UPDATE 20

31 August 2025

Dear Supporter

Welcome to the August update. As we are drawing to the end of the summer months now and approaching the autumn equinox, it is time to get back on track.  We have had a break over the summer, so there is a lot to cover in this month's edition:

  • Lucy Beney on safeguarding and how it is failing children

  • The Battle of Ideas 2025

  • Policy Exchange report on costs of rising over-diagnosis

  • What is going on at the BACP?

  • Continuing decline of The Psychologist

  • US undergraduates accused of Whitelash

  • Welcome to Xandra H

  • Taking Back Control

Lucy Beney on Safeguarding

We hear a lot about 'safeguarding' in relation to children and young people, but what is it and is it actually working?  In her latest excellent article All Safety, No Guarding: Nature Knows Best Lucy considers what 'safeguarding' means and asks whether in reality there is rather more 'safetyism' and too little 'guarding' taking place both at home and in schools. 

Battle of Ideas 2025: Saturday 18th, Sunday 19th October

We are delighted to announce that Lucy will be taking part in the Battle of Ideas Festival this year, discussing whether there should be a mental health professional in every school. You can read more about this panel session here and also read her report for the Family Education Trust on the same subject here.  Tickets are still available at Early Bird Rates.  Here is the programme as it stands currently.  Do come along and meet Lucy and others from Save Mental Health.

 

Policy Exchange report on costs of rising over-diagnosis in young people

This timely report was published earlier this week. We have not had time to read it through in detail but wanted to draw it to the attention of our supporters.  There are links to media coverage about the report on the front page. Titled Out of Control, it argues that "concept creep has stretched societal definitions of mental ill health and neurodivergence too far, with families facing perverse incentives to seek diagnoses to access extra support. As a result, these systems are radically becoming unsustainable, with urgent reform required".  Baroness Fox of Buckley points out in her endorsement of the report that as well as the financial costs, "what’s even more tragic is the human costs: generations who are incited to see themselves as unable to cope with school, work and life, doomed to a life of dependence on state services. It is catastrophic for individuals’ sense of autonomy and aspiration, and something must indeed be done". We could not agree more.

 

What is going on at the BACP?

On 6th August the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) suddenly removed its Chair and Vice-Chair due to apparent 'financial irregularities'.  The BACP issued a statement that the Board had taken this action to 'secure a future for BACP defined by new ethical, accountable and responsible leadership'. A video of their president, offering reassuring platitudes, accompanied this statement. Later that day, both the Chair and Vice-Chair issued their own statements on Linkedin, denying wrong-doing and threatening legal action.  What is going on here?  You can read Critical Therapy Antidote's comments on this debacle and other examples of BACP's 'unfitness to practice' here.  Peter Jenkins has also written an amusing account of the crises befalling the BACP.  In this account he refers to Sophie Grace Chappell a trans-identified man who is one of the team responsible for reviewing the BACP's Ethical Framework.  There is more about the BACP and Chappell here in a well-researched piece by @STILLTish.  We will keep you posted with developments at the BACP in future Updates.

 

The continuing decline of The Psychologist

Meanwhile, at the British Psychological Society, the editor of The Psychologist, is taken to task by Pat Harvey of BPS Watch for the quality and legitimacy of two articles published in its August edition.  The author of one article, who describes herself as "a non-binary female doctoral research student whose university profile cites a master's degree in Equity and Diversity in Society", talks about her dissertation on "raising Theybies" and "gender creative parenting".  The other author is a clinical psychologist who describes herself as "a global leader in gender-affirming mental health care". The decision of The Psychologist's editor to include these articles is an example of the kind of safeguarding failure that Lucy Beney raises concerns about.  Well done to BPS Watch for their persistence in holding the BPS and the editor of The Psychologist to account.

 

Anti-racist educators accuse undergraduate students of 'Whitelash'

An extraordinary and troubling story was brought to us by Arnold Cantú, a social worker in the US and supporter of Save Mental Health.  Two social work professors at Colorado State University, where Arnold did his training, published a paper in the Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, describing how they deliberately set out to cause white students discomfort during anti-racist education, in order to challenge their 'white supremacy'.  You can read a full account of the story in The College Fix.  Interestingly, the journal took down the paper from its website a day after the College Fix article was published.  Thanks to Arnold we also know that the university's Institutional Review Board (IRB) determined that the study was exempt from ethics approval because it was "not human subjects research". Are we to assume, then, that the IRB does not consider these white undergraduate students to be human?  The cruel and abusive practices used in the name of 'anti-racism' never cease to shock us here at Save Mental Health.

 

You Have To Be In It To Win It!

We are delighted to welcome Xandra, a senior psychologist who writes regularly for Free Speech Backlash (FSB), as a supporter. Luckily for us, Xandra sent us an article that has been published on the Save Mental Health website.  It is called You Have To Be In It To Win It! and uses the National Lottery rallying cry to show how 'psyops' or psychological operations and 'nudges' work.  Most importantly, Xandra explains in the article how to mitigate the effects of psyops.  It is well worth reading and, within the article there are links to other pieces Xandra has written for FSB.  Do take a look. Xandra is a very knowledgeable clinician who brings a welcome psychological perspective to matters of current interest. She also has a good sense of humour which cuts through in her articles. 

 

Taking Back Control

It is thanks to Xandra that Carole Sherwood of Save Mental Health was invited to write a piece for FSB on how people are being affected by Government policies.  You can read it here. It was also mentioned in the Daily Sceptic's News Round-Up.

 

RECOMMENDATION

Have you seen the episode of Triggernometry with historian Dominic Sandbrook? If not, we would recommend you watch.  Promoted as 'The Best Conversation About History You've Ever Heard', Sandbrook covers a wide range of topics from the "intensely moralistic mood music" surrounding history that has dominated in recent years to the "slightly sanitised and self-deluding, idealistic view of human nature and what we're capable of" that he fears is still prevalent.  Do watch, but be prepared for the doomy ending (is that a trigger warning being issued here?)

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