the crisis is here, it’s time for the realism of divorce

traditional and CSJ psychotherapy and counselling must part ways

We surely have a bitter and weary impasse between the militant social justice faction and its opponents. We do not merely disagree in a civilised manner. We are in mutual entrenchment, with disavowed hate and contempt barely concealed, and no real dialogue on the horizon. The negative emotion swirling beneath the surface is obvious but mostly hidden from public view. My reading of the situation may be flawed but I believe the ‘left’ (this is shorthand for critical social justice activists) is highly motivated, angry, and destructive, while the ‘right’ (more or less conservative, traditional people) are moderate, non-fanatical, and slow to action.

From time to time, an individual ‘crosses the floor’, changing their views and expressing regret for their former position. Often, as people age, they modify their youthful leftism and become centrist or right-wing. Examples include the ex-Guardian journalist Melanie Phillips (2018) and playwright David Mamet (2012). Others, such as Jeremy Corbyn, discover the political meaning of life in their teenage years and stick with it without reflection or modification. Even well-informed thinkers incorporating Jungian theory can incline towards the view that a ‘mass psychosis of the right’ is the undoubted culprit (Johnson, 2019).

In the psychotherapy world, Freud was said to be effectively apolitical, or perhaps metapolitical (Greenberg, 2022). Jung, however, has been called an outright racist (Dalal, 1988). Today, many therapists appear to lean leftwards, but we do not know how many are covertly rightist because it has become dangerous to declare one’s political affiliation if it is anything other than leftist. A typical therapist today is apparently an explicitly Brexit-hating, antiracist, pro-feminist, LGBT-supporting, anti-capitalist, anti-psychiatry, climate change believing person. There are hidden nuances but this is the overall picture. Occasionally, a student or an elder in the profession will warily confide in me that they are not fully aligned with social justice claims. I have heard confessional asides of what SJAs would call transphobia, anti-feminism, Islamophobia, and anti-immigration and anti-diversity sentiments, from an admittedly small (but slowly increasing) number of therapists.

It is a source of sadness that I have lost some friends and colleagues, and some pieces of work and publishing opportunities for my (as I see it) moderately rightist views. I am not far-right but one eminent psychotherapist saw fit to use that epithet simply due to my Brexit sympathies, for example. It is difficult to understand why these political differences sometimes savagely cut through society and families as they have done in recent times. Perhaps our era has been mysteriously riven by an undiagnosed group hysteria. But we have to accept that something of this kind has happened, and that misunderstandings and hurt feelings seem to be irreparable. One way forward is a kind of separatism.

Apartheid in South Africa and racial segregation in the USA are egregious examples of white supremacy that probably loom subconsciously when we talk about any group separatism. But intense and murderous conflicts are not confined to black-and-white groups, as memories of the troubles in Northern Ireland from the 1960s to 1998, and in the Rwandan genocide of 1994 vividly demonstrate. Divorce is extremely common today, indeed we are forced to accept the statistics giving any marriage only a 50-50 chance of enduring. Unity has become a rarity, except in some small groups, and perhaps it is anyway a fantasy driven by unconscious dynamics. Personally, I believe the European Union is a dangerous utopian fantasy somewhat like the former USSR (as Gorbachev suggested), and the belief in some ultimately fair society is also an unachievable fantasy. Group splitting in organisations is a perennial phenomenon (Obholzer & Roberts, 2019). I have noticed in my working life that even small teams of psychotherapy trainers and practitioners were often in bitter conflict with each other despite a projected outward unity.

In the psychotherapy community, we have never had any real unity of theoretical or clinical dogma: ours is a thoroughly pluralistic field. This pluralism is usually celebrated as offering a rich choice but it is also confusing for consumers. We have hundreds of distinctly named therapeutic brands; these have traditionally fallen under the umbrella of psychoanalytic, cognitive-behavioural and humanistic but systems, multicultural, integrative, and pluralistic schools have constituted a loose ‘fourth force’. Not only clients but practitioners too are susceptible to confusion and the thin knowledge that comes with an excess of clinical epistemologies.

But perhaps the time has come, unfortunately, to recognise that the culture wars have torn apart any pseudo-consensus among psychotherapists and counsellors. The UKCP’s 2025 election for Chair revealed a voter split of 1,733 (Pippa Donovan) to 518 (Sue Parker Hall), that is a 77% to 23% split, on a turnout of 25% of the membership. This can be interpreted in different ways but it has been argued that the UKCP (like BACP, BPS et al.) was already leftist and biased, and we should note that we do not know what the 75% of non-voting, silent members actually believe. Following this result, Sue resigned and joined the US-based (with a British member organisation) International Association of Psychology and Counselling. Despite the charitable status of the professional bodies, they have uniformly declared their political allegiances to leftist causes, leaving no room for intellectual autonomy, dissent, or serious debate.

It may be that instinctively leftist people are attracted to the therapy professions (as also to social work, teaching and academia, media, etc.), while rightists tend to be more attracted to the business sector, law enforcement and other domains, as well as support for the nation state. This split is understandable to some extent but it is also problematic. If therapy is based on kindness, naturally empathic people will gravitate towards it. This is fine if those people recognise that half their clients may not share their political views and if they do not impose them in any way.

These arguments will continue indefinitely and tediously. We used to tacitly recognise that politics and religion should be kept out of dinner conversations. It used to be a rule of thumb that therapists would never bring their own politics into clinical sessions, and even that no evidence of a therapist’s beliefs or personality should be visible. But now many – almost always leftist - therapists blog and write copiously about their beliefs and have put the principle of non-self-disclosure behind them (see Cooper, 2019, for a glaring leftist example). They have shifted from the dignified ‘blank screen’ to social justice incontinence.

Some therapists presumably remain ‘neutral’ in sessions, even if politically active outside them. I am no longer in practice but if I were I would strive to remain neutral by focusing on the client and his or her relevant experiences and beliefs. Those who subscribe to mindfulness can presumably bracket or ‘rise above’ divisive politics, although this is not true for the Buddhist psychotherapists contributing to Loizzo et al. (2023), who fully endorse social justice activism. Those who believe that psychotherapy is a political activity must declare themselves openly. If you subscribe to the belief that one must be actively anti-racist rather than non-racist, for example, and that EDI is essential policy for our professional bodies, you must say so. In doing so, you declare ‘war’ on those of us who consider ourselves ‘mainly non-racist’* but who demur on EDI (when the ‘E’ should stand for Equality not Equity) and similar policies.

It looks like a terminal division is upon us. We could call it an affiliation cliff-edge. We should part ways before we are pushed. In the same way that early psychoanalysis threw up several schisms, and later modalities yielded even more fractures in the psychotherapy world, we should concede that we are now divided politically. Let the SJAs formulate their own models and offer their own discrete training. Let them write books and advertise for clients on this basis. Meanwhile, traditional therapists and counsellors can do likewise with their beliefs and models. This will allow trainees to make informed choices, and clients too to vote with their feet.

Launch distinctive schools of social justice informed psychotherapy (SJIP) and see where, market-wise, the chips fall. It might prove difficult initially for non-leftist trainers, given that most training institutes are beholden to leftist-dominated universities for validation, but that is yet another battle. Famously, Sigmund Freud and Carl Rogers at different times pulled away from the medical establishments of their day to assert their independence. We are now at another such fork in the road with a choice between revolutionary and conservative psychotherapies. I would like to believe that a few moderate, intelligent, and dialogically-minded therapists exist who wish to straddle or transcend the divide, but I know of hardly any.

*My own belief, shared by many, is that all human beings are somewhat ‘racist’ because evolution and culture has made us prefer our own kind. But this residual racism is not necessarily harmful, and to assert that ‘we must stamp out racism’ is an unwise totalitarian aim. Fairness is a noble aim but real life is not and will never be fair (Asma, 2013).

comment by Sue Parker Hall

This is a powerful, timely and important post. Thank you Colin for articulating what so many are feeling but afraid to say. As a psychotherapist working with trainees and early-career practitioners, I’m increasingly being approached by those who feel coerced into adopting belief systems they don’t resonate with. Many describe discomfort with mandatory training exercises that feel more like ideological indoctrination than professional development. Some report experiencing shaming rituals when they express disagreement, while others describe feeling silenced. The impact on their psychological safety and professional identity is deeply concerning.

Worryingly, this climate is being reinforced from the top down. The Professional Standards Authority (PSA), to which many UK counselling and psychotherapy organisations voluntarily register, actively promotes EDI and even encourages its membership bodies to remain alert to ‘emerging’ EDI issues. This vague and potentially expansive mandate gives ideological enforcement a formal seal of approval. The multitude of professional organisations that are voluntarily registered with the PSA can be found here

This insidious process shows no signs of stopping, and unless more of us speak up, our field will continue to be reshaped into something that abandons core therapeutic values in favour of ideological conformity.

references

Asma, S. (2013) Against Fairness. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Cooper, M. (2019) Politics in counselling and psychotherapy. https://mick-cooper.squarespace.com/new-blog/2019/12/6/counselling-psychotherapy-and-politics

Dalal, F. (1988) Jung: A Racist. British Journal of Psychotherapy, 4, 263-279.

Greenberg, U. (2022) Freud and the miseries of politics. The New Republic, 3 February.

Johnson, L. M. (2019) Ideological Possession and the Rise of the New Right: The Political Thought of Carl Jung. New York: Routledge.

Loizzo, J., Brandon, F., Wolf, E. J. & Neal, M. (Eds) (2023) Advances in Contemplative Psychotherapy: Accelerating Personal and Social Transformation, 2^nd edn. New York: Routledge.

Mamet, D. (2012) The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture. New York: Sentinel.

Obholzer, A. & Roberts, V. Z. (Eds) (2019) The Unconscious at Work: The Tavistock Approach to Making Sense of Organizational Life. London: Routledge.

Phillips, M. (2018) My Journey from Leftism to Sanity. New York: Bombardier.