Mostly, CTA takes the view that it is pointless trying to engage with the legacy therapy professional bodies as they appear to have been fully captured by political therapist activists. However, everynow and then it is worth checking in to see what they are up to. The British Assocciation for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) seems to have toned down its overt promotion of Critical Social Justice (CSJ). Perhaps one factor has been the consequence of the backlash it received after advertising its risible “Queering the Therapy Space” workshop last year. However, as the overall goal of CSJ is to shape praxis then it is obvious that the activist elite that now controls the BACP will be continuing with their mission to get inside every therapist member’s clinic. A recent email to members shows how this is being done.
This email to members offers the opportunity to attend “Increasing Inclusivity in your Practice”” workshops – see screenshot below. This is an example of deploying slightly more sophisticated tactics to ensnare the wellmeaning and unwary membership. “Inclusivity” is one of those weasel words. Who would not want their practice to be more inclusive? However, the BACP usage of the term “inclusivity” does not mean what most of its members would take it to mean. Instead it means to be ideologically compliant. This is made evident in the description of the third part in particular where all the CSJ tropes are present; “This session will focus on areas relating to the session itself, such as, intersectionality, language, power dynamics, oppression, privilege, bias and validating anger.” (the final item has been bolded because it raises particular concerns about what these workshops will be delivering). So, put simply, increasing inclusivity in your practice means taking on a CSJ-driven approach to therapy.
What’s the message here? Activists want therapy to become fully politicised and therapists to be fully compliant with CSJ ideology. This process needs to be disguised otherwise most people would object to it. Instead it needs to be brought about through other methods including intimidation and rhetorical strategies. In the BACP case above, words are used which have two meanings – other examples would be the term ‘diversity’. This rhetorical tactic is termed the motte and bailey strategy. This has been deployed very successfully in the therapy field – see a recent CTA article on the broaching strategy. it is important to understand how this strategy works and it is explained in detail in the article.
