Bach Foundation International Register
The Bach Centre
Mount Vernon
Bakers Lane
Sotwell
Oxon OX10 0PZ
England
www.bachcentre.com
Telephone +44 (0)1491 834678
Fax +44 (0)1491 825022
Read this…
Even if you read nothing else this month, please read the draft of the new Code of Practice and the information about it later on in this issue of the Bulletin.
Jobs, jobs, jobs!
- For the first time the Bach Centre has made its seminar facilities available to the UK Bach International Education Programme who are running some Level 1 and Level 2 courses here over the winter and spring. Carly at the Education Department is looking for local practitioners who are willing to act as seminar assistants. This means helping out with teas etc. and also is an opportunity to see at first hand how Level 1 and 2 courses work ‘from the inside’. BIEP is offering to pay a small fee to anybody who helps out.
How to get more clients
The Bach Centre has limited stocks of a book called How to Get More Clients, written by Mike Considine. How to Get More Clients is aimed at holistic therapists, counsellors, complementary medicine practitioners and workshop leaders. It is full of good ideas for planning and setting up marketing strategies that build on the same natural abilities that you use in your work. So whether you want more students on your courses or more clients in your clinic, you could find this a useful read.
Draft of the new Code of Practice
With this Bulletin we are sending you a draft of the new revised Code of Practice. You’ll see that the Code has changed substantially so please take some time to read through every part of it. This is your chance to affect the final version!
The main changes compared to the old Code are as follows:
- We have removed the clause that required practitioners to use remedies prepared by the Bach Centre and not use other brands of the 38 remedies. As you know this restriction was intended to make sure that BFRPs would use remedies that we knew had been made properly. But it is clear that many people interpreted it as commercially motivated and as a result there has been adverse comment about the Bach Foundation International Register. This damages the reputation of the Centre and by extension may damage the reputation of BFRPs. Under the new Code there can be no accusation of commercial bias. It will be up to you to decide for yourself which brand of remedy you want to use.
- Partly as a consequence of this change we have removed all references to product trade marks from the Code.
- We have removed the clause that stopped practitioners using other flower essence systems. The aim of this clause was to protect Dr Bach’s system of remedies as a complete system, but again its existence has led to accusations of self-interest and commercial bias. Note that this change does not mean that we are ‘approving’ other types of flower essence – other essences have nothing to do with Dr Bach’s work and therefore nothing to do with the work of the Bach Centre.
- After removing the clause just mentioned we had to find another way to protect the completeness and simplicity of Dr Bach’s work. We cannot allow the 38 remedies to get mixed up with 10,000 other essences. Therefore we now explicitly require BFRPs to present the system of 38 remedies as a complete system. Under the new Code you must not combine Dr Bach’s system with any other system of healing (including other types of flower essence, but also including homoeopathy, aromatherapy etc.) in such a way as to suggest that Dr Bach’s work forms part of the other system. In other words, Dr Bach’s therapy stands alone and distinct from all other therapies and systems.
- One glaring omission in the old Code was that there was no clear procedure for handling complaints. To rectify this we have included a full summary of our complaints procedure in the Code. The full procedure, rewritten for the use of clients who want to make a complaint, will be made available with the January 2001 Bulletin.
- As promised in the last issue, we have included specific clauses relating to the treatment of animals. While some requirements, such as the need to work under referral from a veterinary surgeon, are based on British law, we feel that we should take a lead in this area and aim for the highest possible standards.
- We felt that the old Code was unbalanced in making many demands on BFRPs but not setting out the obligations of the Centre towards practitioners. As a step towards rectifying this we have included two clauses setting out the minimum services the Centre should offer to registered practitioners.
- Finally, we have included the letters ‘BFRP’, the badge, the ‘Bach Foundation’ logo and the title ‘Bach Foundation Registered Practitioner’ in the Code so as to set out how they can be used and under what terms you can use them.
Some of the changes that some of you suggested have not been included. It would take too long to go into all of them here but we do want to mention a few because of their intrinsic interest.
One of the first responses we received was from a member of the British Association for Counselling who suggested that we consider introducing some form of clinical supervision of consultations. This would help to maintain and improve professional standards and demonstrate the high standards of practice that we are aiming for.
We were and are sympathetic to this idea, perhaps in the form of local groups of BFRPs setting up ‘personal development’ groups. This would also lead us towards another desirable outcome – that practitioners should all be aiming to improve their skills year-on-year.
Our feeling at this time is that the practical problems of setting up such a scheme, especially when many practitioners are isolated, mean it is not something we can do at once. However we will come back to this in the future and if anyone has any thoughts now on how this might work we would be pleased to receive them.
A second practitioner helpfully sent us a section taken from the Code of Practice issued by the National Federation of Spiritual Healers. (We can assure NFSH members that we have not plagiarised it!) This made many good points regarding the treatment of animals which were already in line with our own draft of section 6 of the new Code, but there was also a lot of material on the treatment of children.
We hesitated over whether to include a section on the treatment of children in our own Code, but after some thought we decided that it would be more helpful to draw up separate guidelines, which would allow more space to cover the subject properly. But there is still an argument to be made for having some basic rules in the Code, and we would welcome your thoughts on this.
Another practitioner sent us a very coherent and well-argued case for allowing the use of kinesiology to select remedies, albeit under controlled conditions. This was helpful because it led us to ask a very important question – namely, what exactly is the ‘system’ and why do we insist so much on only using the consultation method?
In searching for an answer one has to go back to Dr Bach’s writings on his work. This has led to the statement in the very first clause of the new Code (1.1) – that the system is a method of self-help and self-discovery consisting of 38 remedies and a simple approach to selection and use. In other words the selection method is as central to the idea of self-help and self-discovery as the 38 remedies are.
Other apparently powerful selection methods require specific techniques that may not be easily transferable, so that it is harder to teach people to use the remedies for themselves. And when they are effective mechanical or purely intuitive methods go straight to the heart of the problem, denying the clients the gradual sense of self-discovery that is one of the most valuable aspects of selecting remedies in the usual way.
We have not changed our position on selection methods, but the suggestion that we do so has provided the Code with a significant opening clause that says clearly what we are working with.
Finally, somebody else used the opportunity of commenting on the Code to raise the issue of giving remedies to people without their knowledge. As many of you will know, John Ramsell wrote on this issue in his book Questions and Answers. John based his answer – that it is OK to do this – on the grounds that a) the remedies are entirely safe and can only help and b) giving remedies in this way is a way of offering love and care. It’s clear however that Questions and Answers is not aimed at professional practitioners, and however right it may be to help our wives or husbands or children in this way no practitioner can ever work without consent – firstly because it would be illegal, and secondly because it would deny the basic principle of self-help and self-discovery.
We’re grateful to all of you who have already taken the trouble to comment on the Code, and we hope that just as many of you will respond to this new draft. Please send your comments, thoughts and suggestions to by December 1st at the latest, by email or letter. Please don’t phone because it’s easier for us to share and discuss written comments. As before, you can write anonymously if you wish!
Thanks again for all your help.
Welcome to…
Since the last (September 2000) issue was prepared, 40 new practitioners have joined the register:
- in Argentina, Ana Maria Van Geest;
- in Belgium, Paul Hotterbeekx and Jona Geukens;
- in Brazil, Fátima Rodrigues Annechino, Noelly Dantas Heredia and Cassia Aparecida Do Vale;
- in Canada, Alexandra Yeo and Liz Shaw;
- in Denmark, Pia Nilsson, Vibeke Froelich, Kirsten Aarslev and Anette Kannegaard;
- in England, Andrea Allardyce, Chris Purnell, Gloria Chan, Susan Travena, Julie Lloyd-Jenkins, Linda Beckenham, Michael Hillier, Janet Wallis, Carol Holland and Madeleine Fletcher;
- in France, Aline Colpo, Francoise Coullet and Marie Pascale Sarbaji;
- in Japan, Terumi Oba, Miyako Shaku and Mikiko Sakahara;
- in the Netherlands, Maddie de Ryke-Heit;
- in New Zealand, Di Stodart, Karen McMinn, Jeanette Cowie and Sally Gidall;
- in Spain, Cristina Núñez Hernández, Manuel García Díaz and Carmen Seijas Saavedra;
- and in the USA, Amber Miller, Samantha Vanderslice, Nancy Shamblin and Nilda Tull.
There are now 843 practitioners on the register.
Your letters
We want you to use this Bulletin to keep in touch with each other. If anything wonderful, funny, interesting or just plain typical has happened to you in your work with the remedies, or if there are any questions that have been nagging away at you, or if you simply want to say hello, please write to us at the Bach Centre, marking your letter clearly as being ‘FOR PUBLICATION’.
We can’t promise to print every letter in the Bulletin, but even if we don’t use your contribution we always love to hear from you.
Have any practitioners got experience treating hyperactivity in children? If so I’d love to hear from you.
Deb Weatherby BFRP, USA
Reminder
Remember to tell us if you move or change any of your contact details (phone, email etc.).
This archive material has been edited to remove some out-of-date advice and information.