Sir, Malcolm Allen (letter, July 18) is wrong to say that all mainstream professional bodies of psychotherapy and counselling actively support statutory regulation, if he is referring to the Government’s current imposition of regulation by the Health Professions Council (HPC).

The United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapists (UKCP), the major national organisation of psychotherapists, states on its website that “the HPC is primarily a medical and NHS model of regulation and the UKCP considers that the model proposed cannot effectively regulate psychotherapy”. In a recent survey of the individual membership of the psychoanalytic section of the UKCP 48 per cent of respondents were opposed to HPC regulation and only 27 per cent in favour. A poll of the British Psychological Society’s membership also rejected regulation by the HPC recently. Psychotherapists opposed to this form of regulation are not opposed to regulation in principle. We are arguing for a regulatory process fit for purpose.

Nor is it helpful for Malcolm Allen to imply that the Skills for Health exercise is confined to “publicly funded therapy available on the NHS”. The HPC is set to regulate private as well as public-sector practitioners and we have no guarantees whatsoever how the bank of Skills for Health competency statements will be used by the Department of Health over time. In light of the impact of constant interventions in the working relationships of, say, GPs or teachers, are psychotherapists wrong to be fearful for the integrity of their work? The evidence base of the Skills for Health project has been used to severely restrict and misrepresent the profession’s pluralistic culture in the pursuit of political aims, not to guarantee the work’s efficacy.

Paul Atkinson

Chair, Guild of Psychotherapists

London EC1

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