Let’s just say it plainly, because dressing it up doesn’t help anyone.

In the UK, counselling is not a regulated profession, and most people outside of the field have no idea that’s the case. They tend to assume we’re working to something closer to the American model, where therapists are licensed, tightly governed, and consistently trained to a clear standard. There’s an expectation that there is a baseline you have to meet before you can sit in a room with someone and call yourself a counsellor.

The reality is very different.

That doesn’t mean counsellors aren’t skilled, ethical, or doing meaningful work, because many are, and in truth the majority of practising counsellors have completed substantial training, engage in supervision, and take their professional development seriously. They care about doing this work well and about being accountable for how they practise.

At the same time, it is also true that someone can do very little training, or none at all, and still call themselves a therapist, because there is nothing in law that outright prevents that. Both of these things exist side by side, and that’s where the tension sits.

This is the uncomfortable part of the conversation, because you cannot have a profession without some form of standardisation. Being “professional” isn’t just about identity or intention, it has to be measurable in some way. There needs to be a shared understanding of what competent practice looks like, how that competence develops over time, and how it can be evidenced. Without that, we are asking the public to trust us without giving them anything concrete to base that trust on.

Training sits right at the centre of this.

It shapes how someone understands clients, how they think about ethics, how they manage risk, and how they use themselves in the room. When that foundation varies significantly, the profession varies with it. At the moment, training across the UK is mixed. There are courses that are thoughtful, rigorous, and genuinely developmental, and there are others that are far less robust, where gaps are harder to ignore. Alongside that, there remains a space where people can enter practice without meeting any consistent training threshold at all.

Most of us are aware of this, even if we don’t always say it out loud.

When we start talking about professional status, public trust, employability, or even insurance, the conversation inevitably comes back to training, because it underpins all of it. This is where frameworks like the SCoPEd Framework begin to matter, even if the experience of them has been uncomfortable at times.

It has been divisive, and that needs to be acknowledged properly. For qualified practitioners, it can feel as though the ground is shifting underneath them. For many Senior Accredited Professionals it has often felt dismissive and rejecting of their experience because they don't have the paperwork that evidences their ability in the way the framework requires. 

And for those in training it can feel confusing or overly political. Training providers can experience it as scrutiny, which brings its own pressure. None of that is unreasonable.

If you step back from the reactions, though, what SCoPEd is attempting to introduce is something the profession has not had in a consistent way before, which is a shared language of competence. It is not about identity or hierarchy, and it is not about deciding who is “better” than someone else. It is about being able to say, in a way that is clear and publicly understood, what a practitioner at a particular level can do, how that ability develops, and how it is evidenced.

Whether we like it or not, that kind of clarity is necessary if we want to be taken seriously as a profession. Without it, we remain in a position where highly skilled practitioners sit alongside those who are underprepared, where some have trained extensively and others have not trained at all, and where the public has no straightforward way of telling the difference. That makes it harder for the profession to define itself, and even harder to advocate for the people it serves.

This isn’t about positioning SCoPEd as perfect, because it isn’t, and there are valid questions and ongoing conversations that need to continue. It is about recognising that doing nothing keeps things exactly as they are, and that current position is not as solid as many people assume it to be.

So rather than getting pulled into sides, or into the politics of it all, it feels more useful to come back to a quieter but more important question, which is what it actually means to be a competent and accountable counsellor, and how we know that in a way that is clear, consistent, and visible.

Until we can answer that properly, we are likely to keep circling the same conversation, while the people most affected by it continue to assume the profession already has it figured out.

Let’s be honest about something that’s happening far too often.

Counselling students are being sold online “diplomas” that look legitimate but don’t lead to professional recognition. People are spending thousands of pounds on courses that won’t get them membership with the BACP or NCPS, and they only find out once the money and motivation have gone.

That isn’t a misunderstanding, but it is a business model.

These providers rely on the fact that life is busy and people want convenience. They frame flexibility as opportunity, but they leave out the part where the qualification isn’t worth much. It’s misleading, unethical, and it damages real lives.

Convenience Is Not the Same as Professional Training

Counselling is a relational profession. You learn it through presence, feedback, and supervision, not just through modules and screen time. Real training is supposed to stretch you, support you, and help you understand what it means to sit opposite another human being.

You can’t learn that in isolation. And any provider who tells you otherwise either doesn’t understand the work or doesn’t care about the profession.

The Consequences Are Real

Every year, we hear from counsellors who have completed unaccredited courses and are heartbroken to discover they can’t progress. Some have spent savings, taken loans, or turned down other opportunities. They feel humiliated, but they shouldn’t. They’ve been deceived by providers who hide behind fine print and vague language.

The responsibility for that sits squarely with those selling the courses, not the people trying to change their lives.

What to Look For Before You Hand Over a Penny

• Check whether the course is recognised by a professional body such as the BACP, NCPS, or UKCP.

• Ask whether practical training includes assessed placements with real clients.

• Find out who teaches you and whether they’re currently practising therapists.

• Get clear on what stage of professional membership the course leads to,  and ask to see it in writing.

• Look at how supervision and ethical practice are integrated, not just mentioned.

If you don’t get straightforward answers, walk away.

What This Comes Down To

Training to be a therapist should involve hard work, self-reflection, and accountability, not empty promises wrapped in convenience.

We owe it to the profession, and to future clients, to name this behaviour for what it is. Selling false hope as education is not accessibility. It’s exploitation.

Counselling starts with integrity, and so should training.