ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors present some of the obstacles that need to be overcome if, as they believe it should, psychotherapy is to become an established profession. They support Sieghart’s original proposals for an indicative register of psychotherapists, a central part of the work of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP). The “core professions”, comprising psychiatry, social work, psychology, and nursing, were becoming less enthusiastic about an independent psychotherapy profession. The establishment of UKCP was a great leap forward in the path towards recognition as a profession, but major difficulties remain. A psychotherapy profession would be an arena in which this collaboration could be fostered for the benefit of the public. Many psychoanalysts achieve status and recognition through medicine rather than as psychotherapists, and so they are not strongly motivated either to support or to oppose a new psychotherapy profession.
