Response to Telegraph article
The Telegraph newspaper recently published an article claiming that leaders of membership bodies including the UKCP have been “ousted” for raising safeguarding concerns relating to gender-affirming therapy for children. We have written a response to this in the form of a letter to the editor which you can read in full below: We are a…
Inspiration for inclusive practice and creating safe(r) spaces
This book review comes from another of our members. Supporting Trans People of Colour: How to Make Your Practice Inclusive. By Sabah Choudrey London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2022 Paperback, 208 pages, £16.99. ISBN: 978-1787750593 I begin by acknowledging the lens through which I read this book and am writing now: I am a trans/non-binary psychotherapist;…
A book review: The Queer Mental Health Workbook
We asked some of our members if they would care to read various books around working with LGBTQ+ topics, and write book reviews. Here is a review from one of our members, who has approached the reading of this book from the point of view of being a therapist who might want to explore this…
UKCP Chair Elections
From Monday 10th February to Wednesday 26th February, voting is open for UKCP Members to elect a new Chair as well as Trustees. A group of therapists have written a letter stating grave concerns about the far right affiliations of Sue Parker Hall who is running for UKCP chair. We are sharing this letter, which…
Communication from UKCP
UKCP have asked us to amend two of our statements. UKCP argue that they have never said that they are seeking to replace the existing MoU and that TACTT is misrepresenting this. Our statement was based on the following comments by Jen Ayling, vice chair of UKCP, in the meeting on Monday 17th June: “I…
Responses to the UKCP meeting
UKCP – The Board Removal Vote. As many of you know, The UKCP Board held an online meeting Monday to put its case to members on how to vote in its forthcoming removal election. Over 300 UKCP members are reported to have joined this meeting. We are listing here the headlines, as we understood them,…
Ahead of UKCP’s meeting this evening
Ahead of tonight’s UKCP meeting members about the Board election with we wanted to give a loose timeline and comments on UKCP’s withdrawal from the MoU. In short: UKCP withdrew citing concerns that the MoU applied to children. The MoU does not prescribe how we work, except that we must start from the premise that…
Statement by TACTT on UKCP Board ‘no confidence’ vote (full version)
Context The UKCP has announced a removal election of the Board of Trustees in response to a call from some of its membership through an open letter petition initiated by UKCP members who are also members of Therapists Against Conversion Therapy and Transphobia (TACTT). The petition was signed by the required threshold of at least…
Statement by TACTT on UKCP Board ‘no confidence’ vote (Summary Version)
Context Last month, the UKCP announced a removal election of the Board of Trustees in response to a call from some of its membership through an open letter petition initiated by UKCP members who are also members of Therapists Against Conversion Therapy and Transphobia (TACTT). The petition was signed by the required threshold of at…
NCPS’ letter to TACTT
NCPS have also now responded to TACTT. Their email is given below for completeness: Thank you for your letter of 23rd April. While there is an historic blog by Dominic Davies on our website, we did remove reference to membership of MOU when we were forced to step back. We don’t remove historic blogs from…
The NCPS applies to rejoin the MoU!
Some of our members (certainly not all the members that have approached them about this) have had an email from NCPS saying that they are applying to rejoin the MoU. We know this to be factually accurate – this is not empty words. There are still many questions to be answered – specifically around being…
Response and corrections to The Telegraph
We are aware of an article by Henry Bodkin for The Telegraph that has made several unfounded claims about Therapists Against Conversion Therapy and Transphobia (TACTT). The article focuses on the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP)’s public withdrawal from the Memorandum of Understanding opposing Conversion Therapy (MOU2), citing concerns about the inclusion of children in…
Our petition for removal by election to UKCP
As many followers know, we have recently been described as bullying for asking that processes be invoked around voting for removal by election of the trustees of UKCP. Our response to the newspaper article will follow later today but for completeness’ sake, here is the official letter to UKCP, sent on 11 April: Dear UKCP…
Where do NCPS stand?
TACTT recently sent a group letter to The National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society (NCPS), signed by members, asking for clarification on their position regarding conversion therapy, and the Memorandum of Understanding. This followed NCPS being named in the statement in which UKCP announced their withdrawal from MoU; UKCP stated that they, with NCPS (and other…
Response from and to NCPS
NCPS responded to our letter. The text is below, along with our response back. Text from NCPS reads: “Thank you for your communication regarding the Society and conversion therapy. The Society, alongside other MOU signatories, was forced to withdraw from the MOU in 2022 after receiving formal threats of legal action against MOU and…
Our interim response to the Cass report
Friday 12th April 2024 Media statement: TACTT is deeply concerned by the final report of the Cass Review, whose core underlying premise is effectively an eliminationist agenda, dressed up in the language of ‘reasonableness’. We do not accept the manner in which the report’s findings were reached, nor the contention that such findings were reached…
How to take action to oppose conversion therapy
The current UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) leadership has today (Friday 5th April) announced its withdrawal as a signatory of the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy (MOU), and from membership of the Coalition Against Conversion Therapy. (To read more here about their rationale, and our refutation of it, please see our open letter) This…
Final response to UKCP
On 2nd November 2023, UKCP published “guidance regarding gender critical views” for their members. We were very concerned by this guidance and wrote an open letter detailing our concerns which has been signed by over 1,000 therapists, trainees and other professionals. There followed an exchange of statements with UKCP, which you can read on our…
When words matter
We start this with a caveat: the language and definitions of terms are correct as of Dec 2023. This may change in future. As therapists we work with people from all types of backgrounds and may encounter those of a different race or ethnicity to us, those with a different class, sexuality, gender, those who…
Holding response to UKCP (21/12/23)
UKCP has now published a response to our open letter, which is published on their website: https://www.psychotherapy.org.uk/news/response-to-tactt-open-letter/ TACTT will respond in full in the new year. We are publishing this holding response to let everyone who has signed the letter know about UKCP’s response, and also to make clear that we are disappointed with this…
TACTT response to UKCP’s latest statement on ‘gender-critical’ views (Update 12/12/23)
It is now one month since TACTT published our open letter to UKCP about their guidance regarding so-called ‘gender-critical’ views, which has been signed by over 900 people. We are still waiting for UKCP to respond to our concerns. TACTT was dismayed to see the statement published on Monday 11th December regarding ‘Litigation pursued by…
Open letter to UKCP about their guidance regarding so-called ‘gender-critical’ views
We have published an open letter to UKCP in response to their recently published statement on the law regarding so-called ‘gender-critical’ views and its implications for the practice of psychotherapy and psychotherapeutic counselling. — UPDATE: It has been 24 hours since we first shared this open letter and it has already been signed over 400…
SCoPEd and the EDI impact assessment – a review
Last week saw the announcement from BACP that ‘all partners’ had decided to adopt SCoPEd and would be in touch with members with regard to ‘next steps’. What it will eventually mean is that according to your training you will enter at one of three points A, B or C (originally these columns were called…
Case struck out!
We are very pleased to hear that our colleague defending this case has had the case struck out. The official announcement is still to come and we are expecting it at some point this week. So let me just say congratulations and solidarity to this colleague and we await a fuller statement soon!
Trans joy is resistance
Attending Trans Pride recently, I saw a placard that read “trans joy is resistance.” What might this mean for therapy? Many things come to mind – perhaps starting at the thought that making space for joy can resist the idea that a trans identity is inherently joyless. As therapists, we spend a lot of time…
First principles
This blog post comes from one of our members Karen Pollock MBACP who you can find on twitter @counsellingkaz Let’s start with a question to all the therapists reading this – Is it OK to be trans? Ignore for a moment the structural oppressions, prejudice and discrimination which might make a trans person’s life more difficult;…
Non-maleficence and ‘conversion therapy’
No matter what kind of therapist you are, you will probably be registered with BACP, NCS, UKCP BABCP or HCPC. Having read the ethical framework for all of them, they all mention the care of clients. The first four are much clearer on some form of non-maleficence than HCPC who only say ‘you must encourage…
Open letter to Liz Truss
In the light of the government’s decision to allow some forms of conversion ‘therapy’ despite acknowledging that it doesn’t work (they do not seem to acknowledge the damage that research tells us it does) we have penned an open letter to Liz Truss, which we invite you to join with us in signing if you…
Therapists Against Conversion Therapy and Transphobia 