Ridiculous situation.

That is ridiculous, luco!! So sorry. I hope your t can help.

I’m so sorry. This sounds like a really stupid policy.

God that's so ****ing ridiculous. I'm sorry you're caught up in this There's been some great advice on this thread already, so I won't repeat it. I'm glad you were able to talk to your T about it. It's nice that he's able to write that letter. You never know, right?

Sending about a million hugs your way.

I hope your current T's letter works. I'm sorry you're going through this.

I'm sorry, this really does suck, and it's ridiculous!

I hope you can do every other week. Just tell the new therapist that you can't afford to see him weekly just don't explain why.

Bureaucratic nonsense that sucks and doesn't benefit anyone - a UK speciality sadly. Sorry Luc.

I have come to this thread a bit late, but I wanted to highlight some other sources of support which might be available to you.

Are the requirements set by your university or BACP? If they are set by BACP and implemented by the university, there will not be very much that your course leaders will be able to do - even if they want to be flexible.

If the requirements are course only requirements (internal to the university and set by the course leaders) then you will have a much greater chance of having them adapted to fit your needs. If you have a mental health condition, you can seek support from the university disability service (sometimes called student wellbeing) where you will be assigned a disability adviser who can advocate on your behalf. It is standard for advisers to argue for reasonable adjustments to be put in place for students with mental health conditions, such as alternative exam arrangements or methods of assessment. Given that you feel that switching therapists would have a detrimental effect on your mental health (in the way that it would not to other students) and negatively affect your academic performance, your adviser could make a case for amending the requirements as a reasonable adjustment. This assumes you have a condition such as depression, PTSD or anxiety, obviously if you don't, this doesn't apply.

You can also seek support from the student union (regardless of your mental health status) and they can support you with an appeals process or to submit mitigating circumstances. They will also advocate on your behalf with your department, but my experience is that this can be a bit hit or miss.

I work in student services at uni and I am happy to chat over PM if you would find that useful.

Thank you very much for your thoughtful reply!

The requirement is definitely set by my university, rather than the BACP, and the impression I got from my lecturer wasn't that it was 'out of his hands', but rather that he was choosing not to be flexible about it.

I think you make a good point with regard to arguing that this is detrimental to my mental health and seeking the appropriate assistance with that. My worry is that I will be judged as unsuitable to be doing the course at all if I suggest that my mental health is in any way unstable at the moment. It's not like studying other subjects in that regard.

I've been thinking about it, though, and I do think that it's something I should be honest about. If I'm judged as being not well enough to undertake the course (which is likely to be emotionally and mentally demanding, and includes another hundred hours of clinical practice) then I guess that would be a decision I'd have to respect. I think I'm okay to do it, obviously, though it would make a hell of a lot of difference to have the support of my T throughout.

So, my plan right now is to set up an 'appeal' of some sort (including the statement that my T has offered to write), and find out who the relevant people to present it to are. This might just mean talking to my lecturer again at first. I have previously considered him to be a very kind and reasonable man and have had a lot of respect for him, so I guess I still have some hope there.

Just updating to say that I have spoken to my lecturer today and there's no budging on this.

So my last session with T will be on the 18th October.

For f***'s sake.

Ugh, I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry, Luco. Seems so ridiculous.

I'm sorry Luco. I wish that it didn't have to be this way.

So sorry that seems so unfair big hugs

So sorry to hear this Luc, what a **** thing to go through. xx

Thanks everyone.