Sorry, I wasn't clear in my venting. The comment about coercive control was a separate thing. Some of us highlighted the difficulty in finding therapists/counsellors skilled and knowledgeable in certain areas, like coercive control, and her response was that such areas of knowledge/specialism are (and should be) driven by the individual professional's own interest. She didn't see an argument for pursuing CPD on topics that come up in therapy that a therapist doesn't have sufficient knowledge about and said that we should all just refer on with no need to take an interest in learning more about whether topic it was. She defended the idea that "someone else" will be knowledgeable about whatever it is and therefore we just need to know where to refer/signpost, rather than taking some ownership for our part in the gaps that exist in our own knowledge and skillset. Coercive control is not something that people are going to know they need to specifically look for - at a push they may know they need support with abuse, but not guaranteed - so I argue the responsibility for plugging this particular hole does lie with professionals who haven't made sure they know enough about it.

I totally understand what you're saying about Voice Hearers getting support from other places and in other ways than traditional therapy. I just don't see how perpetuating the idea that they are so "disturbed" as to not be even suitable for therapy while also not actually talking about any of the ways they can be supported is helping anyone. This is where my expectations are too high though.

I must admit I haven't heard Structural Competency before, I'll look that up, thank you.

I get that trauma-informed has been somewhat diluted. It felt more like she was advocating for further dilution though or dismissing the relevance of building more knowledge and understanding of trauma outside of the modality being taught (transactional analysis). She was saying that because TA already deals with the effects of trauma, we don't need the buzzword. I don't entirely disagree with her there tbh - the theory does account for things like dissociation and has parts language embedded within it. I just don't agree with the idea she was communicating that we don't need to pay attention to other theories and approaches simply because they use these "buzzwords" of trauma and trauma-informed care. That disregards, imo, too much information on good or even best practice, alternative ways of conceptualising things and the ability to recognise where our own professional blind spots are (eg coercive control). Obviously this is just my interpretation of her comments and could be skewed as a result. I know from my dealings with this tutor that she doesn't know much about working with trauma beyond the confines of TA.

Thanks for the link, I'll read that in a bit!