My conversations with members and colleagues across the profession have been on a diverse range of subjects. Training opportunities, barriers to entering and progressing in the profession, how we engage with our membership, and the importance of expanding a research base that is largely informed by westernised perspective.
They remind me how the UK counselling and psychotherapy landscape is a microcosm of the issues affecting us on a global scale.
This isn’t just a reflection of the issues that come up in sessions with clients, defining their experiences, or shaping your approach to therapy or your modality or beliefs.
It’s a reflection on the themes that are swirling around counselling and psychotherapy in the political, societal and economic mist... and that we must find our way through to get clarity for the profession and clients.
Around the world, there are varied contexts for counselling regulation and funding. But there is much concerning our members over here that also plays out across the globe – jobs, wages, VAT, digital advancement and contested professional identity.
These are topics that form the backbone of our policy team’s work; whether they’re speaking to the NHS, pressing for reform and investment with governments across the UK, or talking to businesses about the need to recruit more therapists.
So, in challenging how VAT impacts access to therapy and counselling services, we can learn from the recent success of the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA) in achieving legislative change for the removal of sales tax. We can also learn from their response to the rolling implementation of statutory regulation, and compare this with experience of our allies in the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.
These are just two of many examples of the shared issues that emerged in my roundtable discussions with colleagues at the International Association of Counselling (IAC) annual conference in Naples, Italy, recently.
Among the other powerful themes that arose from the conference, highlighted in a keynote address from the President of the European Parliament, was the importance of culturally-appropriate counselling for therapists, professional bodies and clients. This idea really took hold for me in conversation with colleagues from the World Health Organisation about BACP’s contribution to their approach to humanitarian work in parts of the world that have no comparable therapeutic infrastructure or capacity.
Looking inwardly at the UK, we’re a diverse and multi-cultural nation, and counselling and psychotherapy need to continue to evolve to meet increasingly diverse needs and perspectives. For BACP, this work starts with our EDI strategy, but it’s a journey of on-going change, so that we continually shape our support to members, training organisations and services for all that seek therapeutic support.
Being part of the global conversation is about a powerful exchange of culturally-informed knowledge and experience that enhances all of our work as professional bodies in territories with both striking similarities and stark contrasts. We’re not concerned solely about what might be happening across the UK’s borders with other countries, but how different national and global perspectives are already with us here in the UK, learning from our members’ experiences with difference, and the impact that global issues have on the therapeutic conversation.
This is the context within which we’re reviewing our Ethical Framework; again, something that should both inform and be informed by the IAC’s project on universal ethical principles. No-one yet has the answers to some of biggest common challenges, for which there may be no quick wins. But we are playing a very active part in conversations about AI, online counselling, the development of digital apps, climate-informed counselling – all themes raising questions and challenges for practitioners and professional bodies everywhere.
Issues like these will shape the future of counselling and don’t recognise international borders and will need a global agreement and response.
But coming together globally as a profession gives us a stronger opportunity to develop tangible projects, practice guidance and informed thinking that can benefit all our members and practitioners.
There is, of course, another common ground which we all stand firm on.
Increasing access to counselling is a unifying call across the world.
It’s what all professional bodies around the globe want to see.
And all these diverse themes and topics of conversation I’ve mentioned here all come back to exactly that.
We know counselling changes lives. We must work together to ensure it changes more lives in the future.
