{"id":166053,"date":"2025-09-24T12:21:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T12:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/166053\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T12:21:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T12:21:08","slug":"minister-urged-to-intercede-over-regulator-row-in-psychotherapy-sector-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/166053\/","title":{"rendered":"Minister urged to intercede over regulator row in psychotherapy sector \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the big psychotherapy bodies is calling on Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill <\/a>to intervene in a row with the regulator over the safety of new standards to be introduced in the sector.<\/p>\n

In July, Coru<\/a>, the regulator for health and social care professionals, published new training standards for psychotherapists that will be brought into law after years of the sector calling for government regulation.<\/p>\n

However, the Irish Council for Psychotherapy <\/a>(ICP), the Irish Association of Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy (IAHIP) and the European Association of Psychotherapy (EAP) have all raised concerns that the new standards will lower the quality of training, creating risks for the safety of clients as well as the employability of therapists outside of Ireland.<\/p>\n

The three organisations raised concerns that under the new standards, there is no requirement for personal therapy, no clinical supervision, that clinical practice of only 200 hours is required and that there is no minimum education course length.<\/p>\n

The two Irish bodies said there needs to be about 500 clinical practice hours and that courses should be four years in duration.<\/p>\n

IAHIP chairwoman Jacky Grainger said the new standards \u201cfall far below widely accepted European benchmarks, and most importantly, risk undermining public safety in the very area they are meant to protect.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd yet, despite repeated commitments to improving services and protecting vulnerable people, recent developments suggest we are not moving forward \u2013 in fact, we may be going backwards.\u201d <\/p>\n

In a letter to Coru, ICP chief executive R\u00faaidhr\u00ed O\u2019Connor said the organisation had \u201cdeep public safety concerns\u201d about the new regulations.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs well as our grave concerns about the safety of the public, ICP is concerned about the damage that will be done to the profession of psychotherapy and to psychotherapists in training according to the proposed model that will lack the kinds of supports currently available in training programmes that are guided by ICP and EAP [European Association for Psychotherapy] standards,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

John O\u2019Connor, a board member of the ICP, said \u201cthe profession as a whole has been shocked and saddened\u201d by the regulations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot understand how such low standards could be contemplated for training programmes as they are well below what we have developed over the last 20 years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ICP calls on the Minister for Health, at this critical time in the regulation of psychotherapy, to exercise her statutory powers under the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005 to request the Psychotherapists Registration Board to revisit the published regulations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He added that the organisation is requesting a reopening of Coru\u2019s deliberations around registration, which should involve \u201call major psychotherapy organisations\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Coru said its standards are \u201crobust\u201d and ensure those entering the profession have the qualifications to provide \u201csafe and effective care\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoru has extensive experience in introducing regulation, having already done so for 12 professions. This has been a universally positive development,\u201d noted the statement.<\/p>\n

The statement added that it is aware that members of the profession have \u201cexpressed concerns about the implementation of regulation\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, it also noted that concerns regarding the length of education programmes reflect \u201ca misunderstanding of Coru\u2019s role\u201d as it does \u201cnot dictate how courses are delivered\u201d.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Coru said that concerns that the standards will make it harder for practitioners to move between EU countries is \u201cinaccurate\u201d and the \u201copposite is true\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the big psychotherapy bodies is calling on Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill to intervene in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,5742,85758,393,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-166053","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-hse","12":"tag-jennifer-carroll-macneill","13":"tag-mental-health","14":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}