TAKE NOTICE

An Appeal to the SCoPEd CEO Board members, representing:

Association of Christians in Counselling and Linked Professions (ACC)
British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP)
British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC)
Human Givens Institute (HGI)
National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society (NCPS)
UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP)
 

This is an appeal to the representatives of the ACC, BPC, HGI, NCPS and UKCP; Kathy Spooner, Greg Ross-Sampson, Malcolm Hanson, Jyles Robillard-Day and Jon Levett and is copied to Phil James for information.

Your organisations are coming together in a partnership with the BACP to establish a shared framework which aims to “look out for the members’ best interests” of your respective organisations’ by implementing a framework which intends to reflect the skills, experience, and abilities of your respective members accurately and transparently.

Whereas each of your organisations have discussed with, and/or balloted your membership and represent the opinions of those members, BACP have NOT. The governance of BACP have wilfully prevented and obstructed any open or transparent dialogue regarding SCoPEd involving their 60,000+ members and steadfastly refused to publicise, or engage with, arguments against the framework in its current form.

This autocratic stance has even been publicly criticised by one of your own members in an Open Letter from the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society1, to the BACP expressing serious regret that “your SCoPEd project was conducted in secret and to the exclusion of … major stakeholders, trainers, and individual practitioners, from the beginning, in public, and be subject to democratic voting procedures”.

 One result of this dictatorial approach has been a total rejection by the 1,451 most skilled and experienced Senior Accredited members who have submitted a petition to the Chair and Governors, as well as a meeting with the CEO, Phil James, only to be totally ignored.

As a result, that group has now expanded to 1,484 BACP members (rising daily) and is now uniting with other protest groups totalling more than 10,000 BACP members to demand a full, democratic, and transparent review of, not only SCoPEd, but also the whole governance at BACP House.

You may well be aware of a recent Open Letter3 from Professor John McLoed and his most esteemed colleagues also demanding changes to return BACP governance to a member-led association, in addition to other member-led protest groups. (See details below).

Although we are not against the cited objectives of the SCoPEd framework, we do believe that some details require further debate and adjustment before it becomes truly appropriate for the counselling profession. We have set out our principal concerns below in Footnotes 1 and 2.

We are dedicated professional counsellor-therapists with many years’ experience in counselling, designing, and delivering counselling courses at all levels, as well as supporting our Association for up to three decades and more.

We believe that the SCoPEd partnership have a responsibility to take immediate action to suspend the BACP’s membership of this partnership until it has the full support of its own membership. If that action is not taken now, it is foreseeable that the BACP will, at some future time, be forced to withdraw from the partnership when the current governance is replaced by a member-led governance following action under the Articles of Agreement instigated by the membership.

While an autocratic body which denies and suppresses its members’ views is allowed to take part in this respectable framework partnership it is reminiscent of the United Nations allowing a dictatorship to join, thus legitimising that regime, and bringing itself into disrepute by association!

Please take action to suspend BACP membership as a matter of urgency, until full and transparent democracy is returned to the membership of our association.

For and on behalf of Snr Accred Protest Group7 and others.

Footnote 1

We understand the intent of the SCoPEd framework was to map the core competences and practice standards for counsellors and psychotherapists working with adults. Unfortunately, SCoPEd misrepresents the profession of counselling and psychotherapy. The framework is informed by a ‘medical model’ that downplays the social construction of distress. To privilege psychoanalytic practice as the framework does and conveying the idea that counsellors are not doing the same work as psychotherapists is not supported by evidence. We have contacted Bruce E. Wampold, Ph.D., ABPP, Professor Emeritus, University of Wisconsin—Madison, author of the book “The Great Psychotherapy Debate”. He said as follows in an email dated 29.02.2024:

       “There is no evidence that psychoanalytic treatments are superior to any others, for any disorder. There are claims that psychoanalytic treatments promote character change and not simply symptom reduction, but I see no evidence for that claim.  There is credible evidence that more severe mental disorders require more intensive (more tx per time period) and longer treatment-- some take that to mean psychoanalytic treatment.  But the latter inference is NOT correct.

I might also note that what should be stipulated:  Therapists can use any treatment they wish, as long as they demonstrate effectiveness. That is, they measure their outcomes (i.e, routine outcome monitoring, or whatever you want to call it) and achieve reasonably good outcomes.  Competency is established through results, not adherence to a model.”  

His statement confirms that the construction of the SCoPEd framework is flawed. It is built on an unsubstantiated claim that privileges psychoanalytic practice as superior. The framework cannot go forward when it is based on defective premises.

Footnote 2

Unfortunately, what the SCoPEd framework has delivered is a charter that demeans and excludes because it privileges expensive and elitist training routes. People with money will be able to access the expensive trainings and be placed higher up the framework. This disenfranchises those from marginalised backgrounds and is a catastrophe for clients who are seeking therapists who have similar cultural experiences and frames of reference.  

Sadly the framework will be damaging to the profession because it distorts our professional landscape by devaluing the work of thousands of trained counsellors and it does nothing to protect the clients.  This cannot be right and needs addressing.    

References and links:

1.        Open Letter NCPS - see https://nationalcounsellingsociety.org/assets/uploads/docs/scoped_open_letter_to_bacp_wv.pdf

2.        Petition – see https://www.change.org/p/preserve-the-status-and-recognition-of-senior-accredited-bacp-members

3.        Open Letter McLeod - see https://therapistconcerns.co.uk/

4.        Open Letter ACP - see https://allianceblogs.wordpress.com/2020/10/16/open-letter-person-centred-calls-on-bacp-to-halt-scoped/

5.        Open Letter CTUK - see https://ukcounsellors.co.uk/bacp-members-letter-of-concern-april-2023/

6.        PCU - see https://www.psychotherapyandcounsellingunion.co.uk/campaigns

7.        Open Letter Snr - https://free-4516261.webadorsite.com/updates