BABCP and IABCP say Ireland’s new regulatory framework must protect high professional standards while recognising different evidence-based approaches to psychotherapy, says Colin Hughes, chair of the Irish Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies.
Responding to an article in the Irish Times, ‘Should therapists be in therapy? Unpacking the rift over psychotherapy standards in Ireland’ Colin Hughes said: ‘The article raises legitimate concerns about professional standards and public protection. However, its reliance on the Irish Council for Psychotherapy and European Association for Psychotherapy risks presenting one tradition’s approach as representative of psychotherapy as a whole.
‘Psychotherapy is not a theoretically uniform profession. Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapy has a distinct scientific and training tradition represented in Ireland through the Irish Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies and British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies membership and accreditation. BABCP administers specialist CBT accreditation and the CBT Register UK and Ireland, while IABCP provides a specifically Irish professional identity and certification for accredited practitioners working in Ireland.
‘Both are members of the European Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Therapies. EAP is therefore not the only European body representing psychotherapy and its requirements should not be presented as European consensus.
‘Some traditions regard personal psychotherapy as fundamental to therapist formation. CBT, however, does not ordinarily require that as a qualifying condition. Instead, it develops self-awareness and clinical competence through reflective practice, supervision, observed and recorded therapy, case studies, feedback and continuing professional development.
‘The Department of Health position reported in the article is that there is no consistent empirical evidence that compulsory personal therapy improves competence or client outcomes. Mandating it may also create emotional, financial, privacy and equality concerns.
‘By contrast, supervision is directly connected to observable clinical practice. Studies have found it offers promising effects on therapist competence, therapeutic alliance and patient symptoms[1]and skills[2].
‘CBT is among the most extensively researched evidence-based psychological treatments and is recommended by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, for many conditions[3].
‘NHS Talking Therapies also demonstrates the large-scale delivery of NICE recommended treatments. In 2024–25, 1.21 million referrals accessed treatment, 91.6 percent within six weeks and 50.5 per cent moved to recovery[4]. While not exclusively CBT, over 70% of all therapeutic courses were CBT and Guided Self Help demonstrating the value of competency-based training, supervision and routine outcome measurement.
‘CORU and IABCP/BABCP substantially agree on advanced education, supervised experience, evidence informed practice, reflection, ethics, continuing professional development and measurable competence. The issue is therefore not high versus low standards. It is whether one school’s preferred method should be imposed upon all others.
‘A pluralistic regulatory framework should mandate demonstrable competence, supervision, reflection, ethical accountability and public protection while allowing different evidence-based traditions to determine how those standards are achieved. Personal psychotherapy may remain compulsory within traditions that value it, but the current evidence does not justify imposing it universally upon CBT or psychotherapy as a whole.’
[1] https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1705578/full
[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35913852/
[3] https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng116/chapter/recommendations ; https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg31
[4] https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-talking-therapies-for-anxiety-and-depression-annual-reports/2024-25
