The United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) exists to promote and maintain high standards in the practice of psychotherapy for the benefit of the public throughout the United Kingdom. Only psychotherapists or psychotherapeutic counsellors who meet the training requirements of UKCP and abide by its ethical guidelines are included in the UKCP's online "Register of Psychotherapists".
The council membership represents the majority of recognised psychotherapy organisations in the United Kingdom.
There are at present 76 member organisations. They are grouped together in autonomous sections representing all the main traditions in the practice of psychotherapy. The UKCP was established in 1993 and within a few years had evolved into being a national umbrella organisation for most major psychotherapeutic modalities.
The council is run by a board of trustees which is elected annually by its members. The current chair is Andrew Samuels. A number of subcommittees, including the ethics committee and those committees responsible for UKCP's relations with other bodies such as the National Health Service (NHS) and the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), report directly to the board of trustees.
Membership is also important in the wider setting of the European Community. The UKCP represents the United Kingdom in the European Association for Psychotherapy (EAP) based in Vienna, which sets standards for equivalence of training and practice throughout Europe. The UKCP is the National Awarding Organisation (NAO) overseeing the award of the European Certificate of Psychotherapy (ECP) in the UK.
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The United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy is the national registering body serving the public by promoting excellence within the profession of psychotherapy. Through partnerships with government, training organisations and other relevant bodies, they endeavour to ensure quality in their work and protection of the public through:
As the national registering body for a unified profession, it acknowledges a multiplicity of psychotherapeutic approaches, and recognise this plurality as an asset. Maintaining and integrating quality assurance programmes across the field enables members of the public greater choice, accessibility, and safety when engaging with a UKCP registered psychotherapist.
The UKCP regards the regulation of psychotherapists and the public accountability of their practice as of paramount importance. This is in order to safeguard the interests of patients and clients and the reputation of registered practitioners. The present Register is voluntary, in other words it is not required by any Act of Parliament, but the UKCP is campaigning with other related organisations for the statutory regulation of the 'talking therapy' professions.
UKCP currently delegates the accreditation and re-accreditation of members to UKCP organisational members. Organisational members may be training, accrediting or both. Individual psychotherapists can only join the UKCP register following accreditation by one of these organisations.[1] At present there is no way of registering directly with UKCP.
The UKCP does not run courses leading to UKCP accreditation - these are provided by its organisational members. Some training organisations also accredit and will award Accreditation of Prior Learning (APL) or give credit for previous training experience.
Candidates for registration who trained on a course that does not lead directly to membership need to seek accreditation by an accrediting organisational member.[2]
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.[3] It was formally inaugurated as a council in 1993.