They taught us about integrity. About congruence. About showing up in the discomfort. About how important it is to be honest — not just in our words, but in our actions.

But when it came to how they handled my application for Level 4, all of that seemed to vanish.

I was told I was “suitable, but not selected.” No feedback. No specifics. No real sense of why. Just a generic message that could have been copied and pasted to ten other applicants — and probably was.

And when I asked, respectfully, for feedback — not to argue, but to understand — I was simply told my message had been passed on to the tutor who assessed me. No responsibility. No clarity. No follow-through.

This is a profession built on being with discomfort, on holding space for questions, reflection, and real conversations. And yet they left me — someone who had shown up fully, passed my Level 3, and been open about the life I’d fought through to get here — in the dark. Quietly dismissed. No dialogue. No closure.

And the more I reflect, the more it becomes clear: It probably wasn’t about feedback. It was about something else — something unspoken. Some internal perception of whether I was “ready,” based on dynamics that I’ll never be allowed to see. And that’s fine — they can make their decisions. But don’t pretend it was based on reflective practice. Don’t pretend this is care. And don’t spend a year teaching us the importance of honesty and then vanish when it’s your turn to be honest.

There was a moment earlier in the year when a tutor asked us to rally together and email the head of the department — someone who isn’t even therapeutically trained — because she felt unsupported in her role. And I remember feeling how off that was. How inappropriate it was to place that kind of emotional responsibility on a group of students. It felt like a child pleading to a parent — not a professional handling a difficult system.

And now, looking back, it all fits. A culture where accountability is deflected. Where decisions are made behind closed doors. Where vague messages are sent out instead of real feedback — and students are left to just absorb it all and keep going.

But I won’t internalise that. Because I know what I’ve done. I know what I’ve grown through. And I know this isn’t what good training looks like.

This experience has taught me something I didn’t expect to learn from this course: Sometimes the most therapeutic thing you can do is walk away from environments that refuse to live their own values.

So no — I’m not chasing this any further. If they get back to me with honest feedback, I’ll receive it. If they don’t, then that tells me everything I need to know.

I’ll apply somewhere else. And I’ll keep growing. Because my integrity isn’t dependent on whether they can find theirs.