For those outside the UK, the Health Care Professions Council (HCPC) is the regulatory body overseeing some but not all therapy professions including clinical/counselling psychologists, art psychotherapists etc. Therefore it is important to scrutinise any outputs from the HCPC as these will reveal the direction of the control over professional therapy practice.

The HCPC has issued its new revised standards for professional psychologists which will be operational from this September onwards. Reading through the documentation, there are subtle and not so subtle indications that HCPC has been captured by the new woke political orthodoxy; note the red flag terms scattered throughout the new standards. See the following examples (the bolded phrases are bolded in the original to indicate insertions).

Generic standard 5.1, the current standard is “understand the requirement to adapt practice to meet the needs of different groups and individuals”. The revised standard becomes “respond appropriately to the needs of all different groups and individuals in practice, recognising this can be affected by difference of any kind including, but not limited to, protected characteristics, intersectional experiences and cultural differences.”

Applicable to counselling psychologists only, 12.25 the current standard is “understand social and cultural contexts and the nature of relationships throughout the lifespan.” The revised standard becomes “understand social and cultural contexts in a manner informed by community, critical and social constructivist perspectives”.

An important question to ask here is: Who were the stakeholders who advised the HCPC on these revisions?