New Protect and Teach evidence and consultation briefing
The Partnership of Counselling and Psychotherapy Bodies (PCPB) is consulting on a proposed definition of conversion practices and new Good Practice Principles for working with Gender, Sexuality and Relationship Diversity (GSRD).
Completed consultation forms should be returned to PCPBproject@bacp.co.uk by midday on Tuesday 17 November 2026.
Protect and Teach CIC has reviewed the proposals and published a new evidence and consultation briefing: Defining Conversion Practices: Getting the Boundary Right
There is much in the proposed professional framework that deserves careful consideration. PCPB expressly recognises the importance of open-ended exploration, assessment and formulation, client autonomy and professional judgement.
The difficult question is where the boundary lies.
Who can respond?
The consultation is open to:
- members and registrants of the participating organisations
- other psychological professionals
- stakeholder organisations
- people with lived experience
- members of the public.
They welcome feedback from anyone with an interest in this area.
Open therapy must remain possible
Therapy sometimes involves uncertainty. People may question, reconsider, explore competing explanations, discuss difficult experiences or change their understanding over time.
Practitioners may need to ask difficult questions, undertake assessment, consider safeguarding concerns, discuss evidence and uncertainty, or reach professional conclusions that differ from a client’s initial interpretation.
Protect and Teach’s briefing therefore asks a straightforward question:
Can practitioners reliably distinguish legitimate therapeutic exploration from practice directed towards a predetermined outcome?
A framework intended to prevent coercive or predetermined practices should not inadvertently make legitimate therapeutic enquiry professionally hazardous.
Clear definitions matter
Our review examines several areas where greater clarity would strengthen PCPB’s proposals, including:
- the meaning of a “predetermined outcome”;
- the distinction between client-led goals and practitioner-directed outcomes;
- genuinely open-ended therapeutic exploration;
- assessment, formulation and clinical uncertainty;
- children, young people, parents and safeguarding;
- transition, detransition and non-transition;
- protected beliefs and professional disagreement;
- consent and autonomous decision-making; and
- how the definition may operate in complaints and professional-regulatory processes.
The briefing also examines the evidence base underlying conversion-practices policy. It distinguishes evidence concerning sexual orientation from that concerning gender identity and considers the limitations of the available evidence, including questions of association, causation and generalisability.
Avoiding a chilling effect
Professional guidance needs to protect people from genuinely coercive or predetermined practices.
It also needs to give therapists sufficient confidence to explore rather than assume, assess rather than predetermine, and ask clinically relevant questions without fearing that questioning itself will later be treated as evidence of wrongdoing.
Those objectives should not be opposites.
Clearer boundaries can provide stronger protection for clients and greater certainty for ethical practitioners.
As our briefing concludes, the central question is not simply whether harmful conversion practices exist. It is where the professional boundary should be drawn.
Read the briefing
[DOWNLOAD THE FULL BRIEFING]
Respond to the consultation
The PCPB consultation is open until midday on Tuesday 17 November 2026.
Protect and Teach encourages interested professionals, organisations and members of the public to read the proposals and evidence carefully and respond to the consultation.
Good professional guidance should protect people from coercion without making open, evidence-informed therapy something practitioners are afraid to practise.
You can download PCPB’s official Word consultation response template below. The form asks respondents to comment on specific sections and paragraphs of the proposed Working Definition of Conversion Practices and Good Practice Principles, including the original wording and any changes they believe should be made.
📄 [DOWNLOAD THE PCPB CONSULTATION RESPONSE FORM – WORD TEMPLATE]
Before responding, we recommend reading the consultation documents and considering the evidence for yourself.
Read the PCPB consultation and consultation documents
Completed consultation forms should be returned to PCPBproject@bacp.co.uk by midday on Tuesday 17 November 2026.
Protect and Teach consultation response
Need help responding?
Protect and Teach has reviewed both consultation documents and prepared suggested responses to the key questions and provisions.
These are intended to help respondents understand the issues, consider the evidence and formulate their own response. You can use, adapt or disagree with any of the points below.
👇 See below for Protect and Teach’s suggested consultation responses, including the relevant section and paragraph numbers.
Protect and Teach’s suggested consultation responses
References
Partnership of Counselling and Psychotherapy Bodies
Partnership of Counselling and Psychotherapy Bodies (PCPB), Working Definition of Conversion Practices (consultation draft, August 2026), Working Definition of Conversion Practices. Working definition of conversion practices If you would like this document in an accessible format, please email info@pcpb.org.u.
Partnership of Counselling and Psychotherapy Bodies (PCPB), Good Practice Principles for Working with Gender, Sexuality and Relationship Diversity (consultation draft, August 2026), Good Practice Principles for Working with Gender, Sexuality and Relationship Diversity. Good practice principles for working with gender, sexuality and relationship diversity (GSRD).
Partnership of Counselling and Psychotherapy Bodies (PCPB), SCoPEd Framework January 2022 (amended 2025), SCoPEd Framework January 2022 (amended 2025).
Partnership of Counselling and Psychotherapy Bodies (PCPB), ‘Consultation opens into conversion practices and GSRD guidelines’ (25 August 2026), PCPB consultation page. Consultation opens into conversion practices and GSRD guidelines – PCPB
Partnership of Counselling and Psychotherapy Bodies (PCPB), ‘Project launched to develop definition of conversion practices and good practice principles for GSRD work’ (17 June 2026), PCPB project announcement.
Partnership of Counselling and Psychotherapy Bodies (PCPB), ‘Consultation opens into conversion practices and GSRD guidelines’ (25 August 2026), for information concerning the treatment of complaints about individual practitioners through the relevant partner body’s existing complaints or professional-conduct procedures, PCPB consultation page. Consultation opens into conversion practices and GSRD guidelines – PCPB
Partnership of Counselling and Psychotherapy Bodies (PCPB), ‘Resources’, PCPB resources.
Government and commissioned evidence
Office for Equality and Opportunity, Draft Conversion Practices Bill (CP 1604, 2026), GOV.UK — Draft Conversion Practices Bill; HTML text: Conversion practices draft Bill.
Office for Equality and Opportunity, Draft Final Stage Impact Assessment (18 June 2026; updated 1 September 2026), GOV.UK — Draft Final Stage Impact Assessment.
Office for Equality and Opportunity, Draft Equality Impact Assessment (updated 1 September 2026), GOV.UK — Draft Equality Impact Assessment.
Government Equalities Office, An Assessment of the Evidence on Conversion Therapy for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (29 October 2021), GOV.UK — evidence assessment. An assessment of the evidence on conversion therapy for sexual orientation and gender identity – GOV.UK
Adam Jowett, Geraldine Brady, Simon Goodman, Claire Pillinger and Louise Bradley, Conversion Therapy: An Evidence Assessment and Qualitative Study (Government Equalities Office 2021), GOV.UK — Conversion Therapy evidence study; full HTML report: Conversion Therapy: An Evidence Assessment and Qualitative Study.
Legislation and human-rights framework
Equality Act 2010, legislation.gov.uk — Equality Act 2010.
Human Rights Act 1998, legislation.gov.uk — Human Rights Act 1998.
European Convention on Human Rights, arts 8, 9, 10 and 14, as scheduled to the Human Rights Act 1998, Schedule 1 to the Human Rights Act 1998; official Convention text: European Convention on Human Rights.