Any UK based psychotherapists out there? Non CBT/Non London?!
January 15, 2015 12:20 PM Subscribe
Hi,
I have a core mental health profession but with the climate as it is and the destruction of mental health services I feel I can no longer be a 'one trick pony'. I am considering training in psychotherapy or sex therapy (probably the former). I'm in the UK and plan on staying here.
CBT would not be my modality of choice but I know it's where more jobs are in the 'quick fix' climate. So.. if I went for the training (IAPT CBT) am I best to go for low or high intensity? Would I 'stand a chance' against psychologists applying for funded courses in IAPT as a non psychologist (I have applied before). I feel (perhaps wrongly) having any kind of a psychology education takes precedence over a decade of experience.. and a related degree :(.
Or, how likely is it I could find work in an organisation as a non CBT therapist in a city outside London? How hard is it to set up successfully in private practice, probably as an integrative psychotherapist? So far I have found start ups beyond hard. I know psychotherapy is often a part time gig.
I know this is a really specific subject so I could be ****ing in the wind here :-o! If anyone knows of sites to discuss these issues specifically that would be helpful too. Thanks.
CBT would not be my modality of choice but I know it's where more jobs are in the 'quick fix' climate. So.. if I went for the training (IAPT CBT) am I best to go for low or high intensity? Would I 'stand a chance' against psychologists applying for funded courses in IAPT as a non psychologist (I have applied before). I feel (perhaps wrongly) having any kind of a psychology education takes precedence over a decade of experience.. and a related degree :(.
Or, how likely is it I could find work in an organisation as a non CBT therapist in a city outside London? How hard is it to set up successfully in private practice, probably as an integrative psychotherapist? So far I have found start ups beyond hard. I know psychotherapy is often a part time gig.
I know this is a really specific subject so I could be ****ing in the wind here :-o! If anyone knows of sites to discuss these issues specifically that would be helpful too. Thanks.
My impression (I've looked at a few of the job ads, and I've heard the scuttlebutt when these services go out for commissioning) is that IAPT teams are not especially selective in who they're looking for, so I'd feel relatively confident in applying. For more a full list of various training options on the NHS, look here.
When I was looking at it, I realised it would be quicker and easier for me to become a psychiatrist than a clinical psychologist, for example: graduate entry medical school's reasonably well funded and open to graduates of all disciplines, although it demands pretty good science aptitude, whereas clinical psychology PhDs require stellar undergraduate psychology degrees, plus several years working as a psychology assistant. I know it's difficult to get mental health nurses as well, which would have you trained relatively quickly with some bursaries, and you could be doing relatively focused long term community work within a couple of years of graduating.
I've no idea how easy it is to set up your own psychotherapy practice, but I've found through bitter experience that there's some pretty insightless people who seem to be making a living from it.
posted by ambrosen at 2:18 PM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
When I was looking at it, I realised it would be quicker and easier for me to become a psychiatrist than a clinical psychologist, for example: graduate entry medical school's reasonably well funded and open to graduates of all disciplines, although it demands pretty good science aptitude, whereas clinical psychology PhDs require stellar undergraduate psychology degrees, plus several years working as a psychology assistant. I know it's difficult to get mental health nurses as well, which would have you trained relatively quickly with some bursaries, and you could be doing relatively focused long term community work within a couple of years of graduating.
I've no idea how easy it is to set up your own psychotherapy practice, but I've found through bitter experience that there's some pretty insightless people who seem to be making a living from it.
posted by ambrosen at 2:18 PM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Sorry, that was a pretty rambling, unfocused answer, but I hope it's a perspective-dump that's at least coming at things from a different view of what you're familiar with. I've been working with and around mental health practitioners for most of the last decade, but I'm not clinically trained personally.
posted by ambrosen at 2:20 PM on January 15, 2015
posted by ambrosen at 2:20 PM on January 15, 2015
Hi. I'm in the UK, London-based. I'm training to be a psychotherapist. I also considered the NHS path into mental health work (ie through a training in psychology) before opting for my current path (private, self-funded training in integrative psychotherapy). Mental health in the UK is a complicated field, but when I surveyed the terrain, there were at least two very different paths that might lead to a practice in psychotherapy.
1. Training as a counsellor or psychotherapist. Theoretically, anybody in the UK can hang up a shingle and call themselves a counsellor/psychotherapist. This is a not so great idea either ethically or commercially. Instead, you would probably want to go for a BACP accreditation as a counsellor, which takes 2-4 years part-time, or a UKCP accreditation as a psychotherapist, which takes 5-7 years part-time (some trainings offer both). As far as I know it is not possible or desirable to accelerate this process -- training as either a counsellor or therapist requires you to reflect on your own issues and history, accumulate hundreds of hours of unpaid clinical experience, integrate what you've learned and have tons of your own therapy. Personally, I would not want to find myself in front of a therapist who had not gone through their own therapy (although this is true of many clinical psychologists offering therapy).
This process is rewarding, but expensive, prolonged and arduous. You should scrutinize any prospective training very carefully to see how employable its graduates are -- not all trainings are of equal quality and some are more likely to open doors to organizational or NHS work than others. Keep in mind that this whole process only leads to the core qualification in adult one-to-one work. You need this core qualification before you can go on to do further training in couples, children and adolescents, CBT, sex and relationships etc.
2. Training as a clinical or counselling psychologist. This also requires an undergrad or Masters in psychology, after which you do a ClinPsyD in clinical psychology or a doctorate in counselling psychology. Doctorates in clinical psychology are mostly funded through the NHS, but competition is accordingly fierce. Doctorates in counselling psychology are mostly self-funded. Possibly you could practice with just an MSc in counselling psychology, like this one.
If you just want to work with IAPT, you could apply to train as a psychological wellbeing practitioner (PWP), which has a much shorter training and doesn't require a degree in psychology. With an election coming up this year and the NHS, including mental health services, being such a political football I would be worried about the longevity of a career in IAPT, but these worries might not pan out.
Training as a PWP would not qualify you to practice integrative psychotherapy, only the manualized short-term therapies such as CBT currently favored by IAPT. As I said, a decent training in integrative psychotherapy is much longer and more expensive (mine will have cost the equivalent of a new Mercedes when all's said and done), and I don't recommend embarking on it lightly or as a get-employed-quick scheme, but you do end up thoroughly qualified, and personally changed, by the end of it.
If you're interested in psychotherapy training, most diploma courses I know of offer and/or demand an initial one-year part-time foundation course so you can learn basic counselling skills and theory, engage in some personal development and decide whether it's for you before embarking on a longer course. A foundation course is very much worth a try, I think -- the skills it teaches will help you in your work regardless of whether you go on to a qualification, and it might help you focus your ideas about where and how you want to work.
posted by stuck on an island at 5:15 AM on January 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
1. Training as a counsellor or psychotherapist. Theoretically, anybody in the UK can hang up a shingle and call themselves a counsellor/psychotherapist. This is a not so great idea either ethically or commercially. Instead, you would probably want to go for a BACP accreditation as a counsellor, which takes 2-4 years part-time, or a UKCP accreditation as a psychotherapist, which takes 5-7 years part-time (some trainings offer both). As far as I know it is not possible or desirable to accelerate this process -- training as either a counsellor or therapist requires you to reflect on your own issues and history, accumulate hundreds of hours of unpaid clinical experience, integrate what you've learned and have tons of your own therapy. Personally, I would not want to find myself in front of a therapist who had not gone through their own therapy (although this is true of many clinical psychologists offering therapy).
This process is rewarding, but expensive, prolonged and arduous. You should scrutinize any prospective training very carefully to see how employable its graduates are -- not all trainings are of equal quality and some are more likely to open doors to organizational or NHS work than others. Keep in mind that this whole process only leads to the core qualification in adult one-to-one work. You need this core qualification before you can go on to do further training in couples, children and adolescents, CBT, sex and relationships etc.
2. Training as a clinical or counselling psychologist. This also requires an undergrad or Masters in psychology, after which you do a ClinPsyD in clinical psychology or a doctorate in counselling psychology. Doctorates in clinical psychology are mostly funded through the NHS, but competition is accordingly fierce. Doctorates in counselling psychology are mostly self-funded. Possibly you could practice with just an MSc in counselling psychology, like this one.
If you just want to work with IAPT, you could apply to train as a psychological wellbeing practitioner (PWP), which has a much shorter training and doesn't require a degree in psychology. With an election coming up this year and the NHS, including mental health services, being such a political football I would be worried about the longevity of a career in IAPT, but these worries might not pan out.
Training as a PWP would not qualify you to practice integrative psychotherapy, only the manualized short-term therapies such as CBT currently favored by IAPT. As I said, a decent training in integrative psychotherapy is much longer and more expensive (mine will have cost the equivalent of a new Mercedes when all's said and done), and I don't recommend embarking on it lightly or as a get-employed-quick scheme, but you do end up thoroughly qualified, and personally changed, by the end of it.
If you're interested in psychotherapy training, most diploma courses I know of offer and/or demand an initial one-year part-time foundation course so you can learn basic counselling skills and theory, engage in some personal development and decide whether it's for you before embarking on a longer course. A foundation course is very much worth a try, I think -- the skills it teaches will help you in your work regardless of whether you go on to a qualification, and it might help you focus your ideas about where and how you want to work.
posted by stuck on an island at 5:15 AM on January 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
To clarify -- training for a BACP counselling qualification might only take you 3-4 years from beginning to end, and it requires fewer clinical and own-therapy hours than training for a UKCP qualification. Many people with "only" a counselling qualification do go on to set up a practice or work with organizations, so this might be a less intense/expensive option for you.
posted by stuck on an island at 5:24 AM on January 16, 2015
posted by stuck on an island at 5:24 AM on January 16, 2015
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posted by tanktop at 12:22 PM on January 15, 2015