Why fetishise outcome measurement in IAPT?

Jay Watts has a chapter 'IAPT and the ideal image' in The future of psychological therapy in which she describes the chasm between the image and actuality of Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT). She concludes that "IAPT operates in a virtuality focussing on performativity and surveillance rather than real encounters between clinician and patient".

In particular, she describes the "pernicious pressure on IAPT workers to gain outcome measures for each session". I've mentioned before talks given by David Clark (eg. see previous post) in which he makes much of the fact that IAPT is collecting this data. As Jay says, "During training, workers are sold into the excitement of producing the largest database on wellbeing in history". It would be nice to know what those promoting IAPT think all this effort has achieved, because I can't see much gain. Data accumulates on a monthly basis without much being done to it (see Reports from IAPT). In fact, this process may well be hindering IAPT from really helping people.

I've mentioned before (see previous post), the perversion of care, as Rosemary Rizq called it, of turning away from the realities of managing distressed people. As Rizq says, society has traditionally allocated to mental health practitioners an "unconscious anxiety-containing function". Mental health practitioners experience enormous emotional difficulties in working with mentally distressed and disordered patients. Focusing on outcomes, as Jay says, "stops pain being listened to and the meaning of symptoms heard".