ABSTRACT
In the UK, the White Paper “Trust, assurance and safety—the regulation of health professionals in the 21st century” includes psychotherapy, counselling, and counselling psychology in what is taken to be an attempt to provide greater protection to the public. Perhaps there are characteristics of psychotherapeutic organizations which are more similar to trade associations, leading to practices that this White Paper, when implemented, should deter. There are many different responses, though, to regulation: for some therapists, being identified as a health professional is seen as giving them a status they deserve, yet, for others, any notion of a medical model defeats the purpose of the therapy. One way is to stay as clear as possible of regulations, and, where individual groups obtain the trainees and patients on reputation, it would not matter what they called themselves or what their training standards were; and ethical practice would be determined by the therapist and the training organization on a case-by-case basis.
