Ministers should introduce statutory regulation for counsellors and psychotherapists to protect the public from abuse, according to a report that has been hailed as a \u201cwatershed moment\u201d for the profession.<\/p>\n
Unlike most other healthcare roles, including doctors, midwives and osteopaths, \u201cpsychotherapist\u201d and \u201ccounsellor\u201d are not protected titles nor statutorily regulated professions in the UK.<\/p>\n
This means that anyone can call themselves a therapist without a qualification, and can continue to practise even after an episode of misconduct, under a system that is poorly understood by the public.<\/p>\n
For the first time, the professional bodies that represent counsellors and psychotherapists, and which run the current voluntary accreditation scheme, are calling for statutory regulation to boost confidence in the profession and protect the public from the growing number<\/a> of cases of abuse and malpractice.<\/p>\n The report, the culmination of an independent review launched in October 2025 by the Commission for the Future of Counselling and Psychotherapy, argues that counsellors and psychotherapists are an untapped resource that could fill a mental health treatment gap estimated at about 1.8 million people on waiting lists. Practitioners told the commission they had extra capacity, which the report estimated could cumulatively provide more than 370,000 hours of additional therapy appointments every week.<\/p>\n The commission co-chair Phil Hope, a former Labour minister for care services, said: \u201cFor me, the report became a bit of a watershed moment for the profession, a real landmark of the opportunity there is for the government, and all its departments really, to unlock that potential.\u201d<\/p>\n Ella Janneh: \u2018Your Friday night kebab is subject to stronger regulation than a therapist who sits in rooms alone with vulnerable people.\u2019 Photograph: Ella Janneh<\/p>\n Ella Janneh<\/a>, who successfully sued her therapist<\/a> in the high court for rape and sexual assault in 2024, and has campaigned for regulation with the support of the law firm Leigh Day, welcomed the \u201ccollective call for regulation\u201d. She said it had taken \u201cyears and a lot of honest and difficult conversations between victims, other campaigners and conscientious professionals\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cStatutory regulation would lock abusive and unethical people out of the system. The current lack of centralised regulation allows for repeat offenders to continue practising with no oversight. That is reason enough to bring in regulation,\u201d Janneh said.<\/p>\n The report cites her \u201cpowerful testimony\u201d as an illustration of the \u201cdevastating, ongoing impact\u201d the absence of statutory regulation can have, since her therapist is still able to practise despite the outcome of her civil case.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the main reasons why the lack of government regulation has skated under the radar of public awareness,\u201d said Janneh, \u201cis that most people assume it\u2019s already in place. They only realise it\u2019s not when something\u2019s gone wrong \u2026 Currently your Friday night kebab is subject to stronger regulation than a therapist who sits in rooms alone with vulnerable people.\u201d<\/p>\n The report\u2019s co-chair Andrea Sutcliffe, the former chief executive of the Nursing and Midwifery Council and an expert on regulation, said: \u201cWe\u2019ve been on a journey around regulation with counselling and psychotherapy over many, many, many years, and the coalition government set its face against statutory regulation in 2011.<\/p>\n \u201cWe heard some really powerful testimony about the risk and the fact that people have been harmed. What the government asks for is a compelling case for statutory regulation because it costs and [it\u2019s not] an easy thing to do \u2026 but as independent co-chairs, we feel that a compelling case exists.\u201d<\/p>\n Andrea Sutcliffe, a co-chair of the report, said \u2018a compelling case\u2019 existed for statutory regulation of counselling and psychotherapy. Photograph: Linda Nylind\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Regulation was especially important for counselling and psychotherapy because they were complex interventions requiring years of training to practise, Sutcliffe said. Therapy takes place in a one-on-one setting; most practitioners are independent, meaning there is no employer oversight; and their patients are typically vulnerable people.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are in difficult, vulnerable situations, why would we expect them to be experts in working out who they should go to and who is safe? That\u2019s not what we do for choosing a brain surgeon or a cardiologist. We expect those things,\u201d she said, adding that the lack of regulation contributed to misconceptions and mistrust, which prevented people from seeking help.<\/p>\n Regulation would also be helpful in setting standards for education, training and development, Sutcliffe said. The report noted that this would also improve diversity in the profession, which is much needed.<\/p>\n The report further argues that the evidence base for counselling and psychotherapy should be improved, and notes that its lack is resulting in \u201cinsufficient and unsustainable public commissioning and investment\u201d. Hope said commissioners in the NHS and local government often had \u201clegitimate concerns, is this a qualified psychotherapist or not?\u201d<\/p>\n A more coordinated, professionalised industry could better inform the government\u2019s approach to regulation and guardrails around the growing use of AI for mental health support. \u201c[Psychotherapists are] seriously concerned at the risk that people may be accessing services that are totally unregulated. And therefore, the profession needs, I think, to up its game a bit and move up the pace here because this is happening,\u201d said Hope.<\/p>\n The commission hopes the report\u2019s call will be taken up by policymakers. The Labour MP Sojan Joseph, the chair of the all-party-parliamentary group on mental health and a former nurse, said he supported the case for statutory regulation and would raise the issue in parliament.<\/p>\n Jon Levett, the UK Council for Psychotherapy\u2019s chief executive officer, said he would welcome statutory regulation that \u201cprotects the public, sets clear standards and preserves people\u2019s choice of therapy\u201d, though he argued that \u201cany new system must be developed with practitioners and people with lived experience\u201d.<\/p>\n Dr Lisa Morrison, the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy\u2019s chief regulation and standards officer, agreed that collaboration was key to ensure regulation \u201cplaces public protection, public benefit and public confidence at its heart, while avoiding barriers to access, diversity and established practice\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ministers should introduce statutory regulation for counsellors and psychotherapists to protect the public from abuse, according to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":["post-672416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}