This is the first of a two-part article exploring the impact of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP)’s adoption of a full-throttle Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Strategy. The BACP is the largest professional association of counsellors and psychotherapists in the UK, and carries significant weight in terms of the training, education and employment of therapists. Peter Jenkins looks at the background and impact of this new political turn for the BACP. Part 1 looks at the detail of the EDI strategy and its impact on therapy issues relating to gender identity. Part 2 will explore the potential impact of this strategy in relation to race, with examples drawn from the similar turn by social work training agencies in the UK towards anti-racism in the 1990’s.
Part 1: BACP (UK)’s ‘EDI Lens’ and Gender Identity: the Eye of Sauron?
It is increasingly apparent that the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy is on a mission to transform society, the world of therapy and its own internal regime as a professional association. The BACP is the UK’s largest professional association of counsellors and psychotherapists, with 60,000 members. The means of achieving this radical transformation of the world of therapy is via the application of its recently revealed Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Strategy (BACP, 2023a). This bears many of the hallmarks of Critical Social Justice Theory. It has worrying potential consequences for the future of therapy practice and research, as well as for the future of free debate and discussion within the BACP as a professional association.
The EDI Strategy is not short on ambition. Its overall strategic goal is no less than achieving “equality of access to counselling and psychotherapy” (BACP, 2023a: 14). It has key sub-goals of becoming “an exemplar of how to embed EDI at the heart of our members’ services and communications” (BACP, 2023a: 22) and of promoting “inclusivity in the workplace” (BACP, 2023a: 35). Taking a leaf out of the neo-liberal spending playbook, the strategy will be resourced by £1.5 million in fully protected i.e. non-reversible funding. It will be applied through major reviews of current policies and via work with the Diversity and Inclusion Coalition. One of the BACP’s strengths in the past has been its close attention to the law. This forms a major part of its EDI commitment. “We must comply with all UK legislation…As laws change over time, this document will be updated to reflect current legislation” (BACP, 2023a:12).
Applying ‘an EDI lens’?
The Strategy has a number of key themes, i.e. inclusivity, debate and the application of an ‘EDI lens’ to all core activities. This is something of a recurrent but rather unruly metaphor, which may well become more troublesome to the BACP over time. For some members, it may seem less like a magnifying EDI lens, and more like the Eye of Sauron, exposing and bearing down on hapless gender critical venturers from Middle Earth. The goal is “to create a professional home where members feel they belong”, which is “safe, nurturing and inclusive” (BACP, 2023a: 21). Free debate is important here, but with an ominous caveat: “conveying the message that all voices and views are equally valid and will be heard, as long as they’re not oppressing or harming others” (BACP, 2023a: 21). It follows that “We won’t tolerate discrimination, prejudice or bias of any kind. This includes, but is not limited to, racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia and antisemitism …” (BACP, 2023a: 16). However, the EDI Glossary (BACP, 2023a: 39-49) has some significant absences, with no reference to either Misogyny or Terfism, perhaps suggesting that some forms of discrimination are perceived by BACP as being far more heinous than others.
The recurrent motif of the ‘EDI lens’ is left rather vague, until it is made clear that the final call, for example within the BACP journal, Therapy Today, will be made by members of the Editorial Advisory Board who can claim ‘lived experience’ of a given topic. Thus, for the wider field of Continuing Professional Development, “all proposed content themes and presentations for planned events are reviewed through an EDI lens with those of lived experience” (BACP, 2023a: 20). Lived experience becomes the trump card here. There seems to be no need for BACP to consider how to address potential clashes between different groups with distinct or even conflicting agendas.
With regard to potential problems and their solution, the EDI strategy claims that there is an urgent need to overturn old paradigms, such as Eurocentric approaches, and the medical model of recovery and cure (BACP, 2023a: 27), both derived from “a scientific paradigm”, but which are too often applied “without taking the social context into account” (BACP, 2023a: 27). This scientific, research-driven paradigm is contrasted with the crucial role of “spirituality, which is central to the sense of self in many Asian and African psychologies” (BACP, 2023a: 27).
Instead, there will be a reliance on the concept of intersectionality, to prise apart hierarchies of privilege and domination. Once again, the emphasis is on the key policing role to be exercised by those claiming lived experience. “We’ll ensure that the involvement of experts by experience (EBEs) – members, non-members, clients, practitioners and subject area specialist – is integrated into our research programme…” (BACP, 2023a: 34). At a more prosaic level, barriers to accreditation will be removed, and the cornerstone Ethical Framework will be revised and simplified (Jenkins, 2023). One might say, in short, that this is a radical and comprehensive programme.
BACP’s record on free speech
So, how is this going to work out in practice? The omens are not good. BACP has been moving steadily towards a more monochrome presentation of complex issues for some time, so that an article on LGBT research was deemed to conflict with its existing policy of opposing conversion therapy (Jenkins, 2021). In 2018, a letter by Stephanie Davies-Arai from Transgender Trend, on the topic of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria research, was subjected to an immediate pile-on by no less than 647 outraged online lobbyists. It was promptly removed in a panic and still remains redacted on the BACP website to this day (Davies-Arai, 2018).
BACP’s turn towards acquiescence in gender ideology has been noted by the wider public. An Open Letter to BACP, expressing concern over its increasing tilt towards a politicised approach to therapy was launched in late 2021, rapidly gathering 1388 signatures and 538 comments (Thoughtful Therapists, 2021). A short thematic analysis of a sample of the comments (n: 235) found that comments clustered around concerns about BACP, such as its political capture; calls for increased dialogue; concerns about counselling training; concerns about the adverse impact of gender ideology on therapy; and expressions of support for the online petition.
The turn towards imposing the authority of lived experience has been ongoing for some time. In 2022, Sam Hope was interviewed by BACP Senior Research Fellow Charlie Duncan with regard to the Integrating Care for Trans Adults (ICTA) research project. In the course of the interview, Hope made a number of statements about the issue of open debate on trans issues.
Figure 1: Video clip: Sam Hope interviewed by Charlie Duncan, Senior Research Fellow at BACP about the Integrating Care for Trans Adults (ICTA) research project (BACP, 2022a: 15.02-16.23). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDYz1e4jldo
According to Hope, “People need to stop having opinions about trans healthcare or trans issues unless they’re really grounded and embedded in the work and have read a lot of research papers and listened to a lot of trans voices and diverse trans voices, I think there so much conversation about trans people without trans people, and there’s so much speculation about, I mean real nonsense stuff that we’re still talking about the idea that trans civil rights might be a threat to women, and stuff like that, which there’s a huge evidence base that completely defies that idea, but there’s still that sort of chatter even amongst BACP members. So, for me, it’s knowing when you’re not competent to talk on an issue.”
“For me it’s like, know what you don’t know and stay out of conversations until you know more” (BACP, 2022a: emphasis added).
A member of the Therapy Today Editorial Board puts it even more strongly: According to Luan Baines-Ball,“It’s essential that my identity or that of a client/supervisee is simply respected, otherwise we get into the territory of fascist rhetoric masquerading as free speech” (Baines-Ball, 2021: 31).
The implications for free speech and open debate seem quite chilling. Either participants in discussion are completely onboard with gender ideology and are therefore free to speak, or they are not, and should just keep quiet. Lived experience apparently carries the innate right to veto the expression of differing opinions, which is hardly a promising omen for future open debate.
Competencies for therapy with transgender clients?
There is a further concerning aspect of the ICTA research project and its claimed potential to help identify competencies for working with clients identifying as trans. Research-based competencies are a seamless and proven means of inserting contentious and unproven ideological perspectives into mainstream therapeutic practice. This can be done in a way which can prove very hard to challenge – after all, which therapist would not want to be seen to be competent? The adverse consequences of such apparently neutral competencies can be seen in the case of the competencies for working with transgender clients introduced by the American Counseling Association (2010).
“D. 8. In gender-specific groups (e.g., inpatient treatment settings, substance abuse treatment, etc.), counselors should support transgender individuals attending the gender group with which they identify with rather than, for instance, insisting that a transgender person attends a group setting according to the sex that person was assigned at birth” (ACA, 2010: 146).
Similar competencies have yet to be formally adopted by BACP, but they are on the horizon and would seem to flow effortlessly from the logic of its EDI Strategy. The EDI document does not seem to recognise any conflict of interests between groups with differing protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010, in this instance those relating to gender reassignment on the one hand and sex on the other. The potential impact of prioritising the rights claimed for counsellors over those held by clients (who are surely also experts on their own lived experience?) is already evident. This clash has already been felt by female clients seeking therapy in single sex-based therapy settings, such as refuges for victims and survivors of sexual assault, is shown in the following account.
“A rape victim who thought she had found a safe all-female space to help her come to terms with the sexual violence she endured has told how she was left deeply troubled by the arrival of a biologically male trans woman ‘with no obvious female attributes’. The mother of two joined a survivors’ group seeking support over the rape and childhood abuse that had cast a traumatic shadow over her life. But she has told The Mail on Sunday how she felt the sanctuary and trust of the sessions were violated by the 6ft newcomer in masculine clothes. Charity bosses insisted the trans woman had every right to be there as they allow people to define their gender for themselves, saying: ‘We do not police gender.’
But the mother, Sarah, said she was disturbed and panicked by the presence of someone with such a masculine appearance. She explained: ‘When I was sexually abused as a child, I was tricked into it by a man. Then I was raped as an adult by a man and felt tricked into it, so I don’t always trust men’” (Manning, 2021).
EDI and free speech rights within BACP
The EDI Strategy does not clarify how to reconcile this kind of clash between the lived experience of a male-bodied therapist and the lived experience of a female client. Similarly, BACP has promoted Continuing Professional Development with an overt reference to ‘Terfism’, surely in breach of its own guidelines on discriminatory behaviour (BACP, 2022b). What BACP has signally failed so far to do is to acknowledge in its main EDI Strategy document that gender critical beliefs are fully protected in law under the Forstater judgment (2021). More recently, it has also been established that views which oppose Critical Race Theory (i.e. that all white people are inherently privileged and racist) are also protected in law. Both sets of views are clearly consistent with and protected by the Equality Act 2010, which BACP’s own specialist legal guidance for members has now belatedly acknowledged (BACP, 2023b). According to the Strategy document, the EDI policy should be updated to take full account of significant changes in the law such as this, although this has yet to happen. A posting by Thoughtful Therapists on Twitter/X pointed out this apparent shift in BACP’s acknowledgement of gender critical beliefs, in its legal guidance to members, but which has not yet appeared in its main EDI Strategy document. The post was viewed by a quarter of a million viewers, suggesting a wide degree of public interest in BACP’s inconsistent position on this key issue.
Figure 2: Thoughtful Therapists (2023) https://t.co/CxikqmyZOM” / X (twitter.com)
Figure 3: Thoughtful Therapists (2023) https://t.co/CxikqmyZOM” / X (twitter.com)
This belated and indirect acknowledgement of the law is important in three main respects: firstly, gender critical therapists who are members of BACP have been sacked in the past for holding and expressing gender critical views. This statement will make it harder for employers to harass and victimise gender critical therapists in the future, given that the BACP, as the main therapist professional association in the UK, now acknowledges that the holding and expression of gender critical views is consistent with the law. It cannot therefore reasonably be deemed to be discriminatory or contrary to the BACP’s Ethical Framework (2018).
Secondly, the revised statement on the law will begin to shift the balance of power within the BACP itself and potentially begin to open up currently closed areas for debate. Gender critical therapists, such as those who are members or supporters of Thoughtful Therapists, have struggled in the past to publish articles in the BACP’s professional journals which offer a critical perspective on the organisation’s overwhelming emphasis on equality, diversity and inclusion, or to question the policy consensus within BACP on supporting a criminal legal ban on alleged conversion therapy for sexual orientation and gender identity.
Finally, the revised statement now presents a major problem for BACP senior management, in how to manage the emerging tensions between their enforcing an all-out, one-sided strategic emphasis on equality, diversity and inclusion, and recognising that gender critical perspectives on this policy juggernaut are legitimate, valid and strongly protected by the law. It will be interesting to see how BACP will try to manage this developing internal crisis for the organisation. The promise of open debate is a central plank of its EDI Strategy. However, there seems to be not a whisper of how to square this particular circle. On the one hand, there appears to be a powerful veto apparently held by those with the right kind of lived experience. On the other hand, there are the undoubted legal rights to free expression now clearly owed to the gender critical therapists within its own ranks.
References
American Counseling Association (2010) Competencies for Counseling with Transgender Clients, Journal of LGBT Issues in Counseling, 4:3-4, 135-159, DOI: 10.1080/15538605.2010.524839 Full article: American Counseling Association Competencies for Counseling with Transgender Clients (tandfonline.com)
Baines-Ball, L. (2021) “Why pronouns matter”. Therapy Today, 32:2, 30-33. https://www.bacp.co.uk/bacp-journals/therapy-today/2021/march-2021/why-pronouns-matter/
British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) (2018) Ethical Framework for the Counselling Professions. Lutterworth: BACP. https://www.bacp.co.uk/events-and-resources/ethics-and-standards/ethical-framework-for-the-counselling-professions/
British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) (2022) Did you know? Newsletter Issue 7. (March). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDYz1e4jldo
British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) (2022b). Queering the Therapy Space. https://www.co.uk/media/13943/programme.pdf
British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) (2023a) Equality, diversity and inclusion strategy. https://www.bacp.co.uk/media/17309/bacp-equality-diversity-and-inclusion-strategy-feb-2023.pdf
British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy BACP (2023b) Equality, diversity and inclusion in the counselling professions. Good Practice in Action 108: Legal Resource. https://www.bacp.co.uk/search?q=legal%20resource%20equality%20diversity%20and%20inclusion (BACP member login may be required)
Davies-Arai, S. (2018) “Letter: Ideology over reality.” Therapy Today, March. 29 (2), 17-18. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeP_K4vrSiTqsXpxNqYjyXAvZgQLKiApRIrC7rlgI71RxL-HA/viewform
Jenkins, P. (2021) LGBT research and the push for a UK ban on conversion therapy. Critical Therapy Antidote.https://criticaltherapyantidote.org/2021/09/26/lgbt-research-and-the-push-for-a-uk-ban-on-conversion-therapy/
Jenkins, P. (2023) Revising the BACP Ethical Framework: An attempt to impose a political EDI agenda. Critical Therapy Antidote. Revising the BACP Ethical Framework: An Attempt to Impose a Political EDI Agenda – Critical Therapy Antidote
Manning, S. (2021) “Rape victim is forced to quit her therapy sessions”, Mail on Sunday, 27th November. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10249633/Rape-victim-forced-quit-therapy-sessions-feels-threatened-6ft-trans-woman.html?fbclid=IwAR0ZzenOgQURSkI_vP035XLSr1DRVfc7aqNVy-eSf2x1ZVu9L-Z-6kh_xfU
Thoughtful Therapists (2021) Online petition: Meaningful dialogue with the BACP. https://actionstorm.org/petitions/dialogue-with-bacp
Thoughtful Therapists (2023) BACP Equality, diversity and inclusion strategy. https://t.co/CxikqmyZOM” / X (twitter.com)
Legal references
Forstater v. CGD UKEAT/0105/20/JOJ. Maya_Forstater_v_CGD_Europe_and_others_UKEAT0105_20_JOJ.pdf (publishing.service.gov.uk)
By Peter Jenkins who is also a member of Thoughtful Therapists, whose scoping survey for the UK government consultation on conversion therapy can be found here: https://thoughtfultherapists.org/scoping-survey-pdf/
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