not the easiest of language. Actually.

Jay Beichman: 36:48

Yeah. Yeah. Um, so. You know, so then again, like, you've got a plurality of pluralisms, and in fact, I mean, one, one book which has really informed my thinking about this book, um, kind of godsend that it came out when it did, is a book by, called, um, uh, Ever Not Quite. Pluralisms in William James, um, in which he basically says, you know, that you're never ever quite there and sort of knowing everything you need to know. And that's partly because of time. So say like we worked out everything we needed to know about therapy today. So what, because tomorrow something new would come along.

Dr Peter Blundell: 37:31

So. You guys are therapists, you're constantly, you're just constantly in the learning process. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Aren't you? Yeah, yeah.

Jay Beichman: 37:38

And that, and that, that is like, um, a dimension of pluralism, if you like, is the time dimension. It's not just talking about what we know already. It's talking about, well, what else is coming up, you know?

Dr Peter Blundell: 37:52

Yeah, I'm, I'm really looking forward to reading it. It's gonna be very interesting.

Jay Beichman: 37:55

Mm-hmm. I hope so. Yeah.

Dr Peter Blundell: 37:58

It will be. I think we're coming to the end now, but I suppose I just want to check in with you. What are your future plans? I know you've got, you're working on your book at the moment, so that's kind of the main thing, isn't it?

Jay Beichman: 38:09

Yeah, I mean, um, yeah, finish that off and then I suppose like promote that as much as I can. So hopefully sells more than 15 copies or whatever. Um, I want to get more and more into writing. I mean, I kind of see that so much. I want to do more writing, more thinking, more reading. still have a client caseload, but less so that I've got more time for writing, thinking, and reading. And maybe not as big a project as this one. Like I say, sort of things I can easily handle, like 500 word blogs, thousand word blogs, and maybe looking towards, um, doing some kind of self help book next for people. Yeah. For people generally from, you know, what I sort of reckon has helped people over the years in my practice.

Dr Peter Blundell: 39:05

Fantastic. Well, you're a busy man. Yeah. Well, when you, when your book's ready, Jay, you've got to come back on and we'll, we'll, we'll do a little interview about the book and promo and we can put the link. podcast.

Jay Beichman: 39:17

I'd love to do that. Yeah. And it probably, probably will be at least a year from now.

Dr Peter Blundell: 39:21

Brilliant. Thanks.

Jay Beichman: 39:22

Thanks a lot. I really enjoyed doing the interview. Thanks a lot. Thanks for asking me and uh, hopefully see you soon and maybe one day in the real world.

Dr Peter Blundell: 39:30

Maybe you never know. Stranger things have happened. It's good to see you, Jay. Stay safe. Take care.

Jay Beichman: 39:37

Cheers. Bye now.