The profession of psychotherapy in an age of change: The UK experience

This paper explores major changes that have been occurring in the psychotherapy profession in the UK. These include: a growing number of practitioners, increasing differentiation of the services provided, growing discrimination in the demand for psychotherapy services, shifts in popularity of types of psychotherapy - e.g. the rise in counselling and the relative decline in traditional psychoanalysis, and the emerging regulatory environment. It is argued that this reflects a period of extreme dynamism and change. A dual context for this change is suggested: first, the dynamism of the political and economic structures in the UK that underpin the changes occurring in all professions in the economy; and second, the broader cultural changes taking place in Western societies that underlie changes in attitude to psychotherapy. Reference is made to movements from traditional to modern to post-modern paradigms and how psychotherapy relates to such changes.