This incisive study shows that "regulation", against which many have warned but which some psychotherapists still imagine to be a solution to all their ills, is actually already here. The author traces her way through this apparatus, and makes a compelling case for taking the HPC seriously as a machine that incarnates the very kind of unhealthy practice it pretends to set itself against.'- Professor Ian Parker, Manchester Metropolitan University'. If you want to know about the reality of state regulation, how it works in practice - as opposed to what people say about it - you should read this book. A shocking and unsettling account.'- Paul Gordon, author of The Hope of Therapy and former chair of the Philadelphia Association'. Do not let the simplicity of this lucid account of a difficult problem deceive you. 'This book investigates the claim that regulation by agencies of State is one of the prerequisites for improving professional practice. It displays how the underlying administrative interests of such bureaucracies are detrimental to the structure of professional communities.