UPDATE 15

27 February 2025

Dear Supporter,

Welcome to the February update. Here's what we are covering in this month's edition:

  •       Lucy Beney's latest article 'What's Love Got to do with it?' 

  •       UK Council for Counselling and Psychotherapy's voting fiasco

  •       A story from one of our supporters

  •       Facebook Group for Therapists

  •       The launch of a new journal challenging ideological bias

  •       How EDI is now embedded in the NHS

Correction

Firstly, we would like to make a correction.  In the January Update we said that only 25% of clinical psychology trainees were male.  John Barry, of the Centre for Male Psychology contacted us to say that it's nearer to 15%. He sent us this article which may be of interest.

Thank you John. We are sorry, though, to hear that it's worse than we thought.

'What's Love Got to do with it?'

In her latest article, Lucy Beney writes about the 'uncoupling of sex from romantic love' and 'its distortion into something increasingly dark, damaging and destructive for young people today'.  While the main purpose of sex was previously to 'ensure babies and bonding', it has now become a 'recreational activity'.  Also, the 'commodification' of sex and romantic love has been 'supercharged by the internet and particularly social media'. Lucy cites the case of Lily Philipps, who decided to have sex with 100 men in a single day resulting in 'a tearful young woman's utter degradation for public entertainment'. 

Lucy acknowledges the good intentions of politicians in the 1960s who wished to give greater freedoms to those suffering societal stigma, such as unmarried mothers and gay people. However, she points out that the 'permissive society' has become an 'uncivilised society' where boundaries are blurred to the extent that acts previously considered deviant or perverted are now normalised as 'sex positivity'. She calls for therapists and therapeutic organisations to take some responsibility for what has happened and for 'failing to be on the front line of 'child protection'. 

In her conclusion Lucy reflects that "In our rush to be accepting of everyone and everything, we have forgotten that there are some very unsavoury aspects of life which we need to reject, and from which it is duty to protect children and young people."  How true are these words.  Please share Lucy's article widely.

UK Council for Counselling & Psychotherapy's (UKCP) Voting Fiasco

Supporters may recall the problems the UKCP had with therapist activists last year.  The activist body TACTT criticised the UKCP for removing its signature from the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy (MoU). The reason the UKCP did so was due to concerns that the MoU applied to both adults and children without regard to safeguarding for children.  TACTT tried their best to oust the Board of Trustees at the UKCP, but failed, although UKCP's Chairman Dr Christian Buckland, who had fought hard to hold the organisation's position, stepped down.  An interim Chair was put in place until a new Chair could be formally elected. 

That election is now taking place.  There are two candidates for the position of Chair: Pippa Donovan, the Interim Chair, who is in favour of increasing UKCP's commitment to EDI, and Sue Parker Hall, who takes a strong stand on safeguarding children. Unfortunately, the election process took an ugly turn when Parker Hall was publicly criticised by a group of UKCP-accredited activist therapists who claimed she was espousing 'far-right views and conspiracy theories'.  You can read her response on the Save Mental Health website here and find out more about the shenanigans around this election process in Critical Therapy Antidote's commentary here.

The result of the UKCP elections will be announced on 3rd March. If Pippa Donovan is elected Chair, the UKCP may be lost to activism and it is unclear whether or not the organisation will decide to renege on withdrawal from the MoU.  Peter Jenkins has written an excellent article for Critical Therapy Antidote, explaining the legal risks of UKCP going 'full throttle' EDI.  Watch this space.

 

The Telos of Counselling in the Age of Critical Social Justice

We often ask our supporters to send us their stories related to mental health and activism. Earlier this month we received this story from an anonymous supporter about their experience of therapy training.

It is a thoughtful piece about the 'telos' or meaning of counselling in the age of Critical Social Justice.  The writer explains that traditional therapies, whatever the modality, aim 'to improve the psychological wellbeing of the client from an internal perspective' and to 'help them deal with their emotional difficulties and function more effectively in the world'.  In the case of Critical Social Justice, however, 'this theory flips the traditional therapeutic idea of helping the client change through psychological interventions into a mode of encouraging, or perhaps demanding, the client changes the world, as opposed to changing themselves'.  Thank you to this supporter for sharing your story with us.

If you have a story to tell, please get in touch here.

 

Facebook Group for Therapists

If you are a therapist who would like to join a private Facebook group here's a link to one recommended by another Save Mental Health supporter, who says: "It's been a comforting refuge for therapists to be able to openly discuss topics of relevance.  It's well-moderated to keep any radicals in check and respectful".

 

Launch of the Open Therapy Institute's new journal

The Open Therapy Institute in New York launched the first issue of its new online journal 'Frontiers in Mental Health’ earlier this month.  Edited by Andrew Hartz, CEO of OTI and Val Thomas, founder of Critical Therapy Antidote, the purpose of this journal is to highlight perspectives that have, until now, been overlooked due to socio-political bias.  

This first edition contains a wide range of perspectives from several different authors.  Subjects include activism in therapy; antisemitism on campus; ways to help men and boys develop a positive sense of masculinity; and harmful DEI practices, amongst many others.  Save Mental Health's Carole Sherwood is pleased that her article 'Revolution in Culture: the psychological effects of a politicized society' was published in this first issue.  She will be taking part in an OTI online workshop on 5th April 1700-1900 GMT, along with Jaco van Zyl, Omar Sultan Haque and Craig Frisby. OTI's workshops are designed for mental health professionals but may be of interest to a wider audience.  

 

EDI is now embedded in the NHS

James Esses has just released a damning article on the extent to which EDI is now embedded in the NHS.  You can read his piece 'The NHS has gone woke'  here in his joint Substack with Matt Goodwin. Just after it was released, Save Mental Health were made aware of another example that we would like to share with our supporters:

The latest Trust to be brought into line with EDI requirements is the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT).  This Trust is the major mental health provider for Norfolk and Suffolk, serving a population of 1.6 million. Their newly appointed CEO  Caroline Donovan has just announced in her blog that the Trust will be holding a 'Race Equity' Conference for staff on 31st March 2025.

According to Donovan, this is designed to help staff "consider how NSFT can become much more inclusive organisation and enable us to co-design the conference alongside our Race Equality and Cultural Heritage Network (REACH) network." She concludes "There is much to do, and this work is absolutely vital, please do attend if at all possible – it is open to everyone across the Trust."

NSFT is widely acknowledged to be a 'failing' Trust. It has had a succession of CEOs over the past decade.  In 2022 a Care Quality Commission (CQC) report found it to be ‘Inadequate'. In 2023 the CQC rated the Trust as 'Requires Improvement'. NHS England only released the Trust from special measures on 10th February 2025.  In 2024/25 it needs to make efficiency savings of £17.4 million.

Yet, despite the Trust's history of failures, its need for efficiency savings, and the Health Secretary's recent criticism of "misguided" EDI agendas, CEO Caroline Donovan is "delighted" to announce, as one of her first initiatives, a Race Equity Conference.  This Conference is to be led by Yvonne Coghill, described as a "leading light in NHS race equality" who has "undertaken a detailed review of race across the Trust".  Coghill states “There is irrefutable evidence globally that people from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds who live in white majority countries have poorer life chances and experiences compared to their white counterparts.”  It is reported that "more than 1:10 of the workforce at NSFT are from black and minority ethnic background also known as 'global majority'." 

To put this in context, both Norfolk and Suffolk have a lower proportion of non-white residents compared to the national average.  North Norfolk has a high proportion of elderly people living in rural and coastal areas where, according to the North Norfolk Health and Wellbeing Partnership Strategy 2023 - 2026 there is a 'dearth of services' and  'high rates of preventable illness'. This report states that coastal communities have been 'long neglected and overlooked with limited research on their health and wellbeing.' It also refers to two further 'major reports' highlighting the need for action to 'Reduce the impact of health inequalities on coastal and rural communities'.

This rather begs the question: Why is NSFT prioritising a 'Race Equity' conference when there is a 'dearth of services'for the overlooked elderly and rural poor in the region's coastal communities?  NSFT's CEO writes in her blog that “the clear message from the Secretary of State and NHS England is that all Trusts must live within their means and the NHS needs to stop tolerating deficits”.  Yet, this conference, has been designated as a priority. Caroline Donovan would do well to ensure that the priority for NSFT is providing excellent patient care and meeting the needs of vulnerable and overlooked populations in the region, rather than diverting scarce resources to EDI and race equity.

Carole Sherwood of Save Mental Health will be giving a talk in April to NCF Locals in Norwich on these matters, and the wider issue of EDI in the NHS.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Remaining on the subject of EDI, we thought you might like to watch this video with Andrew Hartz, CEO of the Open Therapy Institute and Leslie Elliott, discussing the inherent contradictions at the heart of the social justice movement.  It's titled: Deconstructing DEI – The Hypocrisy of Diversity .

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