How to find a therapist

Training to become a qualified counsellor takes at least two years of full-time study, with some courses being up to five years long. In addition, a minimum of 100 hours of client practice in a recognised placement setting are also required. But unlike doctors or solicitors, for example, counsellors and therapist are not legally required to undergo any of this training or obtain any qualifications. The terms counsellor, therapist and even psychotherapist are not protected titles – anybody could set themselves up as such with no training or oversight at all.

As a client, how can you find a good therapist who has undertaken proper training and obtained a meaningful qualification?

There are several organisations who accredit therapists in the UK. They have names such as the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy, and the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society, and each maintains a register of therapists who have all completed training on approved courses. But none of them is the single authority in quite the same way that the General Medical Council regulates doctors, for example. And unfortunately there are several other organisations with similar names who have no official status at all – they function simply as membership organisations for unaccredited therapists, offering no guarantee of quality or training.

So when searching for a therapist, how can you tell if they are approved by a bona fide register, or are simply a member of a mickey mouse club with an official sounding name?

The answer is the PSA. The Professional Standards Authority (PSA) is the official UK body, answerable to Parliament, which oversees the above registers and decides which have met sufficiently high standards. The only approved registers are listed on the PSA website:
https://www.professionalstandards.org.uk/check-practitioners/practitioner/counselor

For counselling, the main ones are:

• BACP (British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy)
• NCPS (National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society)
• UKCP (United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy)

Each of these operates a directory of registered therapists, so this can be a good place to start your search. There are also a couple of independent directories such as Psychology Today and Counselling Directory which only list therapists who are on one of the approved registers above.

Beware of any other counsellor directories not listed on the PSA website above – they could be listing completely untrained, unqualified therapists.

In summary: whether you use one of the above directories, or whether you find your counsellor through Google or word-of-mouth, always check that they are listed on one of the registers approved by the PSA.