BACPAvaliações 

Martina Bador is a abuser and a twisted individual… avoid at all costs

If I could give it zero I would. A three year investigation into one of its members who repeatedly lied and forged her notes after being caught by social services making a false referral for her paying client a documented domestic abuser resulted in the Bacp mandating 10 hours of additional training and removing the findings made against her from its website after three months - shambles of a for profit company (it’s not a regulator) that cannot regulate its members and does more harm to the counselling profession than good. Her boss then informed the LADO she was self employed and not a member of the company she was contracted to

I reported an unethical therapist who behaved totally inappropriately towards not just me but a few others I knew of. I had pages of evidence, texts and so on.
They wrote back saying "the therapist informed us you may complain and there is no case to answer"and basically insinuated I was crazy.

I appealed following instructions on website submitting same evidence again (texts showing I'd stayed in her house, me and others having done jobs and services for her and her saying terrible things to me, plus revealing info about other clients for just some examples) and I was completely ignored

There's no way to complain about BACP itself, not doing their own procedures correctly.

I assume my old therapist must be really good friends with someone high up there, or they just don't care.

UK needs stronger watchdog for this kind of thing. It's affected me terribly for years and the couple of therapists I have risked trying after this said they clearly see the effect on me, and they've seen those pages of evidence and were appalled, so at least have some support but it's insane that BACP are twisted enough to support this awful woman!

After making an initial complaint to the BACP with reference to a horrendous experience with one of their ‘accredited’ therapists I was told it would be up to 6 weeks before they looked at it due to the backlog of complaints they have. (wow)

After 8 weeks (and two attempts to follow up with them which were ignored) they finally came back and told me that they weren’t going to investigate the complaint as it falls outside of their code of ethics.

This ‘therapist’ isn’t even going to be looked at and is free to carry on causing damage to anyone else who is vulnerable and that goes to her for support or help.

I find this frightening, very very frightening.

The BACP are complicit in the huge wave of abuse and dangerous behaviours that are plaguing this industry.

But hey , as long as they’re making profit , who cares eh ?

Awful experience with a BACP Accredited therapist. Reported to BACP who seem reluctant to do anything, due to the lack of physical evidence, further enabling abusive therapists to continue damaging clients as long as it's "behind closed doors". Their opinions regarding the alleged ethical breaches also go against their own ethical guidelines. Horrendous.

I made a formal complaint to the BACP in 2022 regarding a unaccredited Humanistic Diploma course in, East Sussex, run by BACP members. I enrolled after being told accreditation was imminent.

The course was poorly managed and raised serious concerns, including safeguarding issues ( *Process Group sessions) , bullying, micro aggressions, inexperienced training staff, ongoing organisational failures, and basic hygiene issues within the learning environment, which were raised at the time but not addressed.

I submitted extensive written and video evidence to the BACP. After waiting over 18 months for an outcome, my complaint was dismissed and the BACP supported its paying members. Notably, the course was granted BACP accreditation before my complaint had been finalised.

I was not refunded by the course provider and am now pursuing recovery of my fees through the courts nearly 2.5 years later . Based on my experience, the BACP complaints process lacks transparency, independence, and meaningful accountability.

This needs urgent government regulation for fairness and the unnecessary stress it has caused.

These ethical bodies actually do very little to regulate therapists. Bacp also have therapists that quite frankly shouldn't be therapists or work with people.

Beyond terrible. One of their members breached the confidentiality agreement which has lead to detrimental effect on my mental health.

The service is awful, no one gets back to you, you have to do all the calling and emailing in the vain hope of getting a response.

They protect their members and staff and they have no empathy for the severe damage they have put people through apart they are 'sorry'.

I was a counsellor accredited with the BACP for many years. We were always told by my college that you had to have this in order to work and be supported. My experience as a counsellor was not great. Some time ago I had an ethical dilemma and my supervisor was away. The BACP were difficult to get hold of and when I eventually did, they were of no help. I spent a lot of money keeping up my subscriptions to them and I'm now retired. I've come to realise they do not have the clout that people think they have

As a professional Counsellor, I've had to clean up the mess of BACP registered and accredited counsellors over the 20 years and yet the BACP claims I am not professional enough to be registered by them even though I have more education and the years of practice than their management who are barely in their 20s..lol The amount of clients I get with the complaints about their BACP counsellors and the damage they did to the clients is astonishing.

"Get over it" - That's the actual response I got from a BACP registered therapist when I said that I'd been physically abused by my ex-partner multiple times.

She's still working with vulnerable people in Sussex.

I made a complaint to the BACP about an unethical counsellor registered with them.

In the submission of my complaint I sent transcripts, where I had recorded my sessions and could prove he was unethical. On the form it says they do not accept audio recordings and will only accept transcripts. Later I was told that they could not use the transcripts as the could not be verified.

After the complaints process was complete I decided to make a complaint against BACP, itself. It was a waste of time as they lean upon the excuse "We use and external body and there's nothing we can do."

I questioned what the point of the complaints process was and recieved no reply.

Unfortunately this makes finding a counsellor incredibly difficult when you cannot trust the body that they are registered to. As they do not hold their counsellors accountable to the ethical framework they have agreed to, counsellors are indeed free to offer, at best a poor service and at worse further pain and trauma, all unchecked.

When the unethical support the unethical, there is no possibility of trust.

I have had 2 bad experiences with BACP therapists.

My ex-partner, a BACP registered therapist, used to hit me and when I finally asked her to acknowledge that she was abusive she told me to "get over it". She's still practicing and involved with vulnerable people.

The second was a couples therapist who we saw to try and discuss our relationship, this one diagnosed me with autism within 20 minutes of the session, worse than doing that is that his website says he's not qualified to diagnose autism. This was reported to BACP who did nothing.

I went with another membership, as on two occasions the BACP were incredibly rude, unsupportive, and this time even told me that if I were to look for a membership with them I would need more than I have, and to look around for other memberships who have 'lower standards'.
As somebody who has struggled with their self-esteem and needed long-term therapy, qualified in using counselling skills, got a MSc in Psychology, 5 years experience supporting vulnerable individuals in various settings, practicing therapeutic work under a fully qualified therapist and supervisor, and about to embark on a doctorate as a counselling psychologist, I had to laugh that this was coming from somebody who knows nothing about me or my journey. I didn't bother explaining anything more as frankly it didn't deserve anymore of my time.

Where would you consider that to be at all appropriate to say?

That told me all I needed to know about this organisation.

Therapy standards are appalling in England. BACP accredited means nothing with the amount of incompetent creeps targeting vulnerable people for financial gain.
Some charge the same as psychologists since COVID !!

A therapist repeatedly gaslit me and it took me decades to tell someone about childhood sexual abuse. He refuted my reporting of this abuse and invalidated everything I confided in him.

He has caused me more damage with his unprofessional, incompetent behaviour. He made lame excuses for the abuser.

I will never ever seek help from a therapist again. They are predatory charlatans.

Since the BACP don't require members to have had any personal therapy on their training and additionally accredit anyone with inadequate training via an online test ("proficiency test"), you can rest assured this disastrous combination will lead to disastrous results....
Oh yeah, they changed their complaints procedure in 2018 to suit the members, so don't expect your complaint to get anywhere. Their Investigation and Assessment Committee (IAC) are not qualified enough to process complaints in a critical and objective manner anyway, and rarely "investigate" anything.
That's the appalling truth about the so-called BACP "accreditation". It means nothing.

Does an extemely poor job of regulating, and alows unethical therapists get away with murder.

Terrible organization. Without going into too much detail I made a complaint about a couples counsellor. The counsellor completely sided with my husband. I spoke about the abuse from him and she completely disregarded it. She sent an email to my doctor and my husband about me but didn't even send it to me. There were complete lies on it. My husband wanted to go for counselling to get help for his behaviour but she just rubber stamped it and made out it was all me. The BACP said she was in the right?! I feel sorry for other women who have to deal with this counsellor and other women who have suffered domestic abuse and have to deal with this organisation. My new counsellor said she is not part of the BACP because she has issues with their ethics. I can see why now!

My therapist abused his position of power over 24 months ago now, and the BACP still have not heard the case, despite it being fairly black and white and with unequivocal supporting evidence. They lack the bite to enforce their own policies, instead allowing their Members (their therapists, who fund them) to get away scot-free and continue seeing other vulnerable clients without any reprimand or retraining.

The BACP officially took my case on 23 months ago. It then took 18 months to get a hearing date. Once that date came, it has since been delayed several times due to the therapist doing all they can to avoid facing the music. The BACP has displayed an extremely limited capacity for deploying common sense - petrified, it seems, by the thought of taking action. Taking no action at all is a much less scary route for them, even when it contravenes their own protocols.

The BACP claims to be set up to protect those potentially vulnerable people who seek therapy from its member therapists. In this regard, it is an abject failure and, frankly, a disgrace.

A sad case of the unethical regulating the unethical.