Call to train more therapists disputed

A Labour peer’s call for 10,000 new therapists to be trained is
“misinformed”, according to the British Association for Counselling
and Psychotherapy.

Lord Layard, the economist and Downing Street advisor, said last
week that the new therapists were needed to provide cognitive
behavioural therapy on the NHS to anyone who needed it.

But the association, which represents 25,000 counsellors and
psychotherapists, said many of its members incorporated CBT into
their work and would be able to bring more experience than the new
therapists proposed by Layard. They would be existing health
workers with an additional two years’ training.

Paul Corry, director of campaigns and communication at mental
health charity Rethink, said there was significant evidence to
support the view that CBT helped those with severe mental health
problems .