{"id":73954,"date":"2025-10-11T14:01:23","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T14:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/73954\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T14:01:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T14:01:23","slug":"afraid-and-disappointed-psychotherapists-slam-new-training-standards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/73954\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Afraid and disappointed\u2019 – Psychotherapists slam new training standards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Psychotherapy bodies are warning that new minimum training standards set by the regulator will be \u201cdangerous\u201d for patients.<\/p>\n

The Health and Social Care Professionals Council CORU put forward new regulations in July, looking to tackle the issue of fake or ill-trained therapists.<\/p>\n

However, the industry\u2019s two main bodies – the Irish Council for Psychotherapy (ICP) along with the Irish Association of Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy (IAHIP) – have expressed concerns relating to the lack of mandatory personal therapy training sessions.<\/p>\n

Chair of the ICP Belinda Moller said that “this is the equivalent to a newly qualified doctor being asked to do intricate surgery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCurrently, we have all these standards in place with high standards of personal therapy that every psychotherapist has to undergo,\u201d she told Newstalk Breakfast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou would not want someone you love to go into therapy<\/a> with a therapist who has never actually experienced personal therapy themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe important part of it is that the trained psychotherapists in the future \u2013 not currently \u2013 are fully and properly equipped with these core competencies and capacities to be able to look after clients.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be able to have the quality circle that is provided with close clinical supervision with a qualified supervisor when they are confronted with challenges, with concerns, with suicide threats.”<\/p>\n

\"A A distressed man receives psychotherapy, Alamy<\/p>\n

In a statement, CORU highlighted that all current industry standards are voluntary, and there is \u201cno mandatory education, no code of practice and no minimum standards of clinical experience\u201d for Irish psychotherapists.<\/p>\n

However, Ms Moller said that the proposed minimum regulations will bring future Irish therapists \u201cout of line with the current standards of training and practices\u201d across the UK and EU.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very, very afraid, disappointed and shocked that this will result in improperly trained psychotherapists,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout having the experience of personal therapy and close clinical supervision in their training and weaving it into their practice, which are stalwarts for the whole of a career<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonal therapy and close clinical supervision are essential capacity building competencies and practices that safeguard the client.\u201d<\/p>\n

CORU response<\/p>\n

CORU said in a statement that the organisation is \u201caware of the views expressed by the Irish Council for Psychotherapy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is common for professional bodies to feel uncertain and reluctant when faced with the transition from self-governance to regulation by an independent statutory body,\u201d a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is understandable that the loss of control over professional standards and potential loss of revenue from this transition may cause unease.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, CORU is a highly experienced regulator having introduced regulation to 12 professions and overseeing the work of 32,000 people each day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will actively support the profession on this essential transition.\u201d<\/p>\n

CORU reiterated that \u201cstatutory regulation will protect people by creating standards where currently none exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Main image: Man talking and waving hands in psychotherapy session with psychiatrist, psychologist, counselor, therapist or life coach. (Tero Vesalainen \/ Alamy Stock Photo)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Psychotherapy bodies are warning that new minimum training standards set by the regulator will be \u201cdangerous\u201d for patients.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":{"0":"post-73954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73954","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=73954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}