Public at risk as online course ‘shrinks’ advertise as counsellors

People with little training beyond an online course bought on Groupon are advertising themselves as counsellors to the depressed and even suicidal — as there is no law stopping them.

For 10 years, trained counsellors and psychotherapists have been demanding that the Department of Health regulate their sector as many clients are vulnerable and could be at risk from insufficiently trained ‘counsellors’.

Representative groups arguing for statutory regulation have met with and won the support of successive governments but regulation still has not happened.