Introduction
I think it’s fair to say that couples therapy in the UK (or at least in England and Wales, for I can’t profess any real knowledge of provision in Scotland and Northern Ireland) is, at the time of writing, something of a hodgepodge of agency-based services and private providers coming from a wide array of training backgrounds. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing; more to say that the state of play of couples therapy in the UK is similar to what individual therapy was some 25+ years ago, when there was less in the way of professional regulation and standardisation in practitioner training. This blog post is intended to provide some orientation for couples – quite possibly in a state of urgent need – seeking relationship counselling in what can be a bewildering landscape of service provision.
To best navigate said landscape, it helps to know something about the registration and accreditation of counselling and psychotherapy practitioners in the UK. This is itself a consideration riven with potential for further bewilderment and disorientation – not the kind of thing you need when you’re struggling and wanting to find reliable, high-quality professional support fast. For such purposes, I refer you to another blog post, where, in as few words as possible, I endeavour to provide an introduction to the leading professional bodies for counsellors and psychotherapists in the UK.
In development… a guide to help couples navigate the array of approaches on offer in England & Wales…