Tag: membership bodies

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, and below this (in the longer version), quotations from the meeting and links to relevant documents.

As the vote begins we remain extremely concerned about the actions of the UKCP Board and we do not believe that their actions in withdrawing from the MoU have been adequately explained. We believe that some very serious questions remain, and in the absence of receiving answers, despite trying for months, our UKCP cohort continues to call for the removal of the Board and their subsequent replacement with a new team which will restore the UKCP to the MoU (as the current Board restated that it would not do), unless a full and transparent consultative process involving members of all kinds indicates a different course of action.

The headlines from the meeting are:

1.    The UKCP Board states that their figure for triggering the vote is 2% and that that’s low by comparison with other organisations. They stated that the petition achieved this level, just, and inferred that if a higher number had been required, it wouldn’t have been reached. We’d like to respond that TACTT’s open letter stopped being promoted at the point we reached the number of signatures required and a decision was made to submit to UKCP. TACTT is confident that it could have added more signatures, perhaps significantly more, had it continued to seek them.

2.     The UKCP Board states that NCPS supports them in the aim of creating a new, alternative version of the MoU. NCPS has categorically denied this and has now asked UKCP to stop saying it’s true. (Please note that communication from the UKCP to TACTT after the publication of this blog asks us to update. The UKCP is not planning to create a new version of the MoU. We are not sure what they are planning to create, except a regulatory document of some kind that involves conversion therapy. In the meeting they discussed the MoU ‘not going far enough’ and wanting to strengthen this, but it seems that what they are planning to create is not something like the MoU).

3.     The UKCP Board states they had no choice but to withdraw at speed from the MoU and although they knew that this may be seen as a transphobic action, they a) didn’t have time to mitigate the process around this, and b) although they knew it could be perceived as transphobic, they didn’t consider how their action would impact members. They also feel that they are “ethically sensitive” and the right people to remain on the board. However, the Board has also said it discussed this in advance of making the decision with colleagues and some of the member colleges. Which is it? That there was time to engage with several colleges and colleagues, or that this had to be done so fast that there wasn’t time to consider the impact the decision would have?

WHY did the decision have to be so fast?  Can the UKCP categorically state that they have signed no legal settlement that has compelled them to withdraw from the MoU?

4.     The UKCP Board’s original stated reason for withdrawal was about ‘children’. At the meeting the main message seemed to be about ‘insurance premiums’. The Board now states that it had to withdraw the UKCP because of insurance policy premiums (and that their responsibility is to UKCP, with no mention of clients or their members). With respect to stated concerns about the care of children, the UKCP board has claimed that the MoU Secretariat refused to engage on this. There is nothing in the minutes of any UKCP trustee meeting from the last 18 months that suggests this and it has been stated in the meeting on June 17th by an attendee (presumably on the secretariat) via the Q&A panel that the minutes of the MoU meetings do not support this. Whichever way, the MoU was a guideline, rather than a legal document.

5.    The UKCP Board has repeatedly said that they want to hear from LGBTQ+ (and other) voices. TACTT has been trying to engage with UKCP on this matter since November 2023, with no results whatsoever. The UKCP Board also states that it supports the Cass review, which has been widely criticised since its publication, not least by trans people whose voices were systematically excluded from it.

6.    The   UKCP Board stated that the removal of the trustees would destabilise the organisation and that many new developments would have to be ‘put on ice’, yet also claiming that the current Board is new. Irrespective of this seemingly contradictory rhetoric, it must be pointed out that the Board wouldn’t be replaced until new members of a trustee board (also potentially members with experience of being trustees) were in place.

In short: the narrative we have heard seems to be as follows.

They couldn’t tell members the truth, but they’ve also been transparent from the start.

They are against conversion therapy, but they support the Cass Review. This has been widely discredited by leading academics, and was created and managed by a government that explicitly and energetically attempted to destroy the rights of trans people in the UK. This government has refused to bring forward a ban of Conversion Therapy (the Minister who commissioned it celebrated the release of the final Cass report with excited claims of the defeat of the “militant gender lobby”) and the Cass report has been weaponised extensively within the political and media discourse since its release.

They believe in ‘healthy exploratory therapy’ but will not commit to a starting point of stating that trans identities are valid and are as legitimate as cisgender identities. Without this, so-called ‘exploratory therapy’ effectively becomes conversion therapy.

They want to create a new regulatory version of the MoU, but again, will not commit to the standpoint of the original MoU. They didn’t know that the MoU covered children (we ask, why would it not, and why did it take 8 years and having signed the document twice to bring this question – which could have been answered easily and quickly at any stage?) and state that children have age-specific needs. Our response to this? Of course they do, but why does this mean that a well-practised approach of supporting a child to explore their identity – trans, cisgender or anything else – is invalid?. And we point out again that the MoU does not state any particular way of working for either adults or children and young people.

Long version

1: In the interests of expediency, TACTT sent the list of signatures when we knew we had reached the number required. If the number had been higher, we would have continued to share the letter until the higher number was reached.

2: UKCP have withdrawn from the MoU2 and intend to create a regulatory document around conversion therapy. UKCP (Jon Levett, CEO) said in the meeting “We’ve got together a working group which is going to start to meet on a monthly basis to really start to get some momentum on this. So NCPS are very definitely involved, very definitely signed up to this.” Another trustee states “ [we have] form[ed] a working group led by our CEO John Levitt already we’re collaborating with a number of organisations including the British Psychoanalytic Council, the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society and a number of others”

NCPS’s response is “Just to reassure you, the NCPS has re-joined, and is fully supportive of, the MOU as the right mechanism to ban conversion therapy, a ban which has been our consistent policy. We are not looking to create an alternative MOU […] I have raised this with UKCP and asked them to refrain from sending out these statements”

3: UKCP say that they didn’t have time to consider the potential fallout. We respect that the open letter went up the same day as the announcement. However, what this tells us is that the board just did not consider this, in advance of releasing such a huge statement. They also say in the same meeting that they DID consider that it might be seen as transphobic, but that none of them (it seems) considered the impact that might have. One cannot have it both ways.

“We didn’t have time to address the potential fallout before the petition came against us. So we have been and we are always against conversion therapy and the petition was based on incorrect information”

“To be totally transparent we considered that the withdrawal taken out of context could be experienced as transphobic and homophobic, but what we didn’t consider was the potential impact.” “We believe that as the existing board that we have the skills, the vision and the ethical sensitivity to take the forward and deliver on the charity’s strategic aims”

“We did discuss it with colleagues. We did discuss with some of the colleges, although we acknowledged we didn’t discuss with all of them”

4: From the MoU2: “conversion therapy’ is an umbrella term for a therapeutic approach, or any model or individual viewpoint that demonstrates an assumption that any sexual orientation or gender identity is inherently preferable to any other, and which attempts to bring about a change of sexual orientation or gender identity, or seeks to suppress an individual’s expression of sexual orientation or gender identity on that basis.” and “signatory organisations agree that the practice of conversion therapy, whether in relation to sexual orientation or gender identity, is unethical and potentially harmful.”

UKCP state concerns about children and not knowing that children were covered under ‘people’. What exactly *are* children, to UKCP, if not people? Jen Ayling stated:  “you know, a child’s need is very different to an adult’s needs and I think that’s where there’s the need for additional guidance.” The MoU does not give guidance on HOW to work with people exploring their gender. It simply allows room for children to fully explore their identities from within a framework that believes “that neither sexual orientation nor gender identity in themselves are indicators of a mental disorder” (MoU2)

From the UKCP meeting: “Now we did an attempt to engage in dialogue but came to the point when faced with a significant increase in our insurance premium”

They suggest that “over the last few weeks we have endeavoured as a board to transparently communicate the reasoning and risk assessment process which underpinned our decision”, yet they have changed their story to being about insurance and explicitly state they couldn’t state this originally. What has legally changed that they now can?

5: From the meeting: “Any clinical guidance will be backed by robust research evidence. We’re supportive of the Cass review and it will form part of our ongoing considerations when creating new regulation and clinical guidance”. Cass has been discredited in many areas and by many voices since its publication. See Transactual the OSF Preprint paper, and Dr Ruth Pearce’s ongoing updates for just three of them.

They also state “You see what we urgently need to do is create new regulatory guidance for conversion practices that has good governance, transparency, consultation, the voice of psychotherapy and most importantly the voices of the LGBTQIA+ community”.

UKCP would not answer a question as to whether they were prepared to start any new version of an MoU from the point of view that a trans identity was as valid as a cisgender identity. They did talk about “healthy exploratory therapy”. Florence Ashley has a very useful paper on why ‘exploratory therapy’ within a framework that doesn’t accept trans (whether in adults or children) as a valid identity is conversion therapy. UKCP declined to answer to this question as well.

6: From the meeting: “The upheaval and cost implications to the charity of appointing an entirely new board would essentially make the organization non-functioning in terms of major future developments for a significant period of time. Conference planning, strategic development work and many of the other projects we’ve successfully launched would have to be put on ice.”

However they go on to list all the things they have achieved as a new board. Which seems to directly contradict their claims of destabilisation.

“There’s a lot done but not all of it will be directly visible to you. So we started to work preparing the relationship with colleges, which was a factor within the EGM core. We are managing legal claims. We relocated the offices.  17th June, I think was the D date. And estimated to save 150 K annually. We’re improving office performance. We’re guiding the NHS pathways, talking therapies pilots. We’ve reinstated the annual conference. We reinstated the ethics committee. And as many of you again will be aware, we’ve consulted on and a developing the new 3 year strategy. And I just want to say a little bit about that is that the three-year strategy and we’ve run 3 4 seminars on that already through 4 webinars on that already. And put up various polls just to gain attraction and interest. The Strategy Working Group is comprised of 2 chairs at the colleges and one vice chair of the colleges working with the board nominated board of trustees.”

UKCP is presenting a bundle of contradictions and obfuscations to its members. There is no real clarity and in removing themselves from the MoU they place their members in a very difficult position.

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 2% of the UKCP membership, and also garnered support from over 1500 professionals and trainees from across the sector. 

The open letter and petition came after the UKCP Board decided to withdraw the UKCP as a signatory of the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy (MoU2) (and as a member of the Coalition) earlier this year, without consultation with the UKCP membership.

In this statement,TACTT want to take the opportunity to clarify the origins of the petition, and its rationale for calling a vote of no confidence.

Who Are TACTT?

TACTT is a collective of therapists, counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists and other therapeutic practitioners, including trainees in these fields, who oppose conversion therapy and transphobia in the therapy profession. TACTT members belong to a number of professions, and those who are counsellors, psychotherapists, or psychotherapeutic counsellors are members of a number of different professional bodies, including the UKCP. TACTT holds members of all genders.

What is the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU2) on Conversion Therapy?

The MoU2’s main aim “is the protection of the public through a commitment to ending the practice of ‘conversion therapy’ in the UK” (MoU2, point 1), viewing conversion therapies as unethical and harmful. By signing they are committing to ending the practice and ensuring their members are working ethically, based on training, within that principle. 

Anyone seeking therapeutic support deserves a safe, trained professional who is truly acting in their best interests. This assurance has now been removed for LGBT+ people approaching UKCP members for such support.

What led to the petition? 

(i) No consultation of membership for major policy shift

While much of the TACTT membership was alarmed by the Board’s decision to withdraw from the MoU2, we were further shocked that this was done without any consultation with the membership or Articles-mandated Member’s Forum which “should be consulted on the future direction and strategy of the Charity and advise and collaborate with the Board of Trustees.”

(ii) Contravening UKCP’s Code of Ethics point 32

Furthermore, we are appalled by the contradictions and lack of clarity found in the UKCP’s Board statements:

The stated reason for the withdrawal given by the Board included concerns about how it specifically applied to children and young people. This contradicts the facts of the MoU2 (which states in point 10 that it does not provide these specifics to signatories and leaves each organisation within their own purview to determine the specifics of how that training, and working practice is managed to achieve the commitment of ending the practice of conversion therapy). The Board also stated the UKCP had not known, when signing, that this statement applied to children. This cannot be squared against their years of membership supporting the MoU and its re-signing of the Memorandum in its second version.

Unfortunately the statement put out by the UKCP Board thus contradicts itself as well as the facts of the MoU2. Especially when their withdrawal statement still speaks to the same end purpose of the MoU2 that they are now disavowing. 

This all stands to confuse the wider MoU2 membership, the UKCP membership, and the wider public about the expectations of therapy they can receive from counsellors and psychotherapists. 

Furthermore, the nature of the comments the Board makes in its withdrawal statement imply that the MoU2, and by extension every other signatory organisation, is failing to sufficiently safeguarding the interests of young people. In doing so the UKCP Board is calling the practice of the wider psychotherapeutic community into disrepute and contravenes the UKCP’s Code of Ethics point 32, which states that members must “act in a way which upholds the profession’s reputation and promotes public confidence in the profession and its members.”

In addition to this, the Chair of the Board of Trustees has in TACTT’s view, publicly contributed to this misrepresentation in the national press and on social media accusing the signatories of the petition and TACTT of “bullying” the Board, comparing UKCP’s members’ legitimate and constitutional call for a removal election with a ‘coup’, and further suggesting that those who support the petition are somehow not interested in the “safety of children”. 

We point out once more that in calling for a removal election, the UKCP’s Articles of Association have been adhered to and members are entitled to exercise their democratic right to vote on the continuation or removal of the Board of Trustees, without being defamed by the Chair of their Board. In TACTT’s response statement, TACTT reminds readers that being held accountable through a democratic election is not bullying.

(iii) Lack of response and dialogue

Following the UKCP’s withdrawal from the MoU2 and their statement, UKCP members of TACTT individually and TACTT as an organisation, have tried on numerous occasions to contact the UKCP to discuss their decision and try to talk to them about reconsidering. All attempted contact has been ignored. The open letter/petition is a response to this lack of engagement by the UKCP.

Concerning views about gender and invalidation of trans identities

The open letter/petition was not TACTT’s first attempt to raise questions about the UKCP’s seeming policy direction and its lack of consultation around this. In late 2023, a previous open letter, raised major concerns about how the UKCP’s position was moving towards one that re-pathologised trans identities- in ways that seemed resonant of outdated, homophobic positions-, and how it seemed to promote so-called ‘exploratory therapy’ (a practice which typically ‘explores’ all possible meanings of a trans client’s gender identity experience other than that they are actually trans) for ‘gender-critical’ therapists (i.e. those who typically do not believe being trans is a valid state of being). Here again, the UKCP repeatedly refused to respond to invitations for dialogue about serious concerns raised by multiple UKCP members, Members’ Forum Representatives as well as over a thousand signatories of Therapists Against Conversion Therapy and Transphobia (TACTT)’s open letter (last updated in January 2024). 

From this lack of dialogue, engagement and reassurance, we do not have the confidence that the UKCP Board is supportive of trans voices, trans clients, trans students, trans therapists, as now embodied in its unconstitutional withdrawal from the MoU. Again, many other UKCP members outside of TACTT, along with professionals who are members of other therapeutic bodies, agree.

Conclusion

The public discourse around transgender people in the UK is currently toxic, with relentless political and media attempts to smear and misrepresent them. This has left the small UK trans community in deep distress. TACTT sees this in the lives of some of its members and in the anxiety it encounters from many trans and gender expansive clients. This said, TACTT wants to make clear that the grounds for this vote of no confidence lie in the UKCP’s own Code of Ethics, as the authors and signatories of the letter believed that the UKCP Board’s decision did not meet point 32 and they have not been “acting in a way which upholds the profession’s reputation and promotes public confidence in the profession and its members.”

We point out that the Board has made a major policy decision without consultation with individual, college or educational members and note that its communication of its decision to psychotherapy professionals, the wider public, LGBTQIA+ people as potential clients is at best confusing, at worst incoherent. In this confusion they are damaging the reputations of other MoU2 signatory bodies and their professional members by implication. 

Further, whilst the UKCP’s statements still claim its opposition to conversion therapy, this confusion stands to harm and reduce the safety of LGBTQIA+ clients and potential clients.

We cannot believe that these actions are in the interest of the fee-paying members or of our clients. Numerous LGBTQIA+ students and trainees from within and outside TACTT have shared their concerns, including students on UKCP accredited courses who are required to be members of the UKCP or to remain members after completing their courses for qualification until they can be able to even consider transfer to a different professional body. That they may be required to remain members of a professional body that leaves them feeling this unprotected and unvalued is unconscionable. 

The Board’s Chair has chosen to stand by his comments and the Board’s decision, even after TACTT raised its concerns, and how, in TACTT’s view, they risked casting many UKCP members, and/or members of the wider professional community, into disrepute. We remain puzzled about the Board’s claim to be in discussion with other organisations about the creation of alternatives to the MoU2, when the largest of these organisations, the NCPS, have just announced their intention to rejoin the MoU2, having confirmed that their previous withdrawal was solely on the grounds of being subject to potential legal action by hostile actors which would have been prohibitively expensive to defend. 

We ask all the UKCP members with voting rights to consider what, in TACCT’s view, has been done in your name and how, by the Board :

  • Ignoring the concerns of professionals
  • Making large policy changes without consultation of educational, college, or individual members
  • Implying that large swathes of our profession, including UKCP members are failing in safeguarding responsibilities for continuing to support a document, which continues to have the support of 23 other major mental health and related organisations (soon to be 24 once more), whilst claiming confusion over a core aspect of the agreement, eight years after having first signed and then later resigned it. 
  • Breaching the UKCP Code of Ethics 
  • Claiming to be in discussion with other organisations about a successor agreement to the MoU without providing evidence of this, and offering no response to recent NCPS actions which seem to clearly contradict this.
  • Betraying and abandoning LGBTQIA+ members, many of whom now feel unsafe within the UKCP, and LGBTQIA+ clients.

As a UKCP member, we believe that you deserve better than this. If you agree, then you have the right to vote to remove the members of the Board who enacted this in your name. If you are happy with these actions then you too must vote with your conscience.

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 least 2% of the UKCP membership, and also garnered support from over 1500 professionals and trainees from across the sector. The petition followed UKCP’s decision to withdraw from the Memorandum of Understanding on conversion therapy.

UKCP’s decision to withdraw from the MoU2 on conversion therapy

On 5th April 2024 the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) advised its members and the public that it had withdrawn its signature from the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy in the UK v2 (MoU2). The major decision to withdraw from the MoU2 was made by the UKCP Board of Trustees, without consultation nor notice with its wider membership.

In the statement, UKCP asserts itself as “fully committed in its belief that conversion therapy is harmful and must not be practised” and later confirmed that to do so would also breach of the organisation’s Code of Ethics, while at the same time advising its members to “discount the MoU as a published policy of UKCP”. In effect, UKCP asks its membership to discount as policy a document of which its entire purpose is ensuring conversion therapy is understood as harmful, unethical, and should not be practised.

These actions and statements are contradictory and potentially confusing, especially for a Board who is informing their membership and the public about major changes they have enacted without consultation. 

Who are TACTT?

TACTT is a grassroots collective of therapists, counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists and other therapeutic practitioners, including trainees in these fields, who oppose conversion therapy and transphobia in the therapy profession. TACTT members belong to a number of professions, and those who are counsellors, psychotherapists, or psychotherapeutic counsellors are members of a number of different professional bodies, including the UKCP.

Why is the MoU2 important for LGBT+ people?

The MoU2’s main aim “is the protection of the public through a commitment to ending the practice of ‘conversion therapy’ in the UK” (MoU2, point 1), viewing conversion therapies as unethical and harmful. By signing they are committing to ending the practice and ensuring their members are working ethically, based on training, within that principle.

Anyone seeking therapeutic support deserves a safe, trained professional who is truly acting in their best interests. This assurance has now been removed for LGBT+ people approaching UKCP members for such support.

Responses to UKCP’s decision to withdraw

While much of our membership was alarmed by the Board’s decision to withdraw from the MoU2, we were further shocked that this was done without consultation with its members. 

Following the UKCP’s withdrawal from the MoU2 and their statement, UKCP members of TACTT individually and TACTT as a collective tried on numerous occasions to contact the UKCP to discuss their decision and try to talk to them about reconsidering. All attempted contact was ignored.

UKCP members from TACTT then decided to try and bring our concerns to the Board’s awareness, as well as other UKCP members, through public conversation via an open letter: Open letter to UKCP on their recent withdrawal from the MoU2 on conversion therapy

Why has a ‘vote of no confidence’ in the Board been called within UKCP?

UKCP members of TACTT created the above letter, and were joined by UKCP members within and outside of our group as signatories, to trigger the call for a removal election. Together we reached the 2% of the UKCP membership who are eligible to vote on matters within the professional body, that is sufficient to trigger an election for a vote of no confidence in the Board.

These authors and signatories believe that the current Board’s actions around the MoU2 membership have not been in keeping with UKCP policies that seek to “[act] in a way which upholds the profession’s reputation and promotes public confidence in the profession and its members.” (point 32 of the Code of Ethics).

The way UKCP’s Board have made this decision and communicated about it will be confusing to psychotherapy professionals, the wider public, LGBTQIA+ people as current and potential clients.

In that confusion they are damaging the reputations of other MoU2 signatory bodies and their professional members by implication. They are misleading the public and the professional community about the MoU2 either on purpose or by misunderstanding.

In addition to this, the Chair of the Board of Trustees has in TACTT’s view, publicly contributed to this misrepresentation in the national press and on social media comparing the UKCP’s members’ legitimate and constitutional call for a removal election with “a coup” and “bullying” of the Board.

Whilst TACTT’s opinions on conversion therapy are clear from our name as well as our work, any breach of UKCP’s Code of Ethics and its policies (regardless of the subject matter and related opinions) must be taken seriously. 

Next steps

We ask all UKCP members with voting rights to consider what has been done in your name and in making use of your membership fees. Is this what you expect from a Board who represents you?

·      Vote for what you believe is correct conduct for your membership group’s Board members: https://www.psychotherapy.org.uk/about-ukcp/elections/

17th June, 6:30pm (online): Hear from the Board.

20th June – 3rd July (5pm): Voting opens.

All eligible UKCP members will receive an e-mail to vote.

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 site where they are accurate at the time they were written. We apologise if this may have caused any confusion.

Our not being a member of the MOU has never meant we have changed our policy on conversion therapy, and it hasn’t changed our Code of Ethics. We are members of many different organisations and groupings, but leaving or joining any of these is a separate issue from our ethical stance. You can rest assured therefore that there hasn’t been any effect on your practice or with any of your clients. As a valued member, you have been working under the same ethical guidance and policy framework irrespective of what organisations or groupings your professional body belongs to.

We felt it was in the MOU’s best interests not to publicise our withdrawal as this risked media headlines of division and could have imparted the sense that the legal activists were gaining traction. We didn’t want this to happen.

Opposing conversion therapy can take many forms – for example, we pioneered and suggested making sure insurance companies would not cover therapists practising in this way. After our meetings with the GEO we were assured that, in the absence of a ban coming in to force, there is a multitude of actions than can still be taken.

We have been working behind the scenes for many months to find a route back to the MOU and have now been able to ringfence funds to protect us from future legal action. We’re happy to inform you that we have applied to rejoin MOU.

We appreciate your concerns over this matter. Do rest assured that we are engaged appropriately in this issue on behalf of our members.

Yours sincerely,

Jyles

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 a ‘member-led’ organisation and the naivety around the idea that one must withdraw from the MoU for fear of being sued but can create an alternative that doesn’t have that threat (which seems to have shifted position in the letter below), but please see below the full letter.

Dear [member]

Please find a message from the Society below regarding your communication with us.

Thank you for contacting us regarding the MOU and conversion therapy. Due to the number of communications from members we’ve received, we are sending out this response to everyone who kindly contacted us about the issue.

The Society opposes conversion therapy and wishes to see legislation that would ensure it was unequivocally banned. We have campaigned on this for a number of years, including engaging with Equalities Ministers, meeting their advisors, and meeting with the senior civil servant at the Government Equality Office (GEO) as far back as 2018.

The Society put forward and pioneered the approach, in the absence of legislation, to approach insurance companies in order that they invalidated insurance cover where a counsellor practised conversion therapy. Our Code of Ethics specifically prohibits conversion therapy and a member practising it would face de-registration.

Our policy has not changed on conversion therapy in any way. We signed up to the multi organisational Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in order to come together with other organisations to push forward a plan to ban conversion therapy.

In 2022, we were targeted by legal campaigners who threatened us with legal action if we remained in MOU. Our insurance providers would not cover our defence of said legal action, and at the time we did not have sufficient funds to allocate to defending our position.

Alongside other signatories, such as our friends Pink Therapy, the noted LGBTQIA+ organisation, we were forced to leave MOU at the time and the threat of legal action was dropped. This was not a decision we wished to make. At no time did this decision change any of our policies or our Code of Ethics. We decided not to publicise this withdrawal to avoid misrepresentation or reputational harm to MOU.

Since then we have continued to campaign against conversion therapy, and have been looking for solutions that would enable us to rejoin MOU. We have managed to secure funds to protect the Society against future legal action and so we are pleased to announce that we have started the process to rejoin the MOU. We look forward to resuming joint campaigning on this issue.

We have no plans to change any of our policies in this area. Any substantive policy change would be a matter for our members, just as with ScoPEd. It’s worth emphasising again that leaving or indeed rejoining MOU is not related to our policies.

Thank you again for contacting us. Please rest assured that we continue to be a member-led organisation and all our members’ views are very welcome.

Kind regards,

The NCPS

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 that document.

The article features comments from the Chairman of UKCP, representatives of the Cass Review Committee, and the British Psychoanalytic Council. A variety of accusations were levelled at TACTT in the article and, in a failure of the most basic journalistic ethics set out in the IPSO Editors’ Code of Practice, the article does not accurately convey the facts of the situation and misrepresents both TACTT and members of UKCP who have sought a ballot for possible removal of the Board of Trustees. 

TACTT can confirm that no approaches have been made publicly or via direct message for us to comment on the piece or its accusations, even though we are easy for journalists to reach through email and social media and Mr Bodkin cited our website in the article. 

There are three patently false claims in the article that defame members of TACTT who have taken a stand on UKCP’s withdrawal from MOU2, and one further factual inaccuracy. All of these inaccuracies are liable to mislead the public: 

1. TACTT is trying to undertake a coup against the UKCP Board of Trustees
2. Members of TACCT are ‘bullying’ members of the UKCP Board of Trustees
3. TACTT is ‘[turning] a blind eye to the safety of children
4. UKCP is a “regulator of child psychotherapy and psychotherapeutic counselling”

We will address each of these points in turn. 

1. The calls for a vote of no confidence in UKCP’s Board of Trustees come from within the UKCP’s own membership. Signatories to the motion included members of TACTT and UKCP members who have no association with us. The motion was submitted in line with the regulation established in article 17.1 of UKCP’s own Articles of Association. 

The numbers of UKCP members who signed the motion exceeded the minimum required two percent of the number of members as of the first day of the month of the receipt of the first petition, as set out in the Articles of Association. Signatories believed that UKCP Trustees did not follow their own by the UKCP board when they made this decision to withdraw from the MOU2 without consultation with the membership or Articles-mandated Member’s Forum which “should be consulted on the future direction and strategy of the Charity and advise and collaborate with the Board of Trustees.” It is this failure in process that led to this call for a vote of no confidence. 

The motion will put the continuation or removal of the Board of Trustees to a democratic vote of the entire membership within 120 days of the motion, as set out in the Articles of Association. This is far from the definition of a coup. If the membership expresses through a free vote that it agrees with the organisation’s withdrawal from MOU2 and is satisfied with the conduct of the Board of Trustees on this matter, no individual or group of members will be in a position to take over the Board of Trustees nor does TACTT believe this would be in the best interest of members or psychotherapy clients of any age.

The Board of Trustees is accountable to its membership. The Articles of Association have been adhered to and members are entitled to exercise their democratic right to vote on the continuation or removal of the Board of Trustees. 

The characterisation of TACTT as making a power grab is disingenuous. TACTT would have been able to correct these inaccuracies had we been approached, but no attempts have been made to contact us for comment. 

2. It is false and misleading to characterise the membership of UKCP who have requested the removal election as “bullying” the Chair of the Board of Trustees or any other members of the Board. It is particularly misleading to say that TACTT as a collective is doing so. The Articles exist to ensure the proper running of the UKCP for the benefit of its membership and the psychotherapy and psychotherapeutic counselling clients with whom its membership works. Being held accountable through a democratic election is not bullying.

3. It is false and defamatory to characterise either TACTT as a group or members of UKCP who have signed the removal election motion as having disregard for the wellbeing and safeguarding of transgender children and young people. While we were not able to comment on The Telegraph’s article, we would like to thank Dr Moon for their comments included in the article. We concur that all therapeutic models are exploratory and this can only be ethically achieved in situations where gender or sexuality enter the therapeutic work by viewing no gender or sexuality as inherently better or preferable. This holds true for people of all ages seeking psychotherapy or psychotherapeutic counselling. Any other approach is conversion therapy.  

The comments from the Cass Review committee representative also imply that any membership organisation or regulatory body remaining signatories of the MOU2 are “[lowering] the bar on standards of clinical practice and safeguarding for… children and young people.” In the Cass Review’s own FAQs, they state that “no LGBTQ+ group should be subjected to conversion therapy,” and the MOU2 and TACTT are in agreement on this point. It is the guiding idea behind both the memorandum and our group. However by standing by that idea, we and the MOU2 signatories are painted as placing children and young people at risk.

Within the article, the Cass Review itself is presented as a “report on the dangers of gender ideology”, rather than the systematic review of trans healthcare provision by NHS England for children and adolescents. This is false and misleading. The article also misquotes and misrepresents the recommendation from the review that enhanced follow-on support for those aged 17-25 from GIDS, suggesting that people under 25 have been “rushed into changing gender”.

4. The story as presented in the article had a further inaccuracy and raised additional concerns amongst TACTT members. The UKCP chair presents the organisation as a “regulator of child psychotherapy and psychotherapeutic counselling.” The representative of the Cass Review committee similarly implies that the UKCP is a “regulator.” 

The UKCP is a membership organisation, not a regulatory body. It is factually incorrect to state that UKCP is a regulator, as membership organisations and regulatory bodies are very different things. A regulatory body mandates registration. Counsellors and Psychotherapists in the UK can voluntarily join a number of organisations, but it is not a requirement to be a member of any, nor specifically the UKCP. 

While TACTT members have our concerns about the Cass Review recommendations, and are working on a full response having given an interim response on our blog, we find the way the report is being used, misused, and weaponised in media conversations deeply worrying. This is especially evident when erroneous claims that misrepresent the UKCP members within and outside of the TACTT members who are making use of their democratic ability within their voluntary membership bodies to work how they see ethically fit when the Board of Trustees has not adhered to its own standards of behaviour.

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 Company Secretary, and who else this may concern,

I am writing to formally deliver a petition on behalf of alarmed UKCP members regarding UKCP’s board’s latest decision to withdraw as a signatory of the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy in the UK v2 (MoU) and its membership of the Coalition Against Conversion Therapy. 

The petition lays out the reasons for our petition and calls for a vote of no confidence in the UKCP board, and for a removal election to be held for the current Trustees. Please find the link to the petition here: Petition

As per UKCP’s Articles of Association, Article 17, the petition has so far garnered the signatures of the required threshold of 2% of your membership as of the 10th April 2024 (9072) (this is not considering students, trainees and retired members). Please find attached the list of the signatures extracted from the letter for your reference. The letter has also garnered the additional support of more than 1000 of concerned professionals in the sector.

As per your Articles of Association, we are expecting a removal election to be held within 120 days of receipt of this petition, with members receiving at least 30 days of notice of it happening. 

Please kindly confirm reception of this petition and provide confirmation of the timeline by which we should get a response.

As a trainee UKCP member, I am personally delivering this petition as one of the many trainees and students who are refused a voice in UKCP elections, as a symbolic show that we do have a voice.

Sincerely,

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 naming us as potential co-defendants.

 

Our professional indemnity insurers confirmed they would not be able to cover us should legal action commence against the Society and so we had no choice but to withdraw on financial grounds.  Our withdrawal from MOU does not change our position of opposing conversion therapy and has not changed any Society policies. It was agreed at the time that publishing our forced exit as a signatory of the MOU would have had a detrimental effect on the coalition.

 

We have agreed to enter into exploratory discussions with UKCP and other professional bodies which does not signal policy agreement.  Should the Society consider any policy changes in the future these would first be put to member consultation and ratification.


We are aware of the significance and complexities of this issue and will keep members fully informed of any developments.

 

Kind regards

 

Jyles Robillard-Day

Chief Executive Officer”

We have now sent the following response to NCPS:

Dear Jyles,

 

Thank you for your email and the additional information. However, it leaves us with more questions than answers. I have emphasised the questions to which the members who have supported the development of this response ask of the Society, and a request arising from the emergence of NCPS’s withdrawal from the MOU without informing its members.

 

Breach of trust and ethical duty of care to clients

NCPS members of TACTT are shocked and disappointed by the Society’s misrepresentation of its support of the MOU since 2022. Several TACTT members joined NCPS within the past 12 months under the impression that the organisation was a signatory to the MOU. The website states that the organisation is “a proud signatory to the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy, making it very clear that counsellors can help clients who present with conflicting feelings about themselves concerning sexuality or gender identity.” The GSRD page in the Members area of the NCPS website states that “the NCPS supports the work of the MOU.” Given the context of your email, these statements are false and misleading to members and prospective members.

 

The Society has placed members in the position of harming our clients. Informed consent cannot be given by clients when they believe they are safe because their counsellor or psychotherapist’s membership body supports the MOU when it has not done so since 2022. 

 

The Society has not conducted itself with the transparency that its own code of ethics demands of its members. The code demands that members “ensure that all advertising, no matter in what form or medium it is placed, represents a truthful, honest and accurate picture.” NCPS has recruited paid members using misinformation stating on public-facing parts of its website that the Society is a signatory to the MOU and reinforcing that in member-only information. 

 

Although NCPS members involved with TACTT appreciate statements from the Society on conversion practices, this is an individualised response to a systemic problem. TACTT Members who chose to join NCPS did so on the understanding that their membership body was part of a broad coalition that was using its collective power to bring about systemic change in the UK. 

 

NCPS has let down and misled its membership. This is not only a breach of trust between the Society and its membership, who could not freely choose a different membership organisation that was still an MOU signatory; the vitiation of the therapist/client relationship cannot be undone. The Society has placed its members in the position of deceiving clients, and now we are left with the burden of working out the steps we can take to repair this rupture of trust with our clients. 

 

As members, we require immediate guidance on how we can rectify the position of maleficence that this has placed us in with our clients.

 

Legal action and MOU alternatives

We are aware of legal action that was brought against a number of co-defendants. However, the legal filings we have seen do not show NCPS as a co-defendant in that case. 

 

We would be grateful if you could confirm the case to which you are referring.

 

If the Society’s objective for withdrawing from the MOU was to avoid legal costs, it is unclear how entering into a different coalition to produce an alternative statement on ending conversion practices will protect it from future legal action. If the Society intends to withdraw from any coalition or consensus statement openly supporting ending conversion practices, it is difficult to see how the Society’s involvement in any future coalitions will make any meaningful change. A coalition is only as strong as its members, and whilst we appreciate that the executive team has a responsibility to protect NCPS as a legal entity, it also has a responsibility to be accountable to its members for how its funding, which is generated largely from membership subscription income, is used to support ending oppressive practices in counselling and psychotherapy. 

 

We request a statement on how NCPS makes decisions about which of its principles it will stand by and which it will recant when challenged.

 

Consultation with the membership

It is unclear from your email who you refer to when you say that “we” have agreed to enter into exploratory discussions with UKCP and other professional bodies. The email says that “should the Society consider any policy changes in the future, these would first be put to member consultation and ratification,” but a policy change has already been made. Withdrawal from the MOU coalition is a significant policy change about which the membership was not consulted. As such, we remain sceptical about the trustworthiness of the Society to consult and engage with its membership. 

 

How do you intend to consult and engage with the membership on future changes in policy? 

 

Would rejoining the MOU coalition constitute a change in policy, since the membership was entirely unaware of the policy change to leave the coalition in the first place?

 

Please feel free to contact me if you require any clarification on the above queries. I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience. 

 

Kind regards, 

TACTT

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 ‘counsellor’ ‘psychotherapeutic counsellor’ ‘psychotherapist’). Jobs will likely be stratified according to at least the competencies listed in the columns, if not clearly by the columns themselves.

Elsewhere you can read views that SCoPEd is divisive and discriminatory, and we’d like to concentrate here on both the EDI assessment itself, and the impact on LGBTQIA+ practitioners and trainees as we move forward.

We will use the term ‘therapist’ here to cover anything that we would consider either ‘counselling’ or ‘psychotherapy’ in that whatever you call it, we are all aiming to be of some kind of therapeutic benefit when working with our clients.

Your TL;DR is: Without Membership Body (MB) data, we do not know if those in ‘protected characteristics’ will be discriminated against, and there is no MB data (and currently no suggestion that this will change). Without the ability to move between (up through) columns post-training, it is likely to impact those with less ability to pay for a longer/more expensive training. There is no ability to move between columns. Six therapists were consulted, none who were trans (because the people carrying out the consultation didn’t look hard enough), and there is no discussion of what the qualifications of those consulted are, to talk about ‘EDI’. Despite there being very little actual EDI work in this EDI impact assessment, and the results suggesting that there will be at least some impact on those more marginalised, the EDI assessment suggests we make a start on SCoPEd as it is and trust that the rest is worked out along the way.

The EDI impact assessment

We believe that as a process, this EDI impact was flawed. There are six member organisations that have signed up to SCoPEd. Whilst there will be a percentage of people who are in multiple organisations, the membership for NCS sits at over 9000, the membership for BACP sits at over 50,000, UKCP sits at over 11,000. That’s half the memberships listed, and although we expect BACP to be the largest, if we assume even 5000 for the others, that’s about 85,000 therapists (the SCoPEd announcement says 75,000), and more joining every year.

An ‘EDI impact assessment’ was commissioned to (one presumes) look at the impact of SCoPEd across all demographics. This impact assessment was conducted by a company called Eastside Primetimers, who state: “The strategic objectives that the Partners set for SCoPEd draw our attention to the dependency of its success on equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) considerations”. 

Before they started on this project, Eastside Primers were calling SCoPEd a ‘groundbreaking project’ and a ‘pioneering project’. We wonder how easy that would be to turn back on if you were to find significant issues with the project. We don’t know – we’ve never been in that position.

The report states that it has struggled to get any information about those who might be in protected characteristics from the membership bodies (MBs) and they state at the start of the document that they cannot say (yet) what the impact on those people who might experience less privilege will be. None of the data collected is cited as being race/ethnicity, cis/trans status or sexuality, or disability (pg 13). In those where gender was collected, the average number of men in the profession is 16%. The report suggests (pg 11) that should SCoPEd NOT go ahead, that this will disadvantage people who have less privilege.It does not seem clear on why this is so.

The EDI report acknowledges that the framework is not a public-facing document so it asks ‘a small number’ of the public (12 people who’d had experience of counselling) to consult with it about SCoPEd. They approached six counsellors, 3 of whom were men (meaning that men proportionally have more of a voice as a reflection of the profession here), five were white, five didn’t identity as disabled, and none stated any LGBTQIA+ identity. There is no suggestion of their socio-economic status either. Four people interviewed were in private practice. Again an interesting choice, as those in private practice are potentially least likely to be impacted by SCoPEd. 

They gathered six people for interview. There is no suggestion that, in this ‘equality and diversity impact’ consultation, they interviewed six people who might be qualified to speak about these topics. In fact, their report states “Some communities (such as those identifying beyond the gender binary) are not represented due to factors, such as not responding to the invitation to interview or not meeting the survey criteria in some way, such as not being a member of a registered professional body” (pg15).  Dominic Davies from Pink Therapy, “the UK’s largest independent therapy organisation working with gender, sex and relationship diverse clients” has stated that he was not contacted for any help, and that had he been so, he would have facilitated the reaching out. There are over 200 people listed on the Pink Therapy directory who have a specialism in LGBTQIA+ topics, and 45 of these have ticked the ‘trans’ box as part of their own identity, suggesting that at a minimum there were 45 people listed with an MB who might have been open to being contacted. We do not know for certain that BAATN or Black Therapy Matters had a similar experience, but we’re willing to take a guess. This EDI ‘consultation’ didn’t try very hard to find a trans person (or any LGBTQIA+ person), interviewed ONE disabled person, and ONE person from a racialised background, and gives no real impact on what SCoPEd might mean for therapists with marginalised identities.

We do not really see any EDI impact in this 27 page document until pg 19 when we find  “There is a risk that Partners’ membership data systems do not facilitate EDI-relevant analysis of progress in widening access to and progression within the profession, and so in turn ensuring that the framework does not exacerbate barriers to access and progression”. This says to us that there is no way that we can know if SCoPEd will have an impact on the most marginalised counsellors because MBs don’t collect that data.

Page 20 of the EDI assessment suggests that without the ability to move between columns with further training (rather than only ‘core training’, which would require a qualified counsellor to start again as if untrained), that this will compound the difficulties those therapists with ‘protected characteristics’ hold, and make higher columns inaccessible.

Despite the information given above, this consultation sees no reason why SCoPEd can’t go ahead as it stands and we can iron out the details later. We believe however, that a profession based on expertise, especially in one’s own process should never be mediated by privilege. It is an impoverishment of the profession as well as injustice to practitioners with marginalised identities.

There is an interesting point in the data, which is that single women are less likely to support SCoPEd than partnered women, and we cannot help but wonder if this is part of the reason that SCoPEd votes are going through – that if you think it doesn’t affect YOU, PERSONALLY, you don’t necessarily consider the impact on other people. Those who are in a relationship will generally (we know, not always) have a second income coming into the family. Those who only have one income coming in have to be much more aware of SCoPEd and how this might impact. This ‘awareness of how all counsellors might be impacted is, in our opinion, what an EDI assessment would do, but does not.

This EDI assessment says (in short): as SCoPEd stands, you can’t move across columns without investing in more training; those who are more marginalised can’t afford more training; some organisations have already said they will start to stratify therapists according to columns, thus ensuring that column A therapists can only do ‘lesser’ qualified roles (which presumably one then gets paid less for, or the the process that we CURRENTLY see, which is that someone is ‘good enough’ to volunteer, but not good enough to be paid in the same role), thus meaning that those therapists earn less money and therefore have less income to be able to afford more training that might push them across columns. But please, feel free to get started and iron out these ‘small’ details later.

Trans folk, queer folk, disabled folk, folk with racialised identities, folk who are working class, will all find it difficult to move into the top two categories and are at risk of being pushed into lower paid jobs as a result, and kept there. For those people who are multiply marginalised this will be even more more likely and this ‘EDI impact assessment’ does not recognise intersecting axes of oppression in its report whatsoever.

We demand a rethink, and a proper EDI analysis that ensures that the impact on those who are least able to join ‘column C’ but who can be brilliant therapists in their own rights is considered.