Open Letter - BACP response & analysis...(22.3.26)
The BACP Has Responded. Here Is What They Said. And What They Didn’t.
Dear reader,
If you are a glutton for punishment, you may have followed the open letter I wrote along with Nash Popovic to the BACP on pluralism and ideological neutrality, prompted in part by the President’s October 2025 Therapy Today column on “whiteness.”
The open letter was signed by more than sixty colleagues across the profession, and the BACP has now finally replied.
For those with the stomach, the full response, the original letter, and my analysis are below. It is much longer than usual, but I wanted to keep the whole thing in one place and do it properly before closing out this particular exercise.
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The Open Letter (18 February 2026)
The full text of the open letter to the BACP, convened by Steve Perkins and Nash Popovic.
Open Letter to the Leadership and Ethics Committees of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy
18 Feb 2026
To the Leadership and Ethics Committees of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy,
We, the undersigned BACP members and other therapeutic professionals, are deeply concerned by the growing incorporation of critical social justice frameworks into the BACP’s definitions of ethical practice and competence.
The President’s column in the October 2025 Therapy Today is a clear example: it framed “whiteness” as an inherently problematic identity requiring interrogation. This treats one contested ideology as orthodoxy - a position many members and clients reject on intellectual, clinical, or ethical grounds.
Many practitioners now risk being deemed lacking in cultural competence or unethical simply for prioritising individual experience over group-identity analysis, while clients may also feel pressured to adopt a political framing of their distress.
Therapy must remain a space where the client’s subjective experience is sovereign, where evidence-informed approaches from all traditions are equally legitimate, and where no single social or political ideology is imposed as “best practice.”
We therefore urge the BACP to reaffirm its core commitment to evidence-informed practice, theoretical pluralism, safeguarding ideological impartiality and free exploration, and protecting open discourse without fear of censure.
To demonstrate its commitment to genuine theoretical pluralism and ideological neutrality, we invite the BACP to adopt the following constructive steps:
1. Issue a public statement reaffirming its longstanding support for theoretical and viewpoint diversity, and clarifying that no single social-justice framework is treated as a primary requirement for ethical practice.
2. Establish (or support) an advisory panel tasked with reviewing recent publications and guidance, with a brief to ensure that language and examples remain inclusive of the full range of legitimate therapeutic approaches.
3. Devote at least one full issue of Therapy Today in 2026 to exploring pluralism and viewpoint diversity in counselling and psychotherapy, actively welcoming contributions from all major theoretical orientations.
4. Agree to participate in (or co-sponsor) an open professional conference or public panel discussion on the proper place of social and political frameworks within therapeutic training and practice.
Implementing them would show that the BACP is prepared to listen to the many members who feel alienated by its present course. This is not an attack on equality or social awareness, but a defence of the open, pluralistic, client-centred profession we trained to practice. Together, we encourage the BACP to lead with transparency and respect for the full spectrum of professional thought.
Signed,
Dr Jude Adcock — Psychotherapist · Andrew Armour — Executive Coach · Ursula Barnes — Integrative Counsellor, Systemic Psychotherapist · Sue Beaney — Psychotherapist · Lucy Beney — Counsellor · Mark Birbeck — Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist · Ian Andrew Boss — Counsellor · Antoine Bowes — Psychotherapist · David Britten — Counsellor, Psychotherapist · Jennie Cummings-Knight — Psychotherapeutic Counsellor · Heather Dale — Supervisor, Therapist · Andrew Deakin — Counsellor · Windy Dryden — Professor · Wendy Durell — Art Therapist · Sandi Durnford-Slater — Doctoral Student · Audrey Elliot — Counsellor, Psychotherapist · Deborah Evans — Counsellor · Richard Evans-Lacey — Psychotherapist · Birgit Ewald — Counsellor, Supervisor · Paula Farson — Registered Psychotherapist · Colin Feltham — Emeritus Professor · Jo Fretwell — MBACP (Accred) · Mary Garner — Counsellor · Christie Harrison — Counsellor · Vanessa Haynes — Counsellor · Jim Holloway — Counsellor, Therapist, Supervisor · Christopher K. Johannes — Counsellor, Therapist, Coach · Nick Karr — Psychotherapist · Ryan Karter — Counsellor · Margaret King — Counsellor · John Landaw — Psychotherapist · Dr Nicholas Lewin — Jungian Psychoanalyst · Sonia Lucas — Psychotherapist · Mary MacCallum Sullivan — Psychotherapist · Tom MacKay — Psychotherapist · Thalia Martin — Counsellor · Alex Maunder Taylor — MBACP · Annie McKinney — Counsellor, Therapist · Mark Neary — Counsellor & Trainer · Kitty Newman — BACP Accredited Psychotherapist · Sue Parker Hall — Psychotherapist · Terry Patterson — Counsellor, Clinical Supervisor · Nick Perkins — Therapist · Steve Perkins — Psychotherapist, Supervisor · Nalini Persaud — Psychotherapist · Dr Nash Popovic — Personal Consultant · Erin Rose Puttock — Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist · Peter Rigg — Psychotherapist · Marijke Roberts — Counsellor · Becky Seale — BACP Senior Accredited Counsellor · Ben Sears — Counsellor · Dr Carole Sherwood — Clinical Psychologist · Deborah Short — UKCP Registered Psychotherapist · Lyndsey Simpson — Psychotherapist · Jacob Smith — Counsellor · Mark Smith — CBT Therapist · Alasdair Stokeld — Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist · Johnathan Sunley — Psychotherapist · Dr Val Thomas — Psychotherapist · Tim Toon — Psychotherapist · Dulcie Tudor — Trainee Counsellor · Jane Vincent — UKCP Accredited Psychotherapist · Chloe Ward — HCPC Registered Sport & Exercise Psychologist · Sarah Willocks — Therapist
Convenors: Steve Perkins, Nash Popovic
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The BACP’s Response (17 March 2026)
The full text of the BACP’s reply, signed by Steve Robinson, Member Experience Manager.
17 March 2026 Re: Open letter to BACP
Dear Steve and Nash
Thank you for contacting us and for sharing your open letter to the leadership and ethics committees of BACP. We’ve reviewed the letter in detail and would like to provide a response.
We understand that the open letter has been signed by other therapeutic professionals who believe that critical social justice frameworks are increasingly being incorporated into our definitions of ethical practice and competence.
Traditional definitions of ethical practice and competence often focus on individual behaviour, for example, honesty, confidentiality and fairness. A critical social justice framework broadens the lens to include structural inequities, relational and power dynamics, and systemic bias. We support both elements in recognising forms of harm that operate at individual, institutional or cultural levels.
Data on disparities in health, education, law, policing, and income suggest that outcomes are shaped partly by systemic factors. From this perspective, ignoring structural context risks incomplete practice. We encourage reflective practice, which can strengthen professional judgment and reduce bias.
As a membership body with over 75,000 members, we know that each member will have their own characteristics, unique lived experiences and intersectionality. Members hold many different beliefs and opinions, and our work is to ensure that anyone who needs counselling can access equitable, ethical and effective practice.
Our work reflects a diverse and intersectional profession, where we work to remove barriers that prevent marginalised and underrepresented voices from being heard. We support and encourage ethical practice for all our members by publishing resources and guidance on a range of topics. This includes Good Practice in Action (GPiA) resources on a wide range of topic areas. You can find out more about our work on equality, diversity and inclusion here.
We also understand that no perspective is completely neutral. Our good practice information is peer reviewed, and reflects a broad mix of experiences, evidence and reasoning, rather than any particular, single ideological framework. BACP encourages continuous learning and innovation and supports members to develop professional knowledge and competence.
The new Ethical Framework will include a commitment to both anti-oppressive practice and ethical principles such as trust, fairness, confidentiality and upholding people’s rights to dignity, respect and equality, regardless of their beliefs or political orientation. All members have been given the opportunity to contribute to the consultations in respect of its content and this is due for publication in 2026.
We’ve considered your concerns, and we’re confident we are working in accordance with the Ethical Framework. We can also confirm that development of our ethical resources is overseen by our Good Practice Steering Group, which is comprised of volunteer members and BACP staff. All new resources are peer reviewed and have a rigorous sign-off process.
We understand that you’ve shared the open letter with the editor of Therapy Today, Katerina Georgiou, who has responded to you directly.
We’d like to thank you again for contacting us.
Yours sincerely,
Steve Robinson Member Experience Manager
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My Analysis
On 17 March 2026, the BACP responded formally to the open letter I convened on 18 February, co-signed by more than sixty members and colleagues across theoretical orientations. The open letter raised specific, substantive concerns about the growing incorporation of contested political frameworks into the BACP’s definitions of ethical practice and competence.
The response, signed by Steve Robinson, Member Experience Manager, runs to two pages.
Some who have had sight of the response question whether it is a “good faith” reply. However, I choose to take it seriously. I want to treat it with the care that many signatories (professors, psychoanalysts, CBT therapists, supervisors, trainees, and practitioners across every major modality) deserve to see applied to their concerns. I also want to be fair to the BACP, because fairness is non-negotiable if this critique is to carry any weight.
But I cannot pretend the response is adequate. It is a careful, composed non-engagement with every substantive point the open letter raised.
I'll go through it. But before I do, let me say this plainly. There is a serious and defensible version of the BACP's position. Systemic factors play a part in shaping mental health outcomes. The profession has historically been too slow to recognise this. Training that ignores structural context produces practitioners who are less equipped to understand the full range of their clients' experience. A professional body that takes this seriously, and asks its members to do the same, is not acting irresponsibly. If that were all the BACP were doing, the open letter would not exist. The concern is not with the recognition of structural injustice as a factor. It is with what happens when one particular framework for interpreting that injustice is embedded into the ethical baseline of a profession built on asymmetric trust, and when the institution that embeds it cannot identify the conditions under which it would reconsider.
What the Open Letter Asked
The open letter made four specific, constructive requests:
1. A public statement reaffirming theoretical and viewpoint diversity, clarifying that no single social justice framework is treated as a primary requirement for ethical practice.
2. An advisory panel to review recent publications and guidance for balance.
3. At least one full issue of Therapy Today in 2026 dedicated to pluralism and viewpoint diversity.
4. Participation in or co-sponsorship of an open professional conference or panel on the role of social and political frameworks in therapeutic training and practice.
These were invitations designed to be easy to accept (if not in full then in part). A professional body genuinely confident in its pluralism would have little reason to resist any of them. A statement reaffirming diversity costs nothing. A review panel signals openness. A themed issue of the in-house magazine demonstrates willingness to hear. And a public discussion models the transparency the profession claims to value.
The response addresses none of them. Not one. Not partially. Not with reasons for declining. Not even with a polite deferral.
They are simply absent from the reply, as though the second half of the open letter (the half that proposed action) does not exist.
When professionals from across the theoretical spectrum make four specific, constructive proposals, and the institutional response does not mention any of them, then it seems to me it is not an oversight but an answer. The silence is the answer.
And so I’ll put them back on the table here, publicly, because they remain reasonable and they remain open. The BACP is welcome to respond to them at any time. To be fair, Therapy Today got in touch to say they would consider running an article on the topic and inviting me to pen one. I've not yet decided whether to write it. I might do this, but wordcount is seriously limited, submissions cannot take the form of having "group signatories", and any submission is subject (I assume) to usual editorial oversight in-house.
Who Responded and What That Suggests
Before turning to the content, it is worth noting who signed the response.
The open letter was addressed to the Leadership and Ethics Committees of the BACP. It concerned the Ethical Framework, the definition of competence, the direction of training, and the nature of pluralism within the profession. These are questions of clinical ethics and professional governance.
The reply came from the Member Experience Manager. Not the chair or the ethics committee. Not the President. Not a clinical lead. The person whose role, by its title, concerns member satisfaction and service delivery.
This strongly suggests how the open letter was categorised internally: not as a substantive challenge to ethical direction, but as a piece of member correspondence requiring a courteous reply. That the reply came from member services and without engagement with the proposals is itself revealing.
What the Response Actually Says
The BACP’s letter does several things, and it is worth being precise about each one.
It reframes the concern as a belief. The open letter expressed concern about the growing incorporation of critical social justice frameworks into definitions of ethical practice and competence, with that message being delivered (in the example given) from the very top (the President). The response translates this into: members “believe that critical social justice frameworks are increasingly being incorporated.”
The shift from raising a concern to holding a belief may seem small but is consequential. Concerns require engagement, whereas beliefs can be noted and filed. A concern says: something is happening and it requires attention. A belief says: some people think something, and we understand that they do. The BACP has moved the open letter from the category of institutional critique to the category of member opinion.
Therapists will recognise this move. It is the institutional equivalent of premature reframing - acknowledging the client’s experience while subtly recategorising it into something more manageable. We would, I hope, notice it in a session. We should notice it here.
It explains the critical social justice framework back to us. A substantial portion of the response is given over to defining what a critical social justice framework is - broadening the lens to include structural inequities, power dynamics, systemic bias - as though the signatories were unfamiliar with the concept.
This is a room full of experienced professionals, including emeritus professors, psychoanalysts, Jungian analysts, CBT therapists, and senior accredited practitioners with decades of clinical and academic experience between them. They do not need the critical social justice framework explained to them. They are questioning whether it should be mandated as the route to ethical competence.
The distinction is everything, and the response collapses it entirely. There is a world of difference between “therapists should be able to recognise and explore structural determinants of distress” and “therapists must adopt a specific political orientation as a marker of professional competence.” The open letter made this distinction carefully. The response walked straight past it.
It appeals to data that is not in dispute. The response states: “Data on disparities in health, education, law, policing, and income suggest that outcomes are shaped partly by systemic factors. From this perspective, ignoring structural context risks incomplete practice.”
No signatory disputes this. The open letter explicitly acknowledged that structural injustice can be a relevant factor in distress. In writing elsewhere, and speaking for myself, I've long recognised that “the profession has rightly expanded its understanding of social power, and equipping therapists to recognise structural injustice is essential to competent care.” It's what I think.
The question was never whether systemic factors exist. It was whether one particular framework for interpreting those factors should be coded into professional competence, and what happens to clients when it is. The response answers a question nobody asked, and leaves the actual question untouched.
It asserts neutrality while describing a non-neutral position. Perhaps the most striking passage is this: “We also understand that no perspective is completely neutral. Our good practice information is peer reviewed, and reflects a broad mix of experiences, evidence and reasoning, rather than any particular, single ideological framework.”
This is stated three paragraphs after the response has explicitly endorsed a critical social justice framework - not as one lens among several, but as a complement to traditional ethics that “broadens the lens” and helps recognise “forms of harm that operate at individual, institutional or cultural levels.”
Placed side by side, the tension is obvious. In one breath: we support this critical social justice framework as integral to recognising harm. In the next: we don’t follow any particular framework.
The phrase “no perspective is completely neutral” is doing particular work here. It sounds like epistemic humility. In context, it functions as a pre-emptive defence: if no perspective is neutral, then ours cannot be criticised for being non-neutral. The universal observation (all perspectives carry assumptions) is deployed to deflect a specific concern (your perspective has been adopted as the institutional baseline). One is a philosophical truism. The other is a question about institutional governance. Collapsing them is rhetorically useful, but it is not honest reasoning. Presented this way, it collapses distinctions between better and worse accounts, while exempting itself from the same standard.
It confirms exactly what the open letter was concerned about. The second page informs us that the forthcoming Ethical Framework will include “a commitment to both anti-oppressive practice and ethical principles such as trust, fairness, confidentiality and upholding people’s rights to dignity, respect and equality, regardless of their beliefs or political orientation.”
The open letter asks the BACP to ensure that no single political framework is embedded in its definition of ethical practice. The BACP responds by confirming it will embed one - “anti-oppressive practice” - directly into the new Ethical Framework.
The term “anti-oppressive practice” is not politically neutral. It carries specific theoretical commitments drawn from critical social theory. It is not a description of fairness or decency - those are already captured by the principles listed alongside it (trust, fairness, confidentiality, dignity, respect, equality). If “anti-oppressive practice” meant only “be fair and don’t harm people,” it would add nothing to those existing principles. It is included precisely because it means something more - because it names a distinct orientation, with its own literature, its own assumptions about power, its own interpretive priorities, and its own implications for how a therapist should understand the client in front of them.
If you require a concrete example of the kind of framing being discussed, consider the President’s October 2025 column on “whiteness,” which described whiteness as “a whole social, political and economic system, historically built on colonialism, in pursuit of domination… [that] shapes or distorts our institutions… and our contemporary theories, contexts and working practices,” and called for “unlearning colonial patterns of thought… and embracing anti-oppressive ways of being.”
That is the level at which this framework is being articulated.
This is not reassurance. It is confirmation. The BACP has responded to the open letter asking it not to proceed in this direction by confirming that it will.
And here is a practical question the BACP might usefully answer: what does “anti-oppressive practice” require a therapist in a small market town to do differently on Monday morning? How will she know when she has achieved it? What does it look like in a session with a bereaved widower, or an anxious teenager, or a couple in crisis? If it cannot be operationalised at the level of actual clinical work, then it is not a practice standard. It is a declaration of allegiance. And if it can be operationalised, then the profession deserves to know how - before it is embedded in the ethical baseline against which we are all assessed.
It certifies its own processes as sufficient. The response notes that resources are “peer reviewed” and overseen by a Good Practice Steering Group comprising “volunteer members and BACP staff.” It describes a “rigorous sign-off process.” It tells us, with a confidence that borders on the majestic: “We’ve considered your concerns, and we’re confident we are working in accordance with the Ethical Framework.”
Confident. According to whom? Tested how? Against what external standard?
Besides which, peer review is only as pluralistic as the peer group. If the pool of reviewers already operates within a shared interpretive orientation e.g. if the frameworks that shape what counts as “good practice” are themselves the subject of the concern - then peer review does not answer the question. It restates the conditions being questioned. The reasoning is circular. And it is precisely the dynamic I describe in Moral Singularity as epistemic inversion: the point at which a system’s internal coherence begins to function as evidence of its own adequacy. When that happens, alignment looks like rigour. And in this case, process looks like pluralism.
The response also notes that members were given “the opportunity to contribute to the consultations” on the new Ethical Framework. I have no reason to doubt that such invitations were circulated. But in a membership body of more than 70,000 people, consultation responses do not simply speak for “the profession” by existing. They require transparency: how many responded, how representative they were, what concerns were raised, and how those concerns were handled. Without that, consultation risks functioning as procedural cover for decisions already taken rather than evidence of genuine pluralism. In the absence of published data, consultation becomes a process we are asked to trust rather than one we are able to evaluate.
To move from “members were invited to contribute” to “the profession supports this direction” is a significant leap, particularly where the changes concern the theoretical and ethical orientation of practice itself. Consultation is not consensus.
It does not engage with the central example provided. The open letter did not attempt an exhaustive list of examples. It pointed to a broader direction of travel, and grounded that concern in one clear case: the President’s October 2025 Therapy Today column on “whiteness”.
That example was not incidental. It was offered as a concrete illustration of the shift being described - a clear and difficult-to-recategorise example, at the highest level, of the problem-in-action. The response does not address it at all.
I raised concerns about that piece publicly at the time. The open letter then formalised those concerns with more than sixty signatories. The BACP has now had two opportunities to engage with a specific, cited example. It has done so neither directly nor indirectly.
The Asymmetry Problem
There is a deeper issue that the BACP’s response fails to address, and it sits at the heart of why this matters so much for therapy in particular - more than for almost any other profession.
Therapy is an asymmetric relationship. This is not a flaw in the design; it is the design itself. One person comes into the room uncertain, distressed, sometimes ashamed, often unsure what they think. They test sentences aloud, circle themes, contradict themselves. They are trying to find the shape of something they do not yet understand. The other person is accredited, supervised, trained, and authorised to interpret patterns. That difference in position is precisely why our ethical frameworks emphasise beneficence, non-maleficence, and respect for client autonomy. The interpretive climate of the room is part of the intervention.
When a professional body embeds a particular political framework into its definition of ethical competence, the effects do not remain at the level of institutional policy. They move outward, shaping training, where they influence what is modelled and what is rewarded. They shape supervision, where they influence which formulations are affirmed and which ones generate friction. They shape the consulting room, where they influence - however subtly - what the client senses is welcome and what is not.
This is how conviction cascades work, as I describe in my book. The BACP does not need to instruct every therapist to adopt a particular orientation. It only needs to embed that orientation into the conditions under which competence is assessed, resources are approved, and training is validated. The position then travels without persuasion - through repetition, recognition, and ease. It appears in guidance documents, CPD materials, conference programming, accreditation processes, literature, student research, the language supervisors use, and the frameworks trainees learn to present their work through. Each instance is reasonable in isolation. But taken together, they reshape what feels normal, what feels serious, and what feels professionally safe.
By the time it reaches the consulting room, it no longer looks like a political framework. It looks like good practice. The therapist does not experience herself as importing ideology. She experiences herself as being attentive, reflective, and ethical. And she may well be all of those things. The question is what has been excluded from her field of attention by the time the framework has travelled from policy to practice - and whether the client has any way of knowing.
I describe how this plays out at the micro-level: a practitioner leans forward slightly when the client mentions power dynamics, and the client senses a groove in the conversation that is easier to follow than to resist. They were about to say something else - something about their own withdrawal or ambivalence - but the groove has formed. Most of the time, they follow it. It feels collaborative, and there may be truth in it. But something else, equally true, remains unspoken. The space in which unfinished experience could remain open has shrunk.
This is one small example (of many) as to why asymmetry matters. It is why embedding a political framework into the ethical baseline of a profession built on asymmetric trust is not the same as embedding one into planning regulations or even HR policy (though here too there are certain to be unintended consequences). The stakes are simply different. The vulnerability is different. The capacity of the person on the receiving end to resist, or even notice, the orientation is different.
The BACP’s response does not engage with this at any point.
The Unfalsifiability Problem
There is something else the response reveals, more by structure than by statement, which is worth making explicit.
The BACP has endorsed a critical social justice framework - telegraphed by the President. The open letter questioned whether that framework should be embedded in competence definitions. The BACP’s response is to restate that framework and confirm it will be embedded further.
So I ask: what form of evidence or argument could, in principle, cause the BACP to reconsider this direction?
If sixty professionals signing an open letter does not prompt engagement with the substance of their concerns, then what would? If the specific example cited in the open letter is not addressed, what evidence would be? If the four constructive proposals are not acknowledged, what invitation would be?
A system capable of learning can usually identify the conditions under which it would revise its position. That capacity is what keeps inquiry alive. A system that meets every challenge with a restatement of its own confidence is no longer inquiring, but is preserving itself.
The response restates and reinforces the critical social justice framework in question, but does not indicate what kind of evidence or argument might, in principle, lead to its revision. If no such conditions can be identified, then the framework becomes difficult to test in any meaningful sense. Critique is received, but it does not function as a challenge that could alter direction.
I wrote about this in my October 2025 blog as a “witch-dunking double-bind”: a lose-lose where any questioning of the premise proves you are a heretic. Dissent is not explicitly pathologised, but it appears unable to register as disconfirming input within the system.
The structure of the BACP response enacts this standard-candle feature of "closure": The open letter questions the critical social justice framework - The response explains that framework - The framework is confirmed.
The concern hasn't been processed as a challenge that might warrant any reconsideration, but as further evidence of why the work must continue.
The Story and the Frame
I have been writing recently (not published here yet) about the nature of perception. It's about how human beings take whatever frame they can perceive as the "full picture", when it is not. In moral and institutional life, the same structural feature appears. Systems operate within frames that feel complete from the inside.
Imagine the full set of facts as a large grey square - everything that is true, everything that bears on the question. Within that square, you can draw a circle: a story. The story selects certain facts and organises them into a coherent narrative. It contains real information. It is not a fabrication. But it is not the grey square.
The circle does not need to lie. It only needs to curate. And from inside the circle, the selection feels like the whole picture, because the circle is all you can see.
Now imagine a second circle, overlapping the first but shifted. Different facts, different emphases, its own distortions. Each circle contains enough real information to feel credible. Each one can point to genuine evidence. And each one is partial. The person inside each circle looks at the other and sees distortion. Both are right about the other. Neither can see the grey square, though of course one circle might have more solid epistemic contact or closer contact with reality. Here:
The BACP’s response lives inside one circle. It contains real facts: systemic disparities exist; reflective practice matters; peer review has value; good intentions are present. But it has arranged those facts into a story that cannot accommodate the concern the open letter raises, because the concern is about the shape of the circle itself - about which facts have been selected, which have been excluded, and what the selection costs.
The sixty-plus signatories are not denying the facts inside the BACP’s circle. They are pointing at the grey square and saying: there is more here than your story includes, and the parts you have left out matter for how therapy works, how clients are understood, and how practitioners are formed.
Closure, Not Dogmatism
Indulge me for a moment as I use my own work in Moral Singularity to show what I think is happening here.
In Moral Singularity, I distinguish between closure and dogmatism. Dogmatism is rigidity of belief and can be thought of as a conscious refusal to consider alternatives. Closure is structural self-validation: a condition in which the system no longer requires external reality to confirm its judgements, relying instead on its own internal alignment. The distinction is crucial because closure does not look or feel like dogmatism from inside. It feels like clarity, confidence, and ethical maturity. It feels like a system that has thought things through with great care and arrived at a considered position.
The BACP’s response does not read as dogmatic to me. It reads as measured, professional, and assured. And that is precisely the point. Closure presents as responsibility.
In Chapter 9 of the book, I trace what happens when correction is offered to a system that has already stabilised around its own orientation. The challenge is acknowledged, and it is contextualised. It is then reframed. And then, quite smoothly, it is absorbed back into the existing frame. What appears to be an attempt at course-correction becomes confirmation.
From outside a closed system, correction is understood as reasonable and necessary. One expects that conversation will reopen questions, that evidence will clarify misunderstandings, that good faith will be recognised. These expectations rest on the assumption that the system being addressed remains open to being informed by what it does not yet know.
The letter has been received. It has not been heard. So it's not really dialogue but the performance of having listened.
What the Response Reveals About the System
Whether or not the response was written in bad faith is not the central issue. The central issue is that it does not engage the substance of the concern, and instead reproduces the very structure the open letter was questioning. I suspect the parameters are the issue more than the person operating within them. But the structure of the response reveals something important about the conditions under which it was produced.
In Moral Singularity, I call this the point at which a moral system becomes self-validating: judgements are confirmed by internal alignment rather than by contact with external consequence. The system does not collapse into chaos. It closes into order. From inside, questions feel settled, boundaries feel justified, and the absence of internal challenge reads as consensus rather than silence.
So What Now
The BACP has confirmed, in writing, that the new Ethical Framework will include a commitment to anti-oppressive practice. It has confirmed that it regards a critical social justice framework as complementary to traditional ethical principles. It has confirmed that it sees no tension between these commitments and the pluralism it claims to uphold. And it has done all of this without engaging with any of the specific concerns or proposals set out in the open letter.
The meaning of that, to my mind, is straightforward. The BACP was offered an opportunity to demonstrate, through concrete action, that it takes theoretical diversity seriously. It has chosen instead to restate its position, describe its own processes, and confirm the direction the open letter asked it to reconsider.
A Therapy Today article is a possibility, at the editor’s invitation, but we will see. Moral Singularity is available for those who want to understand the structural dynamics now visible in the profession. The open letter remains as a record of where more than sixty professionals stood, together, in February 2026.
My own view is now clear, and on record.
If you share these concerns, do not assume they are already being said. They may not be. So please write. Speak and raise questions directly. If pluralism is to mean anything, it has to hold under pressure, not just in principle.
What happens next depends, in part, on who is willing to say what they see.
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