# United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy

The United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) is a professional association of psychotherapy organisations and practitioners in the United Kingdom.

## History

The UKCP exists to "promote and maintain the profession of psychotherapy and the highest standards in the practice of psychotherapy throughout the United Kingdom, for the benefit of the public." Only psychotherapists or psycho-therapeutic counselors who meet UKCP's training requirements and abide by its ethical guidelines are included in its online "Register of Psychotherapists".
The UKCP was initially founded in the 1980s as the United Kingdom Standing Conference for Psychotherapy following the Foster Report (1971) and the Sieghart Report (1978), which recommended regulation of the psychotherapy field. It was formally inaugurated as a council in 1993.
UKCP also represents the United Kingdom in the European Association for Psychotherapy (EAP) – a Vienna-based umbrella organisation which sets standards for equivalence of training and practice throughout Europe.

## Chair

UKCP elects its chair among its members.
| Term of office | Office holder |
| 2024–present | Pippa Donovan (interim chair) |
| 2023–2024 | Christian Buckland |
| 2022–2023 | Jo Lucas (acting chair) |
| 2022–2022 | Syed Azmatullah |
| 2016–2022 | Martin Pollecoff |
| 2012–2016 | Janet Weisz |
| 2009–2012 | Andrew Samuels |
| 2007–2009 | James Gray Antrican |
| 2005–2007 | Lisa Wake (now de Rijk) |
| 2002–2004 | James Pollard |
| 2001–2002 | Alan Thomson |
| 1998–2001 | Ann Casement |
| 1995–1998 | Digby Tantam |
| 1993–1995 | Emmy van Deurzen |
| 1989–1993 | Michael R. Pokorny (Chair of the UK Standing Conference for Psychotherapy) |

## Controversy

In October 2024 reports in the UK press alleged that self-regulation of therapists was ineffective. There were references to practitioners, including a GP, who were still able to set up in practice after having been struck off for misconduct by their member organisations, such as the BACP and UKCP. Misconduct was reported to include drug and sexual abuse. Campaigners and MPs have called for stronger measures to protect the public. However Professor Andrew Samuels, a long time psychotherapist and academic put forward the case that statutory regulation would not help the public nor the profession in the current ferment over abusive practitioners.

### Transgender youth

In November 2023, the UK Council for Psychotherapy published a statement on gender critical views that "Psychotherapists and psychotherapeutic counsellors who hold such views are likely to believe that the clinically most appropriate approach to working therapeutically with individuals who present with gender dysphoria, particularly children and young people, is exploratory therapy, rather than medicalised interventions such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or reassignment surgery." In April 2024 the UK Council for Psychotherapy withdrew from the Memorandum and membership of the Coalition against Conversion Therapy on the grounds of not wanting to oppose conversion therapy for trans young people. The UKCP argued that the ban could ban "exploratory therapy" of why children want to change gender and the chairman of the UKCP told the Telegraph that "The current MoU makes no distinction between adults and children, which we believe is not in the best interest of children and could compromise their wellbeing."