Playing the Game and Changing the Rules: The Power of Resistance

I recently spoke about Hopeful Spaces, the community-based therapy service I’ve set up with The Tannahill Centre at an event where Professor Graham Watt, from GPs at the Deep End, was also speaking.

The Deep End Project brings together GPs working in Scotland’s most socioeconomically deprived communities, advocating for better healthcare access and policy changes to address health inequalities. It highlights how those with the greatest need often face the most barriers to care and pushes for resources and approaches to care that meet people where they are.

Someone asked Professor Watt what he would do differently if he were starting again. His answer stuck with me—he said he was confident that every decision made along the way had been based on the best information available at the time. But then he made an observation that really resonated. He said that, for a long time, he had thought of the Deep End project as a change project. Now, though, he believes it is more accurately framed as a resistance project.

That distinction—between change and resistance—felt crucial. Change often works within existing structures, negotiating with power, seeking progress through accepted channels. It operates within the logic of the system, trying to improve what is already there. Resistance, on the other hand, recognises that some systems are beyond reform. It acknowledges that if you don’t actively push back, you risk being swallowed by the very structures you’re trying to shift.

The way that counselling has been set up in Scotland is not fit to meet our needs.

Waiting times are beyond any definition of reasonable, choice is narrowing, and the people most in need are least able to access care. The status quo is failing, yet so much of what is being pursued in response is framed as change rather than resistance. We see more “innovations” that ration support—shorter session allocations, rigid models of care, and an increasing reliance on unpaid or underpaid trainee therapists to meet demand. All of these are positioned as necessary changes, the only way of meeting demand in this climate. I would argue that delivering therapy this way entrenches the system while papering over the cracks.

I feel more comfortable now saying that Hopeful Spaces, the Community Interest Company I set up to provide access to therapy in Ferguslie Park is a resistance project. We are resisting the commodification of counselling—the idea that mental health support is a product bought and sold. We resist the arbitrary limitation of support, rejecting the “get what you’re given” approach that treats people’s distress as something to be managed efficiently first and then understood deeply within the time. We resist the exploitation of trainee therapists, who are often desperate for placement hours and left to carry the weight of an overwhelmed system without proper support.

This commitment to resistance is also shaping how we grow. We've just appointed two trainees who will bring the number of people being supported to ten . Thanks to investment from The Tannahill Centre, we’re covering their external supervision costs, travel expenses, and providing a £500 learning stipend upon completing their trainee hours. This isn’t just about increasing capacity—it’s about ensuring that those training to be therapists are supported, valued, and not exploited in the process. Meeting the trainees, seeing their enthusiasm and the care they bring, has been a real reminder of why this work matters.

Resistance means refusing to play by rules that perpetuate harm. It means building alternatives, not just tweaking the existing model. It means saying no to the idea that therapy should be a privilege rather than a right.

There is a broader political dimension to this. Public services in the UK have been hollowed out by austerity, marketisation, and the relentless drive for efficiency over effectiveness. Resistance, in this context, is not just about what happens in therapy rooms—it is about standing against the policies and ideologies that treat care as a cost rather than an investment, and don’t give those delivering care what is necessary to do it well.

If we want therapy to be available when people need it, where they need it, and for as long as they need it, we must resist the forces that tell us that is impossible. We must resist the logic that says only those with money should get the best care. We must resist the slow normalisation of a system that is leaving people behind.

Hopeful Spaces is a small part of that resistance. And resistance grows when it is named, when people see it, and when they join in.