How to become a psychotherapistYou can become a psychotherapist by wanting to be one - plus being prepared to commit many years to training, personal development and growth, hard work, and a lot of expensive. It is a life changing experience. And it is best to prepare yourself as far as possible. Below you'll find a variety of sources of advice, but probably the best advice to talk to a trainer and get a sense of what it is about.
UKCP Psychotherapy Advice The UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) is the principle organisation for most modalities of psychotherapy in the UK. It mainly licences organisations rather than individual members. These organisations in turn control the training and registration of psychotherapists. The UKCP offers advice on: BACP Psychotherapy AdviceThe British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) is the principle organisation for counselling, though it now also includes psychotherapists too. It is a member organisation - you become a member and then accredited to the BACP personally. It has an large section on: NHS Psychotherapy AdviceThe is a large employer of therapists, though this is a comparatively new and evolving role. NHS Careers has information on:
Guardian Newspaper AdviceThe Guardian newspaper's careers section occasionally visits this topic, with stories such as: How do I become a Psychotherapist and more recently The Relationship Counsellor: The Healing Touch TA Psychotherapy Training AdviceIf you're considering training in Transactional Analysis the best advice is to call up your local Transactional Analysis training centre and to talk to one of the trainers there. They will able to advise you on your options, what requirements you will have to fulfil and indicate the stages of training. You should certainly attend a TA 101 course. This is both a requirement and give you a quick taster of what the process is going to be like. Becoming a psychotherapist outside the UK This advice is UK specific. Other countries have different regulatory frameworks that can make the process quite different. Some of the books (right) may help, and well as the different sources of information gathered below. |
About TA StudentThis site contains resources primarily aimed at Transactional Analysis trainees. I am myself in Advanced Training and wanted to bring together all the online resources that exist to support my own learning. I also publish the The Psychotherapy Daily which brings together significant developments in psychotherapy published on Twitter in the past day. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, strokes or requests, please email me at:rob@vantol.co.uk or tweet to @talkingtherapy. To defy the costs of producing this site, I am referrer for Amazon.co.uk, how give me a small percentage from their profits for each book you buy - it does not in any way affect the price you pay for the books. © 2004-2011 Rob van Tol  |
Becoming a Psychotherapist or Counsellor |