{"id":31442,"date":"2025-06-10T08:12:23","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T07:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ocduk.org\/?p=31442"},"modified":"2025-07-25T15:35:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T14:35:07","slug":"unqualified-unlicensed-ocd-therapists-exploiting-vulnerable-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ocduk.org\/unqualified-unlicensed-ocd-therapists-exploiting-vulnerable-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Unqualified & unlicensed ‘OCD therapists’ exploiting vulnerable people"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"unqualified<\/a><\/p>\n

Updated: 10th December 2024.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

OCD can cause immense suffering for both adults and children who are affected by it. Understandably, people who are desperate to alleviate their symptoms sometimes turn to private therapists for treatment, but at OCD-UK we have been hearing increasing heart-breaking accounts from people who have received poor quality treatment from unqualified therapists, often at huge expense. What makes this worse, is that many of these unqualified therapists claim to be former, recovered OCD sufferers themselves.<\/p>\n

We are writing this article in the hope we can help inform and educate people who read this, before such time they choose to seek help\/treatment from any of these unqualified and unregulated therapists with the hope that we can prevent further financial and emotional harm coming to others with OCD by empowering people to make informed choices when seeking private treatment.<\/p>\n

For the purpose of this article we are using the term \u2018therapists\u2019 to describe these unqualified & unlicensed practitioners, but this term is interchangeable with some of the other terms we have seen used by individuals and clinics run by individuals charging vast sums of money, when in fact they are not appropriately clinically qualified to do so. Other terms we have seen used include OCD specialist, OCD coach, OCD advocate, expert by experience and in some cases where people created their own therapy clinic, terms we have seen used includes clinical lead, head therapist and\/or founder.\u00a0 \u00a0All of these titles sound impressive, but should not be taken at face value.\u00a0 Yes, there are genuine health professionals that may use one of these titles, which is backed up by years of clinical experience, qualifications and supervision and that person may very well be suitable to help people with OCD. However, unfortunately we are also aware that in many cases there are people using these titles without clinical training, supervision or appropriate qualifications\/accreditation.\u00a0 \u00a0For clarity, at this time OCD-UK do not recommend any UK based OCD ‘recovery coaches’ or ‘expert by experience’ when we are asked to recommend private therapists.<\/p>\n

What has become evident is an increasing number of awful experiences we are hearing from people who, often out of desperation, have turned for help to unlicensed, unqualified and in some cases unscrupulous OCD \u2018therapists\u2019, who promise freedom from OCD, but only at a price – a price that can run into the thousands of pounds.<\/p>\n

The negative experiences of seeking out help from such therapists go far beyond the excessive financial costs. \u00a0Our huge concern is also the quality and delivery of the treatment approaches and the way in which clients have been treated by these therapists. \u00a0Such poor-quality treatment experiences can have long-term negative implications for the person with OCD, who can be left out of pocket and just as unwell as they were before, often with reluctance to try treatment again after such a bad experience.<\/p>\n

A forthcoming academic research paper (due to be published soon), which we have been able to review, validates our concerns and highlights the horrendous emotional impact that unregulated and unqualified therapists can cause. \u00a0We will link that paper to this page once it is published.<\/p>\n

The problem of using unlicensed therapists is not new. The BBC published this article<\/a> in 2021 which told the story of one such individual we were already aware of, who claims to be an online OCD therapist and an \u2018expert by experience\u2019 and charges thousands of pounds for treatment.\u00a0 In the article Jake and Laura share their stories, both of which are alarming, but sadly are representative of similar accounts we have heard from other people who have undertaken treatment, we suspect with the same individual.\u00a0 Similar stories were also aired on this BBC Radio 4 programme<\/a>\u00a0that was broadcast in September of that same year.<\/p>\n

Worryingly, we are currently hearing on an almost weekly basis of similar stories from parents of children with OCD and adults with OCD that have reached out to the aforementioned and other similar OCD therapists or treatment services here in the UK.<\/p>\n

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HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN?<\/strong><\/p>\n

As it stands right now, anybody can call themselves a therapist, because the term \u2018therapist\u2019 is not a protected title. This means anyone can set themselves up to offer therapy\/coaching services and charge for their service.\u00a0 As Jake describes in the BBC article, \u201ca person has got quite a large following [on social media] and markets himself as a person with OCD and has got over it, you think that\u2019s a great sign because they know how to get you better, and because they\u2019ve been through it they understand.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

So when someone describes themselves as an OCD therapist\/coach and an expert by experience it\u2019s easy to understand why someone would turn towards them for treatment , especially when you see they have thousands of social media followers and regular testimonials, which we are told the coach actively seeks, as Laura highlights in the article.\u00a0\u00a0Understandably all of this can lead a person to think that this is somebody that can be trusted, which is how and why people can turn to these OCD \u2018therapists\u2019.<\/p>\n

Similarly, we have heard of other poor treatment experiences from other OCD therapists out there that also change hundreds \u00a0– sometimes thousands – of pounds for intensive OCD treatment services that claim to help people recover from OCD in a short period of time and also claim to be experts by experience. \u00a0\u00a0However, the qualification of those offering such services may not meet our minimum recommendations (see below).<\/p>\n

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REPUTABLE THERAPISTS<\/strong><\/p>\n

As people with lived experience of OCD ourselves we are always very clear we are experts in understanding our own OCD, but that does not necessarily make us experts in your OCD and certainly does not qualify us to provide chargeable therapy services.<\/p>\n

A good therapist will belong to an appropriate regulation body that will have its own code of ethics, a complaints system, and minimum qualification requirements to help ensure a level of core standards. Therapists will also often be supervised by an experienced qualified therapist that will also belong to a regulation body. They will be clear about their qualifications and experience on their website and should be very open to you asking questions about these.\u00a0 Of course, not all regulation bodies are the same and we list the ones you should be looking for below.<\/p>\n

OCD-UK will write to the new prime minister and call on the government for tighter regulation on therapists and therapy services.\u00a0 But we also know there needs to be a multi-faceted approach to ensuring the safety and well-being of vulnerable and desperate people.\u00a0 That must start with the NHS, especially at primary care level (in England primary care services are termed NHS Talking Therapies services, formerly known as IAPT). We need to have NHS services that are better informed and skilled in treating OCD, with reduced waiting times for treatment.<\/p>\n

Until then, we will do what we can to help advise and guide people towards reputable therapeutic services and empower people to make informed choices when seeking private treatment.<\/p>\n

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HOW TO AVOID UNQUALIFIED ‘THERAPISTS’<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is widely accepted that the evidence-based treatment which is effective in treating Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy with Exposure Response Prevention (often abbreviated to CBT with ERP). Such treatment should be delivered by professionally and clinically trained therapists who are regulated by an appropriate professional standards authority, for example the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP), the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) or the General Medical Council (GMC).<\/p>\n

However, we know that many people with OCD find it difficult to access good quality evidence-based treatment, either through the NHS or privately and sometimes, through desperation, will search the internet or social media and stumble across seemingly impressive websites of OCD therapists or treatment services that claim to offer amazing OCD therapy.\u00a0 Whilst searching for a professional\u2019s accreditation can be hard and confusing, we have put together a short list below to try and help guide you when seeking private therapy as well as red flags you should be cautious about.<\/p>\n

We recommend seeking qualified therapists that meet at least one of the following criteria:<\/p>\n