Counselling magazine ‘deeply sorry’ for removing article about Jewish trauma

The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) has said it is “deeply sorry” for removing a column about Jewish trauma over 7 October from its latest magazine over fears of a possible backlash.

The professional body pulled the piece by mental health practitioner Dr Sandi Mann from the January issue of its Counselling At Work magazine.

In it, Dr Mann told how Jews in Manchester are struggling to come to terms with the Hamas massacre in southern Israel. This month’s issue will be the first in 10 years that does not include her regular column, entitled Workplace Matters.

The scrapped column, headlined ‘A community in traumatic stress’, describes the trauma of the city’s Jews in the aftermath of the Hamas massacre of more than 1,200 people in southern Israel. It was apparently scrapped on deadline because of concerns about possible ramifications.

Following an outpouring of concern across and beyond the Jewish community, which included furious members threatening to quit the organisations, the BACP issued a statement on Thursday, saying: “On reflection, this was the wrong decision. We’re deeply sorry for not publishing the article and for the hurt that decision has caused. It’s really important that we continue to  listen and learn when we make mistakes, so that we can do better for our members, their clients and the profession.”

It continues: “Dr Mann’s article is a powerful insight into important work being carried out to support the Jewish community with trauma and deserves to be shared publicly. We’ve contacted Dr Mann to apologise and have now published her article on our website, which you can read HERE. It will also feature in a future edition of BACP Workplace.”

After her article was removed Dr Mann, who wrote a similar piece for the magazine after the Manchester arena terrorist attack in 2017, told Jewish News: “While I totally understand the BACP pulled this article in order to protect its staff, it is very distressing that they felt that an article about the Jewish community’s trauma following the worse massacre of Jews since the Holocaust might lead to such severe ramifications that they felt the need to cancel it.

“We are increasingly living in a culture of fear, threats and intimidation towards Jews but when this culture leads to the silencing of the Jewish voice, especially within the professional or academic context, then Jews risk being marginalised and othered. More must be done to ensure that our institutions are not afraid to give the Jewish community a platform.”