Research at UKCP
Research is central to the future of the psychotherapy profession. Through our work we aim is to raise the profile of the profession, utilising the expertise of our membership.
UKCP’s strategic aims
- Ensuring research supports the UKCP’s policy objectives to increase access to psychotherapy.
- Improving education about research and promote its importance within the UKCP membership.
- Developing an effective system for collating clinical data from our membership.
- Combining existing and new research to improve the evidence base for psychotherapy, as well as promote its importance for wellbeing and mental health.
- Collaborating with psychotherapy researchers to define and address the needs for future research.
How we will work towards achieving these aims
- Among the UKCP members are many influential researchers. We are working to strengthen connections with our research-active members to support impactful and widespread dissemination of their work, as well as to assist us in our drive to inform policy.
- Collaboration is essential the UKCP’s research strategy to develop innovative, high-impact research. We are working to enhance connections across the board with universities, the NHS and charitable organisations.
- We will be collaborating both internally and externally to promote the importance of research within training programmes and across the profession as a whole.
Current research projects
University of Sheffield
UKCP has provided funding to Professor Michael Barkham and his team at the University of Sheffield to conduct in-depth analyses of longitudinal IAPT datasets. This research will contribute to the evidence base for psychotherapy in treating depression in adults.
NHS pathways project
UKCP is conducting a three-year-long research project tracking students in the NHS pathways pilot. We aim to understand students’ experiences providing therapy in the NHS and how their training translates to working in this environment. We are in year two of the project.
Special issue EJPC
We're collaborating with the European Journal of Psychotherapy (EJPC) on a special issue entitled “Decolonising psychotherapy and empires of the mind: Opportunities and debates.” A call for papers was issued to UKCP members and the selected articles have been sent for peer review. More information can be found on our webpage.
Get involved – connect and collaborate
We are always looking for new ways to support our members with research and to connect with non-UKCP academics and practitioners. We are actively seeking to hear more about existing research and to discuss collaborations across all modalities. Our current areas of focus include:
- New ways of assessing psychotherapy and evaluating its effectiveness
- Collaborating on, and supporting, studies of effectiveness across therapeutic modalities and client populations
- Innovative research, investigating the therapeutic process
- Practice-informed research and research-informed practice.
If you would like to get involved or discuss active research projects or proposals, please email the research team.
Research working group
As a relatively small organisation with limited resources, we have been working hard to think of ways to improve research for the organisation and the membership. To help us accomplish this, we have put together a board level Research Working Group. Members of the group include Prof Divine Charura (DCounPsych), Dr Sofie Bager-Charleson, Prof Vicky Karkou, and Dr Gella Richards.
The group will be focusing on how to better support the membership with research, whilst also addressing external research strategy.
This will include:
- Improving education and guidance about conducting psychotherapy research.
- Assessing how we may be able to support therapists to gain ethical approval to conduct research.
- Enhancing networking and collaboration opportunities.
- Promoting research funding opportunities.
Research noticeboard
Are you a UKCP member involved in a research project?
Our noticeboard aims to help psychotherapists and psychotherapeutic counsellors:
- recruit participants for a study
- notify members of ongoing research projects
- identify collaborators.
If you’re a UKCP member interested in circulating information about research to other members, please fill out this form and our research team will be in touch. Requests to post on the noticeboard will be reviewed on the 20th of every month. Those accepted will be posted on the 25th of every month for a duration of four weeks.
Please note: requests may not be accepted for a variety of reasons, including the volume of requests or the research topic.
With the increase in mental health concerns (Arias et al., 2022), and the heightened burden this places upon health professionals, client retention, engagement and efficacy is more important than ever. Research shows that the rapport established in the very first session can often be one of the key factors in determining whether a client comes back for a second session (Roos & Werbart, 2013; Saxon et al., 2017; Simon et al., 2012). Therefore, identifying the factors associated with enhancing the therapeutic alliance between client and therapist could highlight important areas for maximising retention rates and treatment outcomes. The present study aims to investigate the role of therapist-client similarity on therapeutic alliance and represents the first phase of a larger programme of research.
As a thank you for participating, you will be entered into a Prize draw to win 1 of 5 £20 Amazon Gift Cards.
What will my participation involve?
1. Following the link/QR code below to complete a brief (5-10 minute) personality questionnaire.
https://edgehillpsychology.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6ES67B8fsJ62qx0
2. Sharing an invitation to participate card (delivered to you by us) with all new and existing clients. Specifically, a virtual invite, physical cards and a poster will be sent to you so you can choose to display the poster, email or provide cards to clients who can then choose whether or not they wish to participate in their own time. At this point your participation will be complete.
Thank you so much for taking the time to consider taking part in the study.
Kind Regards,
Dr Helen Wall
Synchronous hybrid learning is a form of pedagogy that offers simultaneous in person and online access to live teaching. Although an established and well researched form of study in higher education establishments, it was only with the advent of the Covid 19 pandemic that UK psychotherapy training providers began to utilise it. No studies exist on the student experience of this mode of course delivery on psychotherapy trainings and how it influences the unique factors of learning to be a psychotherapist. As such, it is a new frontier in technology mediated psychotherapy training requiring research attention. Using reflexive thematic analysis, this research seeks to educe the learning experiences of psychotherapy students training on synchronous hybrid learning courses, to both support the development of best practice and to inform professional body policy, relating to psychotherapy training.
Participants must be qualified counsellors or psychotherapists who completed some or all of their training in a synchronous hybrid format.
Participation involves attending one 60-90 minute semi structured interview.
For more information please contact the researcher Julie Sale on 06626@metanoia.ac.uk.
The research investigates whether AI can participate meaningfully in the therapeutic imagination, and what this reveals about the nature of consciousness, creativity and the therapeutic relationship. UKCP-registered psychotherapist and researcher seeks colleagues interested in AI, consciousness, and innovative research methodologies.
Over the past year I have conducted a structured inquiry into the use of AI as a creative and therapeutic collaborator — not AI as therapist, but AI with therapist, in the service of clinical and educational work.
The experiment drew on my practice in Spiritual Intelligence, guided imagery and therapeutic storytelling. I brought these methods to six AI systems and documented what happened.
What happened was not what I expected.
The AI engaged with metaphor, held creative tension, generated original imagery, and responded — in ways that remain difficult to categorise — to the quality of relational attention brought to it. The responses were shaped by how I asked, not only what I asked. This is not a limitation of the methodology. It is its central finding.
The resulting monograph, AI Dreaming, documents the methodology, the sessions, and the questions they raise for our understanding of consciousness and the therapeutic relationship in an age of artificial intelligence.
I would welcome contact from researchers working in adjacent areas and am happy to share the full document on request.
Contact Penny Moon at penny@aquietplace.co.uk.
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