Mrs Lesley Pilkington of Hertfordshire, England was found guilty of ethical violations by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy after a journalist wearing a recording device and pretending to be a patient denounced her for attempting to cure his homosexuality. Dalrymple turns the tables on the accuser in an excellent piece in the Salisbury Review:
What this man did was dangerous, at least if it is taken as model to be followed or is in any way rewarded, because it so powerfully undermines the trust that is essential to civilised (and sincere and truthful) social and professional intercourse.….A camera or sound recorder is a permanent witness, but not necessarily a truthful one. For it is not true that a camera and a sound recorder never lie: not only can what they record be edited, but what is ironical can easily be made to appear literal, what is humorous can be made flippant, and what is straightforwardly minatory can be made menacing or threatening.A lot is written about the trust patients must have in their doctors, much less about the trust that doctors must have in their patients, at least if the medical enterprise is not to be merely the first act of a legal drama.
The article doesn’t seem to be available online at the Salisbury Review site, but it is available in its entirety here. You may purchase the entire issue of the Salisbury Review for only $3.
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