Monty Python, psychoanalysis and banning conversion therapy: a British Psychoanalytic Society webinar
witty, wise, and worrying in equal measure
Sue Parker Hall introduction
Peter Jenkins exploration of the BPS’s recent webinar on conversion therapy is sharp and sobering. With forensic clarity and a satirical eye, he dissects the questionable logic, legal confusion, and psychoanalytic blind spots that cluster around this important issue in the politicised climate of psychotherapy and counselling. This is engaging, informative and essential reading for anyone in our profession and beyond who cares about free inquiry, professional integrity, and the long held ethical principle of ‘do no harm’.
Peter Jenkins
Counsellor, supervisor, trainer and researcher in the UK. He has been a member of both the BACP Professional Conduct Committee and the UKCP Ethics Committee. He has published a number of books on legal aspects of therapy, including Professional Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy: Ethics and the Law (Sage, 2017). https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/author/peter-jenkins
He is also a member of Thoughtful Therapists. His critique of the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy was described as ‘instrumental’ in persuading the UKCP Board of the case for leaving the MOU in 2024.
Monty Python, psychoanalysis and banning conversion therapy: a British Psychoanalytic Society webinar
The recent webinar by the UK British Psychoanalytic Society (BPS) on Conversion Therapy revealed some strange bedfellows within the movement to ban conversion therapy in the UK. Presented by Jeremy Clarke, the talk was titled: ‘Policing the analytic space: The BPC Code of Practice and its new ‘no go’ areas’. This was presented as an exploration of the wider debate about banning conversion therapy (or conversion ‘practices’) and its potential impact on the British Psychoanalytic Council’s (BPC) Code of Standards, Practice and Ethics (2024). Jeremy Clarke might seem ideally suited to act as a speaker on this issue, with a background in the Albany Trust, and experience of advising government on introducing the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme. In addition, he has held the position of Deputy Chair for the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy (MOU), an interprofessional policy document supported by most therapeutic and medical associations in the UK.
The current UK Labour Government has presented an initial draft of legislation to ban conversion therapy. Previous failures to achieve this in the Scottish Parliament abruptly ended the careers of two First Ministers there, Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf, in quick succession. Banning conversion therapy thus seems to be something of a poisoned chalice for unwary UK politicians. This point is presumably not lost on Labour Ministers now contemplating such a ban, in the turbulent wake of the recent UK Supreme Court clarification of the biological basis of sex in applying the Equality Act 2010.
splitting in Roman times
Clarke brings impeccable psychoanalytic credentials, as well as political nous, to the task of rebuilding the flagging movement to ban conversion therapy. He tried to present an overview of opposing sides in the debate, ranging from the US to the UK, and of the pressing need to develop consensus about the issues at stake. As part of this, he referred to an important concept drawn from Melanie Klein (Mitchell, 1986: 53). He illustrated the obvious dangers of ‘splitting’, whether consciously or unconsciously, via the video clip from the Monty Python film, The Life of Brian. This showed the parodic split between the People’s Front of Judea versus the Judean People’s Front, both minute and completely irrelevant political groupuscules.
Having disposed of splits, Clarke argues the case for a legal ban. Briefly, all conversion therapy constituted a breach of Article 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998. This provision protects individuals from torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Increasing numbers of countries had already implemented a legal ban on conversion therapy, so it was time for the UK to join this legal trend. Demographic and social-generational changes indicated a growing sympathy for LGBT rights, so this kind of political pressure was only likely to increase over time. Based on the Government Equalities Office Survey (2018), it could be estimated that there was the potential for around 175,000 legal cases to be brought against the government for breach of Article 3. More recent work by Jowett (2021) indicated a continuing, substantive problem within the therapy professions concerning conversion therapy.
weakness of research on conversion therapy
And yet, the research on the prevalence of conversion therapy in the UK still remains weak, anecdotal and unpersuasive (Jenkins, 2021). Relying on international human rights law to pressure the UK government to legislate seems an increasingly long shot. This comes at the exact moment when even sections of the Labour Government seem to want to distance themselves from these all-embracing, non-negotiable global constraints on domestic policy. Changing generational support may be one factor, but YouGov reports suggest a definite peaking and decline in support for people claiming trans rights. The likelihood of mass claims against the government for breach of Article 3 seems a complete pipe dream, in the absence of any notable successful cases for alleged conversion therapy. The cited research by Jowett (2021) is comprehensively critiqued by Sex Matters. And so on…
At one level, Clarke appears to want to rise above the competing parties in the gender wars, unreasonably locked in conflict. At another, he seems to offer yet another version of a split as a possible solution, carefully tailored to appeal to his audience. Article 4 of the BPC Code prohibits discrimination against those with protected characteristics, such as gender reassignment, and Article 5 prohibits the practice of conversion therapy. Compliance with this self-policing might just exempt BPC members from the impact of legislation, given that ‘the target should be unregulated practitioners’. So now it seems that we have yet another emerging split, this time between ‘regulated’ practitioners, such as from BPC, and the great mass of ‘unregulated’ practitioners, practising therapy somewhere out there…
BPC and voluntary accredited registers
However, it really does seem very unclear whether BPC members would be inside or outside the scope of any new legislation on conversion therapy. This lack of clarity presents a real potential problem for the BPC, given that it is governed by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA). The PSA system is based on voluntary, accredited registers, but this is not a statutory or legally authoritative form of regulation, such as carried out by the Health and Care Professions Council (PSA, 2025a). According to the PSA (2025b), “We accredit organisations holding registers of health and care practitioners not regulated by law...” (PJ: emphasis added), which would presumably include psychoanalysts from the BPC? Strictly speaking, the BPC appears not to be a profession regulated by statute. So BPC members presumably would, therefore, be covered by any proposed legislation, rather than sit outside it on the speculative basis that they could be protected simply by compliance with their own BPC Code. Clarke’s main argument for claiming BPC ‘exceptionalism’ in the face of a conversion therapy legal ban effectively collapses like a pack of cards at this precise point.
LGBT – a fragmenting coalition?
Clarke’s presentation focuses mainly on the apparently strong ground of conversion therapy against lesbian and gay clients. However, firm evidence of such conversion practices by therapists declines sharply after the mid-1970s. There are several ritual references made to section 28, which prohibited local authorities from promoting homosexuality as ‘a pretended family relationship’ during the 1990’s. There is also an apparent constant elision in Clarke’s argument between homosexuality and trans identification, as if these two very different experiences could somehow both be covered effectively by law. Yet these situations are quite distinct, the first being a sexual orientation expressed in behavioural terms, the second concerns a discrepant internal sense of gender identity. A stable sense of trans identity requires continuous social affirmation simply in order to survive. A therapist preferring not to validate a client’s expressed gender identity immediately runs the appreciable risk of an allegation of conversion therapy, even if using exploratory therapy based on a mainstream modality (Jenkins and Panozzo, 2024).
another take on Monty Python’s Life of Brian
In terms of claimed ‘epistemic injustice’, the irony here is that Monty Python demonstrated a surprisingly prescient awareness of the coming trans phenomenon. This would have made for a much more productive point of exploration in psychoanalytic terms than Clarke’s choice of the Judean People’s Front video clip. This unexamined focus relies on another key concept proposed by Melanie Klein, namely that of unconscious envy. Shortly afterwards in The life of Brian, Stan, a vocal member of this group, asserts his wish to become a woman and to have a baby. Initially appalled, the other members of the People’s Front of Judea quickly seek to placate him by acknowledging his clear right to pursue this ambition, despite the evident practical barriers to him realising this goal in Roman Judea. In psychoanalytic terms, rather than recourse to the notion of splitting, we might well try to understand Stan’s wish in symbolic terms as a very different form of unconscious process.
One interpretation worth exploring here is that Stan is simply enacting an envious attack on Judith Iscariot, the only female member of the group. Or perhaps he is enacting an envious and hostile attack on the fecundity of women in general, in a fruitless bid to join another sex and acquire their ascribed rights and role in society. Melanie Klein describes this in explicit terms: “Excessive envy of the breast is likely to extend to all feminine attributes, in particular to the woman’s capacity to bear children” (Mitchell, 1986: 219). However, any therapist (even including psychoanalytic therapists from the BPC) seeking to work along such exploratory lines with a patient like Stan would run a definite risk of being charged, presumably under extant Roman Law, of practising conversion therapy, albeit in harsher, Biblical, pre-Freudian times.
references:
British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC) (2024) Code of Standards, Practice and Ethics.
“Policing the analytic space: the BPC code of practice and its new “no go areas”
Government Equalities Office (2018) National LGBT Survey: Research Report. Department for Education: Manchester.
www.gov.uk/government/consultations/national-lgbt-survey
Jenkins, P. (2021) Unpacking research into the prevalence of conversion therapy by therapists in the UK. Transgender Trend.
https://www.transgendertrend.com/conversion-therapy-therapists-uk/
Jenkins, P. and Panozzo, D. (2024) “Ethical Care in Secret”: Qualitative Data from an International Survey of Exploratory Therapists Working with Gender Questioning Clients. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy.
https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623x.2024.2329761
Jowett, A. et al (2021) Conversion therapy: An evidence assessment and qualitative study.
Conversion therapy: an evidence assessment and qualitative study - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Mitchell, J. (1986) The Selected Melanie Klein. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
People’s Front of Judea versus the Judean People’s Front: Video excerpt from The life of Brian.
Professional Standards Authority (PSA) (2025a) Organisations we oversee: Regulators.
https://www.professionalstandards.org.uk/organisations-we-oversee/regulators
Professional Standards Authority (PSA) (2025b) Organisations we oversee: Our work: Accredited registers.
https://www.professionalstandards.org.uk/organisations-we-oversee/our-work-accredited-registers
Sex Matters (2021) A rapid review of the Coventry University research on “gender identity conversion therapy”.
Stan’s right to bear a child: Video excerpt from The life of Brian:
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