The UCKP (professional body regulating psychotherapists who are registered with them) has been active in responding to public funding decisions around mental health in recent years. Initiatives, such as the IAPT one has done a fair amount of ignoring counselling and psychotherapy. CBT sifts to the surface as an NHS favourite (or rather NICE favourite) – with its research base behind it – leaving many other talking therapies out of the picture. It may mean this large cohort has to get its research act together, but this is inherently difficult as many long-term relational therapies (such as psychodynamic or humanistic therapies) don’t lend themselves to neat Randomised Controlled Trials and other measures that the current resesarch paradigm desires. That’s a whole other issue.
For those who are interested, the UCKP has recently published a paper formulating one suggestion for integrating more psychotherapy into publicly funded referral pathways….Tomorrow’s NHS