Over a third of the UK public have now been to therapy

Page updated: 13 Aug 2026

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Therapy practices are no longer explaining what therapy is to a wary public, they're competing for a public that's already decided to go.

Original Research	BACP's annual check on how the British public feels about and uses therapy, now showing steady growth in uptake.
Source	https://www.bacp.co.uk/about-us/about-bacp/bacp-public-perceptions-survey/
Overview	BACP, the counselling and psychotherapy professional body, polled over five thousand UK adults on their experience of and attitudes to therapy, including workplace burnout.
Year	2026
Publisher	Industry body, BACP (British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy)
Relevance to Wellbeing	This is about as on-the-nose as it gets for therapy practices, since it measures the exact behaviour they're trying to encourage more of.
Our Verdict	Too early to tell a large, annually repeated survey from the field's own professional body, which is about as solid as this sort of thing gets.
Our Summary	Uptake is rising two years running, so this isn't a one-off blip. A sample over five thousand is a proper sample, not a quick poll knocked out over lunch. It's self-reported, so it tells you who's been to therapy, not who's been helped by it. BACP surveys the public generally, not specifically people looking for a private practitioner.
Our Geo View	UK-specific data; figures reflect British attitudes and the BACP's own membership context, so they may not translate directly to other countries' therapy markets.

Abstract of wellbeing niches and revenue flow

Recognise how this might impact your practice

Why this might matter to you

Coaching: this matters because clients increasingly arrive already fluent in therapy language, and expect you to know the difference between what you do and what they've had before.
Therapy: this matters because the pool of people willing to sit on your sofa is growing every year, whether or not your booking diary shows it.
Training: this matters because a public more used to talking about mental health is a public more open to talking about wellbeing at work, which is where your corporate bookings live.
Alternative Healing: this matters because rising therapy uptake shifts what "getting support" means to people, and you're increasingly compared against it rather than ignored alongside it.
Clinical: this matters because patients now arrive with more therapy history in their notes, and expect it to be taken seriously rather than sidestepped.
Retreat/Centre: this matters because a public more comfortable naming burnout is a public more likely to book a week away to deal with it.

Where this came from

BACP's yearly temperature check on the nation's relationship with therapy, this time flagging rising uptake and a fair bit of workplace burnout.

BACP Public Perceptions Survey 2026, published directly by BACP.

Credibility flags: survey methodology stated as a public poll, sample size disclosed at 5,058 UK adults, publisher is the relevant professional body rather than a media outlet repeating someone else's figures.

How we scored this

A relevance score out of 100, built from three things: how well it fits the six practice types, how recent it is, and how solid the methodology behind it is.

93%

Practice fit, 100How new, 100How solid, 75

Marked up for how squarely it fits therapy practice and how fresh it is, but held back slightly on method confidence since the polling firm and full methodology behind BACP's own survey aren't spelled out.

It's worth considering changes to your marketing practices

What this means for your marketing

Put the 37% figure on your website or social feed as proof that seeking therapy is now unremarkable, not brave.
Say plainly what makes your practice different from "generic therapist," since the public increasingly knows what therapy is but not which one to pick.
Brief your reception or booking team on the rising-demand context, so they're ready for enquiries that assume you already have a waiting list.
Mention workplace burnout explicitly in your copy if you take corporate referrals, since that's the growth edge BACP is flagging.
Revisit your "why therapy" page and cut anything aimed at convincing people it works, that argument is largely won.

Who this is most useful for

Practice type	Relevance	Recommended action
Therapy	High	Update marketing to assume awareness, not persuasion.
Coaching	Medium	Clarify positioning against therapy in client-facing copy.
Training	Medium	Lean into workplace burnout as a corporate hook.
Alternative Healing	Low	Note the shift in public expectations without overclaiming overlap.
Clinical	Medium	Prepare for patients with existing therapy history.
Retreat/Centre	Medium	Use burnout framing in retreat promotion.

Best before

Best before: BACP runs this survey annually, so treat this year's figures as current until the 2027 edition lands, and check back with BACP's Public Perceptions Survey when it does.

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A third of the UK has now had therapy, and the queue is getting longer