Our Counselling Culture is Moving into a New World Order
Countercultures have existed for many years and usually emerge in response to experiencing social dislocation and alienation from an established society, a group, association, caucus or family. Notable examples being Bohemians, Beatniks, hippies and the anticorporate globalisation movements.
Countercultures differ from subcultures in that subcultures can exist within mainstream culture. Examples may be Women’s Rights or Gay Liberation. Countercultures however are often rejected by mainstream establishments rather than choosing to be separated.
Take for example our own professional societies and associations representing most counsellors and psychotherapists; these bodies form the mainstream establishment and almost by default set the rules and behaviours by which the individual professional is expected to adhere. When minority groups find the establishment framework unsupportive, or lacking in approach, these groups have to form subcultures to enable fuller achievement of their goals. Examples may include the Person-Centred Association, the Black, African and Asian Therapy Network, Counsellor Together UK, the National Council of Integrative Psychotherapists, the International Society of Psychotherapy and Counselling, and more.
But what happens when a whole cohort of therapists across the mainstream profession are alienated from the very establishments they created and supported over many decades? What happens to their morale when their hard-earned titles are revoked without discussion? What happens when the oldest and most experienced are demoted for no evidence-based reason?
They have no alternative but to form a counterculture in response to the new world order! One such example being the Senior Counsellors and Psychotherapists Alliance (SCAPA).
Many senior and experienced counsellors were raised within, and created, the original culture of establishments like the BACP, NCPS, UKCP, and others, but more recent developments within these establishments have been driven by their governing bodies and not by the members themselves, hence the whole ‘culture’ of the counselling profession is changing.
Although these changes in culture have crept in over several years the most notable event in the past few years has been the introduction of the SCoPEd framework, which when first mooted purported to articulate the professional landscape via “mapping of the core competences and practice standards for counsellors and psychotherapists” but in fact totally misrepresents the very culture of the profession of counselling and psychotherapy.
New World Order
Coalface counsellors are experiencing the heralding in of a new culture, a new world order, designed by the governing bodies of the SCoPEd partner organisations while totally discarding the very culture behind the founding of those bodies.
This is a commentary about ‘Culture’, and the way that the SCoPEd framework has been introjected into the profession is a perfect example of a much wider cultural shift. As our governing bodies move towards management by autocracy the profession complains ever more frequently about the resultant toxic cultures that undermine the member-led approach!
Professor John McLeod’s (and esteemed colleagues) Open Letter in October 2023 strongly challenged the governance of the BACP over their mismanagement. There were rumours of NDA’s being coerced from senior staff who resigned, allegations of extraordinary expense claims from Board members, and independent governance investigations never being made public.
The UKCP has recently suffered allegations of “Shenanigans and Slurs” regarding their 2025 Chair Election with comments from one contender citing that while she could lodge a complaint, she would be "complaining to the very Board that signs off the magazine and whose agenda I'm challenging. With no independent oversight of this election, I’ve no confidence that any such complaint would be addressed fairly or promptly." The elected new Chairperson commenting that “My priority is to strengthen our governance and work collaboratively with colleagues and members to encourage open, transparent dialogue across UKCP.”
McLeod and esteemed colleagues called for “the BACP Board of Governors to undertake the work of restoring the effective functioning, accountability and good reputation of the BACP, in an urgent, thorough and transparent manner”.
An Open Letter from The Alliance for Counselling and Psychotherapy called on the BACP to halt the controversial SCoPEd project, demonstrating that its proposed competency framework is “divisive, elitist and exclusionary”.
An Open Letter from the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society, to the BACP expressed 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”.
Counsellors Together UK have also written a letter, on behalf of their 9,000 members, highlighting concerns to the BACP regarding the current governance, emphasising how “Members feel uneasy regarding the ongoing changes in management and leadership since 2020, and don’t feel they have received adequate explanation about why this has happened.”
The Psychotherapy and Counselling Union (PCU) also oppose the adoption of the SCoPEd framework by leading a campaign against the way SCoPEd is being implemented including opposition to the BACP Senior Accreditation demise.
The very culture of the counselling profession is heading towards chaos and a New World Disorder
The revoking of Senior Accreditation (and maybe next Accreditation status will be revoked?) represents the actions of governances which lack empathy, respect and power differentials against minorities.
The feelings of more than a thousand senior and experienced therapists can be felt by their testimonies:
One founding member of the BACP recalls … “I was member number [x]. It was all so fresh and full of hope and horizon!! I guess I’m grieving. I know it could never be the same...”
Another speaks for so many who see the destructive culture change:
“I worked as a Senior Accredited Supervisor of Groups in a number of counselling charities, and I would always encourage newly qualified counselling volunteers to acquaint themselves with the wider sphere of counselling, read Therapy Today, look at the Dilemmas page, which was great in encouraging different perspectives on a particular issue from the viewpoint of various modalities. I’d encourage supervisees to engage with BACP as their professional body, because in those days, the BACP seemed supportive of members and appreciated the enormously complex work we do in service of the public. I would praise BACP’s approach in discussing therapeutic dilemmas, and tell supervisees, if you call them, they will give you the most expansive answers to complex questions about therapeutic work, they won’t give you single solution answers, but encourage you to consider autonomy, authenticity and the deepest considerations that were needed in contemplating best ways forward. Those were the good days of having BACP as my professional body and recommending them to the newest people joining the counselling world. It has been deeply dispiriting to see now, how the BACP disregards the core values of our work. We are meant to be the counterculture, supporting people who are worn-down, discounted and diminished by the ‘one size fits all’ mentality that pervades our society, that is present in so many groups, employment, organisations, and leaves no space for people’s strengths and gifts to shine in their own right. We have moved from a BACP that espoused diversity and breadth of vision and practice to a behemoth that corrals practitioners down an ever-narrowing path towards homogeneity - surely, this is not fit for the expansiveness of our clients, nor BACP members who are proud to offer the best of their long experience to human beings in distress.”
Back in the day our profession’s culture was founded on the expertise of members. The National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society saw counselling “as a vocation, not just a profession. A membership body based upon listening to and supporting its members. Members to have full say on policies and direction of travel.”
The Society continues to affirm on its website that “listening to members and offering them support has still been front and centre of the Society’s work as summed up in our phrase ‘Our members are our expertise’ ”. But where is the evidence? Where can anyone recall policy decisions in recent years arising from coalface counsellors?
Prior to the recent BACP AGM members submitted 60 motions of which only 2 were put forward at the conference!
Counselling members of the established bodies consistently find that articles submitted to their journals, such as Therapy Today, Counselling Matters or New Psychotherapist, are censored by governance and never published when they question the direction of culture change towards autocracy in our profession.
There are even moves afoot to bring legal action against some bodies because all other avenues towards creating an open and transparent dialogue have been ignored, argued against, or rejected! This clearly demonstrates the exasperation of challenging the top-down governance approach and ignoring the bottom-up member led culture.
If you feel that the very culture of your professional body is no longer representing your views, please write to them and if you feel alone or alienated professionally and would like to find a culturally like-minded community of counsellors you are welcome to visit www.scapa.org.uk or join our WhatsApp group where you can share your thoughts.