Counselling and Gender Critical beliefs

[rallyingcry]

Full disclosure: I'm a therapist and GC.
I work with children, teenagers and adults.
I don't come across trans issues often but when i do, always act with love, compassion and curiosity. Sadly I do tend to refer on clients where this is the main presenting issue as the law is unclear on conversion therapy and we don't appear to be allowed to explore issues, even when the client wants to! Insane! So I have to be careful and don't want to work under a cloud of censorship. I do worry that these clients will be potentially harmed by an affirming therapist who
doesn't help young people explore their identity when they want to, before embarking on lifelong irreversible journeys.
Anyhow, the person centred organisation (person centred is a modality which centres the client)
has released this statement:

https://www.the-pca.org.uk/index.php?option=comcontent&view=article&id=2786&catid=25&idU=1&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR00mQSg57WMSizvor-EEwTllyel1hsK9CIxsghsAOnI2vjPYY2l5ivNXH00aemUDEp4ti7NIIh7vhBST9J7Q

The well known therapist, academic and writer Mick Cooper (has a facebook page, look him up) has linked to this article on facebook and states that there's no place in person centred therapy for counsellors who are GC.

Is he also saying that therapists who are atheists, shouldn't work with christian/muslim/jewish clients? Because they don't share their belief systems? I'm not religious at all, but frequently work with clients who are followers and I show a respectful curiosity.

Anyone have any thoughts? Obviously no one
was really in disagreement with him in the comments and it seems a lot of comments have been removed. A well known TRA is one of the posters. And obligatory critic of the Cass Review as per expected.
I suspect the silent majority are remaining silent for the same reason I am.
We know that many detransitioners are angry that their therapists didn't ever explore underlying reasons for dysphoria, but simply affirmed.
I was trained to explore, show curiosity and gently challenge when appropriate.
The state of therapy today worries me greatly.

There was a post here recently raising awareness of a huge group of GC therapists

It may have been posted by TRAs online iirc but was a really heartwarming list

I read this yesterday and what struck me about it was the absolutely black and white nature of the idea that being person-centred and being gender critical are irreconcilable positions to hold at the same time. To me, one of the great joys of person-centred therapy is being able to hold multiple perspectives and to understand whether they are about me or about my client, and where they are useful and in the service of my client and where they are not. The suggestion that I cannot separate out my own personal beliefs and my respect for my client's autonomy is absurd - it's precisely what I am trained to do.

absolutely. I can't understand why Mick Cooper is holding such a rigid standpoint. It's totally against the ethos of person centred therapy. It's just bizarre. (although he does often have a pompous puritanical approach to his own personal gripes)

It seems very regressive. Demonstrating a sort of black and white thinking unable to consider views that might challenge your own thinking / pov?

But probably provides a very useful list of those emotionally and intellectually unsuited to the therapeutic world? Maybe more use in something more directive - painting lines on roads rather than dealing with people?

There is that well known phenomenon that afflicts politicians, unions leaders, medics and others who pontificate about all this. In trying to defend the indefensible and silence those who refuse to be bullied, they beclown themselves and just look foolish - while being convinced they're winning an argument. See Starmer, Lammy, leader of Unison, Upton and countless others.

and Mick Coopers facebook page is like an echo chamber because as we know, dissenting views can land you in hot water, even when they're perfectly reasonable and protected by law.

It says ‘Gender is a construct. But so is sex. So is money.’ so they’re clearly outing their own biased opinions on sex there. I don’t agree that sex is a construct.

Person centred therapists are likely to have wildly opposing views, beliefs and opinions on all sorts of subjects that their clients might present with. From beliefs about sex and gender, how best to raise children and where they stand on animal testing. The whole point of going through years of training and practice as a counsellor is to be able to put aside our own opinions and beliefs and engage our curiosity and skills to support the client in exploring whatever it is they’ve brought to the session. I don’t have to agree that the anorexic is fat in order to counsel her.

I suspect they think it’s ok for them to provide therapy to someone with gc beliefs though!

yeah, I was a bit 😳😱 at the comment that sex is a construct. I mean, that's demonstrably false.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/review-of-suicides-and-gender-dysphoria-at-the-tavistock-and-portman-nhs-foundation-trust/review-of-suicides-and-gender-dysphoria-at-the-tavistock-and-portman-nhs-foundation-trust-independent-report

Prof Appleby carried out an analysis of the suicide figures that are linked in that article and came up with some quite different conclusions.

I used to be a person-centred therapist and this doesn’t sound anything like my training!
We were always taught to question everything personally and professionally.

some therapists are very vocally political and their belief systems dictate how they think the therapy should be delivered. Which contradicts the very essence of person centred therapy!

As someone up thread said, would they be able to deliver the core conditions to a GC client? And if not, why? We can't pick and choose our clients and often beliefs (we may disagree with) come
up midway through the therapy.

The article is fundamentally flawed. It begins with a reasonable definition of gender critical beliefs being based on opposition to the idea that gender identity is always more important than sex. Fine so far. But then it assumes that this means that a person with gender critical beliefs holds the idea that sex is always more important than gender identity. And goes on about how a gender critical therapist would have already decided what outcome is best for their client. Ironically for a person centred approach it makes no good faith attempt to understand any ideas it does not agree with.

It also blindly cites an exponential rise in trans youth suicides by linking to a piece by Helen Webberley which links to a tweet by Jolyon Maugham.

It does not surprise me that the person centred modality is prone to this. It has a tendency to edge into "be kind" although respect and unconditional positive regard should find balance with congruence and ethical boundaries. Not all person centred therapists of course. But then modalities in therapy are about as useful as religious labels in what they tell you about any one individual.

What is sad is that therapists should be so unable to listen to each other and bridge divides. I know we're just people too but the training should have had more of a restraining effect on things that resemble witch hunts and purity spirals. But of course people are triggered by their compassion for suffering and fear mongering about harm being done to children.

I wish I had the balls to post this on his facebook page underneath all the cheerleader posts:

www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/feeling-our-way/202303/are-therapeutic-affirmation-and-validation-morally-good?amp

Excellent points. it's good to hear from a fellow therapist who sounds as exasperated as I am!

I recently attended some counselling and knowing what I know about counselling being a bit of a gender woo hotbed, I actually felt that I couldn’t be entirely honest with her in discussing what was affecting me, as I had no idea if she would just ditch me as a client. It was a very weird experience.

Thought the article makes incredible sense

therapist here

dont know how any therapist can’t see he is right

didn't see the bit about atheists - your don’t describe yourself that way though

which part did you find incredibly right?
The part which states that sex is a construct? 🤣🤣🤣

what were you afraid to say? I've heard this a lot, not just on the gender topic. Nobody should feel judged in the therapy room, Ever.

It's a great article but don't do it! People are way too embedded in their beliefs and this would entrench them even further, especially online.

I really liked this bit:

"Affirmation and validation change the social face of the patient but they do not lead to self-acceptance. The desired state is for the patient to feel seen, to feel that the therapist gets them in Peter Buirski’s felicitous phrasing, not to feel that the therapist approves of them, because where there is approval, there is the shadow of disapproval."

For me this is the fundamental difference. I prefer the term confirmation.

I am sort of frustrated but for various reasons insulated from it at the moment. I am UKCP aligned which was forced by James Esses to release the statement acknowledging that therapists can be gender critical and ethical.

To discuss the mental impact it all has on me. Just felt and knew I couldn’t mention it at all. So I talked about other things but not that one.

Mick Cooper is very much behind the times but you shouldn't put yourself at risk by posting. He will find that out for himself soon enough.

Many other therapists feel as you do and there are networks. Are you aware of Genspect? https://genspect.org/about/

Thanks for posting @rallyingcry . I’ve been thinking about this all weekend. I’m a counsellor too and I can’t get over that statement, it makes me despair of counselling as a profession. I trained on a course that Mick Cooper was heavily involved in developing, he definitely contributed to my ‘peaking’. A combination of him and the feminists of mumsnet.
I find it ironic that he is so keen on pluralistic counselling as he strikes me as quite totalistic on issues such as this one.

maybe he's just pluralistic on the issues he's aligned with?

Also Mick Cooper:

"In other words, when we engage with others from the assumption that we’re right or good and they’re wrong or bad, we betray a core principle of social justice thinking: that all people are of equal worth."

https://mick-cooper.squarespace.com/new-blog/2025/2/6/social-justice-and-the-person-centred-approach-celebrating-challenging-evolving

Cooper is openly political and posts opinions all over his page. For example, posting critically about the royal family. He's entitled to his opinions and therapists are human beings too, but I worry that by sharing my views openly on facebook, it would put some people off. I'm left wing on most subjects but not on all and I know that some people wouldn't like that. But I also know I'm a bloody good, caring therapist. So I keep politics out of counselling.