Please or to access all these features

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Call for NHS therapists to "educate" clients - British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP)

54 replies

BridgetYourFortyDaysAreUp · 15/08/2026 18:10

From Nick Wallis' GenderBlog today:

Call for NHS therapists to “educate” clients – GenderBlog

The British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) has proposed requiring its therapists to “actively promote inclusion” during therapy sessions and “ensure that any discriminatory attitudes and behaviours are challenged” when expressed by patients.

The BABCP regulates psychotherapists and BABCP accreditation is considered important for any Cognitive Behavioural Therapist (CBT) working in the NHS. It has more than 23,000 members. The new requirements are part of a proposed overhaul to the BABCP’s Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics, which, if approved, will come into force later this year....

Susan Forbes is a BABCP member and has been a psychotherapist for 25 years. She has worked with detransitioners and individuals with what she calls “gender distress”....

Forbes calls the proposed ban on challenging beliefs “dangerous”, because “it makes it impossible for the therapist to work in the client’s best interest. We cannot offer effective therapy if we treat every aspect of their self-concept as immune from therapeutic examination or change....”

….............................

I wonder if this is just another of BABCP's "ideas" or if they are trying to get ahead of the Conversion Bill failing? Or trying to get ready for a successful Conversion Act?

The few comments on the blog are interesting. It appears that BABCP's consultation received a few hundred responses out of some 23,000 members. Did the other members not respond because they didn't know about the consultation, didn't care to respond, or were they afraid to respond?

Call for NHS therapists to “educate” clients

The BABCP home page The British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) has proposed requiring its therapists to “actively promote inclusion” during therapy se…

https://genderblog.net/call-for-nhs-therapists-to-educate-clients/

OP posts:
Thread gallery
5
BridgetYourFortyDaysAreUp · 15/08/2026 18:49

PensionPTake · 15/08/2026 18:25

Why would anyone be afraid to respond to a consultation? More likely people cba because they don't have a strong view either way.

I agree that on the face of it, it seems like the kind of response you get from most consultations (i.e. no one can be bothered). From that, however, you get a very unrepresentative take from your members. I have run consultations before, and a response rate as low as this might even have been worth a "let's scrap this and try again."

Why would members be afraid to respond? It depends on BABCP's reason for putting out this consultation, and the information on respondents that they intended to collect. As the PP has said, people have lost their jobs, or been driven out of jobs, for "wrong think." If the consultation wasn't completely anonymous, I imagine quite a few members would have had to word their responses very carefully. Conversion therapy is a hot topic, about to get hotter.

Or the members didn't have to worry about what they responded, and everyone thinks this is a great idea? Anything is possible, I suppose.

OP posts:
SmudgeBrown · 15/08/2026 18:40

PensionPTake · 15/08/2026 18:25

Why would anyone be afraid to respond to a consultation? More likely people cba because they don't have a strong view either way.

Do you not know how people have lost their jobs and livelihoods for wrongthink on gender?

PensionPTake · 15/08/2026 18:25

Why would anyone be afraid to respond to a consultation? More likely people cba because they don't have a strong view either way.

Wishesandhorses · 15/08/2026 18:22

I'm bothered by the 'challenge' and 'inclusive beliefs' bit because that's usually about not including women, and making everyone convert to the borg. In other words, ooh look, it's conversion therapy to transgenderism.

The second part seems to contradict this, so I'm not sure either way.