Suzanne Moore is right (We can talk about self-care, but this mental health crisis is political, 26 November) that counselling and psychotherapy is about talking and that “it is better to talk about things rather than not”. Addressing the mental health crisis is one of the most challenging tasks faced by us all and counselling and psychotherapy have an important role to play in providing a solution. As the three leading regulatory bodies for the counselling and psychotherapy profession, representing over 50,000 counsellors and psychotherapists, we take this role very seriously. We have registers accredited by the Professional Standards Authority, accountable to parliament, and have in place robust professional training and conduct procedures.
To ensure that we continue to offer consistent training requirements and practice standards across the three professional bodies, we are mapping and defining common professional competencies for our professions. The Scope of Practice and Education for the counselling and psychotherapy professions (SCoPEd) is a collaborative project being jointly undertaken and will enable us to produce a common, evidence-based competence framework.
We are committed to ensuring that those who need it are able to access quality services that can address their needs. This means that, rather than offering “a bewildering array of approaches”, we want to ensure that a range of evidence-based treatments are made available so that people can access the best treatment according to their needs.
Gary Fereday Chief executive, British Psychoanalytic Council, Hadyn Williams Chief executive, British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, Sarah Niblock Chief executive, UK Council for Psychotherapy
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