Critical Therapy Antidote

In what may prove to be a decisive development, former heads of the three main therapy organisations in the UK have broken ranks to criticise the continuing ideological capture of our profession. It feels as though a dam has broken at last. There are the first signs that the previously solid consensus about therapy’s enmeshment in social justice is finally cracking apart. The former heads of the British Psychological Society (BPS), United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) and the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) have each spoken out against the serious damage done to the therapy professions by the coercive turn towards critical social justice. This is a major and significant change. It is the first time that the former leaders of these three associations, responsible for 120,000 practitioners in total, have joined ranks to express their collective concerns in this very public manner.

Natalie Bailey was former Chair of the largest UK therapy association, the BACP, during the period 2019-2025. She has claimed that “many members have contacted me about the gender issue and how it is placing children at risk of serious harm”. This appears to refer to the BACP’s support for gender identity affirmative policies towards gender questioning children and adults. Gender identity affirmation lies at the heart of the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy (MOU), despite its loud protestations to the contrary. “The BACP supports the memorandum on conversion therapy and also agreed to a policy that pushed for affirmative care in children and ignored the findings of the Cass Review, she said, in what she called a ‘clear example of governance failure’. Ms Bailey said this ‘was introduced without balanced debate, with a major position effectively decided before it ever reached the board’” (Searles, 2025).

BACP as an agent for social change

Bailey’s comments will chime with the experience of many therapists. They are concerned about the BACP’s direction of travel, and its apparent lack of accountability over a ruthless adoption of policies prioritising race and trans issues, as distinct from its proper focus on promoting therapy. Just how did the BACP, in concert with BPS and UKCP, undergo this dramatic transformation? How did it change so drastically from a formerly respected professional therapy association, to a quasi-political movement for social justice advocacy, and within such a short space of time? The answer is that this change has been a long time in the making. It is possible, though, to discern distinct stages and key turning points in its overall evolution. This might enable us to counteract some of the most damaging consequences of this reckless change.

There have been four key stages in the BACP’s shift from a classic therapy professional association into a vehicle for promoting radical social change. In essence, this political change was not at all inevitable. It reflected the take-over of the BACP’s leadership by specific factions, promoting a combination of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and gender identity ideology. The first stage involved the gradual adoption of policies against alleged conversion practice, initially for gay and lesbian, and later trans, people. The second stage, or rather turning point, involved the BACP being ‘bounced’ by a well-organised pile-on by trans activists into censoring unwelcome research findings. The third stage represented the BACP’s turn towards social justice as its primary policy driver. This move ringfenced funding for its Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Strategy, and shaped a reframing of internal free speech, favouring those with ‘lived experience’. The final, current stage is one of extreme existential dislocation for the BACP and its members. The association’s internal regime finds itself totally at odds with external reality, in the shape of the courts’ repeated decisions protecting gender critical free speech. Equally, the BACP seems unable to respond in any coherent public manner to the UK Supreme Court’s legal judgement on the binary nature of sex with regard to applying the Equality Act 2010. 

Classical model of liberal professional association

But, to make sense of the BACP’s transition into a political advocacy machine, it is first necessary to revisit the notion of what a professional association was previously understood to be. The liberal professions were taken to be a core component of a mature democracy, with a key role in developing expertise for the benefit of its members and wider society. This model of a profession was essentially a fully modernist institution. It relied on scientific enquiry, rational debate, evidence-based practice, respect for differences of opinion and openness to member and public accountability. This seems a far cry from the current debacle within the BACP, with its revolving door of fleeing senior managers. The BACP’s state of confusion is further compounded by its strident public support for allegedly oppressed trans minorities and by a dogged refusal to acknowledge the existence of important policy developments, such as the Cass Review (2024) into the care of gender questioning children.

So, to start at the beginning, we need to go back to the BACP’s original response to allegations of conversion therapy by therapists:

Phase 1: Policy capture by slow degrees: The MOU and Conversion therapy (2009-17)

Attempts in past decades to eradicate same-sex sexual orientation were a dark stain on the medical and therapy professions, even though this had never been accepted as mainstream clinical practice (Smith, 2004). Such clinical practices had effectively disappeared for the most part within the UK from the mid-1970’s onwards, apart from in faith and domestic settings (Jenkins and Esses, 2021). A journalist reported an instance of alleged conversion therapy in 2009, leading to a successful complaint against the offending BACP therapist. This was followed by the BACP adopting a policy statement prohibiting alleged conversion therapy on the grounds of sexual orientation in 2012 (Jenkins, 2017). The BACP then joined with a raft of therapy associations and employer organisations in endorsing the MOU against alleged conversion therapy for sexual orientation in 2015.

However, following intense lobbying by gay, lesbian and trans activists, particularly within the BPS and UKCP, the MOU was extended in 2017 to include the prohibition of alleged conversion therapy on the grounds of gender identity (Charlesworth, 2021). Whereas same-sex sexual orientation is an observable behaviour, and part of the wide spectrum of human sexual response, gender identity has no agreed or set criteria. It is an idealist belief, an internal phenomenological experience, known only to others if so disclosed. There is no valid, agreed objective test for its very existence. Within a modernist tradition, it can therefore carry no scientific, medical or legal value for the purpose of determining social policy.

MOU and constraints on exploratory therapy

However, within the BACP and other therapy associations, the adoption of the heavily flawed MOU marked a decisive red line with the past. The MOU sought to constrain exploratory therapy, normally the stock-in-trade of any reputable therapist, to an absolute minimum (BACP, 2022a). Carefully avoiding use of the actual term ‘affirmation’, therapists were expected to use affirmative approaches with any client expressing doubts about their ‘real gender’. (This affirmative approach is also recommended in supposed BACP Good Practice Guidance, extended to include kink, non-monogamy and sex work (Barker, 2023)). The MOU seems to have scrupulously avoided clarifying whether its approach to therapy, hard-baked into the BACP’s own Ethical Framework from 2018, applied equally to children under 18 as to adults with full capacity. This crucial coda was not formally clarified by the MOU for the UKCP until 2019. It has apparently still not been made clear to BACP members, even now.

Not widely recognised at the time, the BACP’s adoption of the revised ‘gender identity’ MOU in 2017 marked the beginnings of the break with the traditional model of a classical liberal profession. For the first time, its members were expected to defer to the client’s expressed worldview, namely that they were ‘born in the wrong body’. Therapists were expected to explicitly endorse the client’s worldview and belief system, even where this might lead to harmful surgery, and long-term health consequences such as sterility. As has been frequently pointed out, therapists would be unlikely to endorse similar inaccurate and potentially harmful client beliefs in the case of eating disorders, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, or developing psychosis. So, from 2017 onwards, BACP policy has deferred to a minority belief system in gender identity, with no scientific evidence base to speak of.

Trans fragility and trans exceptionalism

Some therapists experienced pressure to adopt an implied conception of trans fragility, and to apply a policy of trans exceptionalism. This meant that therapists were all-too-easily lulled into breaking with therapeutic neutrality, sharing personal pronouns and providing explicit therapeutic endorsement of a post-modernist belief system of queer identity. Few observers saw that colluding with, rather than gently challenging, clients’ beliefs in their discrepant gender identity would later have such catastrophic results when applied to (largely gay) child clients at the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service between 2011 and 2020 (Barnes, 2023).

Phase 2: Lightning strike: Policy formation prompted by fear of a trans pile-on (2018)

The BACP’s endorsement of the MOU prohibiting alleged conversion therapy for gender identity has played a key role in preparing the ground for the gradual takeover of organisational policy by trans activists. There came a decisive moment, however, in 2018. The BACP broke with its own traditions of openness to competing perspectives and its willingness to publish conflicting views on controversial topics. This occurred when the BACP house journal, Therapy Today published a letter by Stephanie Davies-Arai from Transgender Trend on the topic of Lisa Littman’s (2018) model of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD). This led to an orchestrated email pile-on by 647 trans activists forcefully objecting to the letter. In turn, this was swiftly followed by a public editorial apology for the offending letter, and the redaction of the letter on the BACP website. This apparent censorship remains in force today.

This has proved to be a major turning-point in facilitating the unchecked growth of trans ideology within the BACP. The BACP leadership of the time seemed to abandon any commitment to open debate, or to protecting free speech about research. From this point onwards, it seemingly showed no stomach for a fight defending the core principles of a liberal profession.

Phase 3: Locking EDI into place and controlling free speech (2020-2023)

The BACP was profoundly affected by the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement from 2020 onwards. Race rapidly became the priority concern, as a new cohort of black militants took up positions of influence within the organisation. For example, David Weaver, former BACP President alleged that “racism is embedded in the counselling professions…” (Weaver, 2021: 5). The BACP turned decisively towards a Critical Social Justice Model, embedded in its central Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) policy (2023). This policy marks a permanent shift in the BACP’s strategic commitments, with £1.5 million in ring-fenced, i.e. non-reversible, funding. Under this policy, “Our desire for social justice determines everything we do …” (BACP, 2025a).

The impact of EDI policy has been to promote pro-trans narratives, at the expense of other protected characteristics perspectives. The BACP has, for example, promoted continuing professional development tackling the alleged problem of ‘Terfism’, namely women holding gender critical views (BACP, 2022b). As an organisation, it now collates membership data on the basis of gender identity, so that it can proudly announce that 80% of members “identify as a woman” (BACP, 2024: 8). This membership data is rather chilling, if actually meaningless for all practical purposes. The BACP seems so far to have made no public comment on the landmark legal case of Roz Adams, a counsellor at Edinburgh Rape Centre, who brought a successful case at Employment Tribunal (2024) for harassment by a trans boss over her gender-critical views and counselling practice.

The BACP has also published without comment the views of one researcher that discussion of trans issues should be limited to those with relevant experience: “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, …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” (BACP, 2022c).

With regard to lesbian rights, The BACP has been strongly criticised by Bev Jackson, of the UK’s Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Alliance, over the apparent involvement of BACP members in producing a mental health app. This app was seemingly designed to support men in accessing the benefits of lesbian communities. Jackson (2025) complained strongly about “this grotesque app, which encourages men to trample on lesbians’ right to dignity and to their right of association… To see a therapists’ organisation cheering on this violation demonstrates that the ‘cotton ceiling’ discourse is alive and well.”

Finally, a survey of 38 Therapy Today articles grouped by main themes for the period 2022-25 indicates a remarkable absence of articles which are at all critical of gender identity affirmative approaches:

Race	Critical Social Justice Theory	LGBT	Gender Critical	Total
18	14	7	0	38*

Table 1: Audit of article topics in Therapy Today 2022-25 (* one article appears in two columns)

This compelling absence of discussion or permissible dissent continues, even though the BACP’s own published research indicates: “There are a significant minority of therapists who do not work with trans people in an affirming way, do not believe that there should be a ban on conversion therapy and view trans identity as a psychological illness” (Mollitt, 2022: 1024).

Phase 4: Ignoring the real world, in order to protect BACP’s vision of social justice (2023 – Present)

The BACP’s attempted shutdown of internal debate about the MOU, gender identity ideology and exploratory rather than affirmative therapy has led to growing passivity and cynicism amongst some of its members. Its stance flies in the face of a whole raft of court decisions defending the right to hold and express gender critical and race critical views, following the Forstater case. The BACP has also failed to provide a reasoned public response to the 2025 Supreme Court decision, which clarified that biological sex, not claimed gender identity, was key to applying the provisions of the Equality Act 2010. In fact, the BACP’s response to the Supreme Court was to issue an unprecedented statement of solidarity directed solely at the Trans, Non-Binary and Gender Questioning (TNBGQ) community:

“We want to offer our support to the TNBGQ community, not just at this incredibly difficult time, but to let you know we stand alongside you always. We aim to be a fully inclusive membership body and charity for all TNBGQ people.”

The BACP (2025b) appears to be ignoring here the legitimate parallel rights of lesbians and gays, and of women as a class, in favour of expressing partisan support for a tiny fragment of the collapsing former LGBT coalition. The BACP has also signally failed to acknowledge and engage with the Cass Review (2024) of services for children experiencing gender distress, on the spurious grounds that “psychotherapists do not provide medical procedures” (Clark and Connor, 2025: 12). In addition, the BACP appears to be weakening the crucial and necessary historic distinction between therapy with adults and therapy with children. The Ethical Framework 2018 refers to the necessity for “knowledge and skills about ways of working that are appropriate to the young person’s development” (Section 27b). This section has now been completely removed from the Draft version (BACP, 2025c), thus echoing the MOU in terms of its rigid compliance with Queer Theory.

BACP as a political advocacy organisation?

In many key respects, the BACP no longer appears to be operating as the classic liberal therapy profession which it once was (Jenkins, 2017: 10).  (see table below).

	Liberal/Professional Orientation	Anti-Liberal Professional Orientation
Membership Criteria	Value-based, i.e. professional norms, code of ethics, complaints system	Belief-based, i.e. individual declaration plus acceptance into community
Philosopical Orientation	Modernism, i.e. scientific method crucial to achieving human progress	Anti-modernism, i.e. physical and social worlds determined primarily by belief
Attitude towards Research	Physical and social worlds knowable primarily via scientific research	Value of research determined primarily by relevance to achieving political goals
Community Culture and Practice	Rationalism, plurality, open debate, degree of tolerance for minority views	Limited or zero tolerance of dissent, or external criticism of core beliefs
Orientation towards Conflict	Incremental progression by means of resolution of key differences	Vigilant policing of existential threats to boundaries, e.g. language, legal changes
Goals and Objectives	Promoting evidence-based practice to advance profession’s interests	Advancement of own perceived sectional interests, expressed as absolute, nonreciprocal rights

Table 2: Comparison of attributes of Liberal/Professional Orientation and Anti-Liberal Political Orientation. (Jenkins, 2021).

Conclusion

Following on from Table 2 above, the BACP might well have retained the hard outer shell of a professional therapy association, in terms of its membership criteria and fees, standards for training and accreditation, CPD, research and publication. However, in practice, as an organisation it is now corroded and hollowed out from within. It seems to have broken with the basic tenets of the classic liberal professional association which it once pertained to be. The BACP’s orientation now seems to include: deference to unevidenced beliefs about gender identity, redaction of research on political grounds, limited tolerance of dissent in terms of publication, resistance to existential threats, such as changes in the law, and the advancement of the perceived sectional interests of narrowly partisan groups, namely the TNBGQ community, rather than the legitimate parallel interests of other protected groups, such as gays, lesbians, women and children. Its former prestige, reputation and claim to be an authentic professional association for therapists is now open to serious challenge as a result.

This leaves many therapists, including BACP members, in a real quandary. If the BACP’s sharp turn towards social justice has robbed us of our former professional home, then what are the options open to us? Many therapists are just quietly leaving the BACP, or just not renewing their membership. However, attempts to challenge the current lack of debate within the BACP continue.  Counter-organisations such as Thoughtful Therapists, Genspect, Critical Therapy Antidote, Therapy First, Save Mental Health and Just Therapy are slowly growing in size, reach and influence. Even the regulatory bodies, such as the Charities Commission and Professional Standards Authority, can be forced out of their performative sleep-walking into actively investigating the moral collapse of the main therapy bodies, such as the BPS, the UKCP and the BACP. Support for EDI is being axed across the private sector, if not yet in the public sector. And organisations still clinging to Stonewall law will shortly feel the heat from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, wherever they remain in denial of the UK Supreme Court ruling. Sex, not gender, and not gender identity, is at the very heart of the UK Equality Act 2010.

References

Barker, M.J. (2023) Gender, Sexuality and Relationship Diversity (GSRD). Good Practice Across the Counselling Professions 001. https://www.bacp.co.uk/media/22810/bacp-gender-sexual-relationship-diversity-gpacp001-mar23.pdf

Barnes, H. (2023) Time to think: The inside story of the collapse of the Tavistock Gender Service for children. Swift: London.

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) (2022a). Memorandum of understanding on conversion therapy. https://www.bacp.co.uk/events-and-resources/ethics-and-standards/mou/

British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) (2022b). Queering the Therapy Space. https://www.co.uk/media/13943/programme.pdf (link removed)

British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) (2022c) Did you know? Newsletter Issue 7. (March).  Video: (15.02-16.23) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDYz1e4jldo

British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) (2023) Equality, diversity and inclusion strategy. https://www.bacp.co.uk/media/17309/bacp-equality-diversity-and-inclusion-strategy-feb-2023.pdf

BACP (2024) Workforce Mapping Report Work: October 2023 – September 2024. bacp-workforce-mapping-survey-report-2023-to-2024.pdf

British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) (2025a) About BACP: Our philosophy. https://www.bacp.co.uk/about-us/about-bacp/

BACP (2025b) Statement of support for the trans community. https://www.bacp.co.uk/news/news-from-bacp/2025/24-april-statement-of-support-for-the-trans-community/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Orlo

BACP (2025c) Draft Ethical Framework for the Counselling Professions. https://www.bacp.co.uk/media/23628/ethical-framework-for-the-counselling-professions-2025.pdf

Cass, H. (2024) Independent review of gender identity services for children and young people. https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/

Charlesworth, S. (2021) Captured! The full story behind the memorandum of understanding on conversion therapy. https://www.transgendertrend.com/product/captured-the-full-story-behind-the-memorandum-of-understanding-on-conversion-therapy/

Clark, S. and Connor, J. (2025) “Language matters”, Children, Young People and Families, June, pp. 11-14. https://www.bacp.co.uk/bacp-journals/bacp-children-young-people-and-families-journal/2025/june/ (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

Jackson, B. (2025) “Cotton ceiling 2.0”, The Critic. https://thecritic.co.uk/cotton-ceiling-2-0/

Jenkins, P. (2017) Professional practice in counselling and psychotherapy: Ethics and the law. London: Sage.

Jenkins, P. And Esses, J. (2021) Thoughtful Therapists: Scoping Survey for Government Equalities Office Consultation on Conversion Therapy. https://www.thoughtfultherapists.org/

Jenkins, P. (2021) Through the looking glass: Making sense of the MOU Parts 1 and 2: Critical Therapy Antidote: https://criticaltherapyantidote.org/2022/03/25/through-the-looking-glass-making-sense-of-the-mou-part-1

Through the Looking Glass: Making sense of the MOU – Part 2 – Critical Therapy Antidote

Littman, L. (2018) “Parent reports of adolescents and young adults perceived to show signs of a rapid onset of gender dysphoria.” PlosOne, 13(8), e 0202330 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0202330 

Mollitt, P.C. (2022). Exploring cisgender therapists’ attitudes towards, and experiences of, working with trans people in the United Kingdom. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 22, 1013–1029. doi:10.1002/capr.12559 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361640558

Searles, M. (2025) “Top therapist ‘ousted’ after trans activist row.” 26^th October. Sunday Telegraph. Top therapist ‘ousted’ after trans activist row

Smith, G. et al. (2004). Treatments of homosexuality on Britain since the 1950s – an oral history: The experience of patients. British Medical Journal, 328, 427–429. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14751920

Weaver, D. ‘From the President’ (2021) Therapy Today, 32(8): 5. https://www.bacp.co.uk/bacp-journals/therapy-today/2021/october-2021/from-the-president/

Legal references

Adams v Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (2024) Employment Tribunals (Scotland) 4102236. 4102236 – Judgment – 14.05.2024 (redacted).pdf – Google Drive

For Women Scotland Ltd (Appellant) v The Scottish Ministers (Respondent) [2025] UKSC 16 https://supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2024-0042

Forstater v. CGD UKEAT/0105/20/JOJ.  Maya_Forstater_v_CGD_Europe_and_others_UKEAT0105_20_JOJ.pdf (publishing.service.gov.uk)

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By Peter Jenkins, counsellor, supervisor, trainer and researcher in the UK. He has been a member of both the BACP Professional Conduct Committee and the UKCP Ethics Committee. He has published a number of books on legal aspects of therapy, including Professional Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy: Ethics and the Law (Sage, 2017).  https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/counselling-and-psychotherapy-professional-practice/book243292

Peter is also a member of Thoughtful Therapists. His critique of the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy was described as ‘instrumental’ in persuading the UKCP Board of the case for leaving the MOU in 2024.