Harmful ‘therapists’

SIR – My stepdaughter was one of those who severed all contact with her family and friends after receiving counselling from the “coach” Anne Craig (“Gone Girls”, Magazine, April 7).

There are two areas of concern when confronted by a situation like ours. The first is that “therapists”, “life coaches” and “coaches” remain unregulated, and there are no requirements for them to be otherwise. Surely this needs to change, with checks and balances put in place.

Secondly, third parties should be able to seek redress in the civil courts against those who have caused them harm by negligently or maliciously leading any clients or patients to believe they have been abused by their families. At present this is not possible.

Until and unless these things are addressed, countless other families will continue to suffer in agony – and needlessly.

The Earl of Caledon

Caledon, Co Tyrone

SIR – It defies all common sense that the luckless parents in this matter have so little recourse in law, and that the effects of the wrong kind of therapy can be so devastating and yet unregulated.

We should all get behind the Labour MP Geraint Davies’s revised version of his previous private member’s Bill (which failed in 2014 to get a reading), which would tighten up regulation in this area in order to prevent the sort of spurious but devastating therapeutic treatments that people such as Anne Craig can peddle unimpeded. Duncan Clark

Witham, Essex