‘Profession of the century’: why so many people are retraining as therapists
When Gareth Barnes’ therapist asked if he was happy at work, she did not mean to suggest he follow in her footsteps. Yet the question was the catalyst for him embarking on a new career in psychotherapy.
“My job wasn’t matching with my values and what I really wanted to do,” says the 50-year-old, who was then working for a law firm. Three years later he has a counselling qualification, a job at a workplace therapy provider and his own private clients. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”
Barnes is just one of a growing number of workers, from farmers to investment bankers, ditching long-held jobs to retrain as counsellors.
As take-up of talking cures increases, more people are looking to them not just to fix personal problems, but as a path out of the corporate grind to a more meaningful career. “Psychotherapy has become more and more popular,” says Irena Bezic, president of the European Association for Psychotherapy. “I think it’s the profession of this century.”
Data from membership organisations shows numbers joining the industry have risen in the past five years. Between April 2020 and April this year, membership of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy, one of the UK’s largest, increased by 27 per cent to 66,000, and student membership rose by more than a third to 13,000.
The surge follows a sharp increase in demand for mental health services. Figures show that between 2017 and last year, the number of people in contact with NHS mental health services rose by 25 per cent, to 4.5mn. Private providers report more people seeking self-funded therapy, while charity Rethink Mental Illness says visits to its advice website increased 175 per cent in the year from March 2020.
“More people than ever have been for therapy themselves, which means more see the benefit of going on to retrain and support others,” says BACP’s Kris Ambler.
Nathan Shearman, director of therapy training provider Red Umbrella, has seen this with an unexpected group: farmers.
Gareth Barnes was working for a law firm when he decided to retrain as a therapist. There has been a surge in people joining the industry over the past few years © Jon Super/FT
When he partnered with a charity to offer free counselling to agricultural workers last year, he expected a few dozen clients. But so far more than 400 have signed up. Some have gone further, enrolling in training to become mental health first aiders offered as part of the scheme, and several are considering more advanced courses. “In something like farming, where the future is very uncertain, they start to see counselling as an option,” Shearman says.
While a far cry from farming, it is still a challenging path. In countries such as Austria and Germany, psychotherapists must legally hold certain qualifications requiring several years of study. In the UK, despite calls for regulation to stop unqualified people practising, there is no legal restriction on who can call themselves a therapist. Practitioners instead are expected to join accreditation bodies, such as BACP, which demand similar levels of training.
Typically, would-be therapists take a foundation course, then a certificate in counselling skills, usually at a college, before a longer course at a university or specialist provider combining classroom learning with on-the-job training. Some courses can be funded with government loans, but many trainees need to continue working or dig into savings to finance their new career.
And although hiring is brisk, new recruits are not guaranteed a job.
On recruitment website Indeed, postings for therapy-related jobs are 80 per cent higher than before the pandemic. Interest in these roles — measured by “clicks per post” — has also risen 9 per cent, suggesting the influx of trainees is yet to outpace the growth in available work.
But in a BACP survey last year, only 40 per cent of respondents agreed they could earn a living from counselling work. Nearly three-quarters said therapy work brought in an income of less than £30,000, of which 37 per cent earned £12,500 or less.
Nicola Ball, who founded a counselling centre in Glasgow after retraining, says the market has tightened. “There were more jobs than . . . people for a long time. Now more people are qualified, you can get really specific about what you need.”
Samia*, who works in media production, is planning a career in therapy for a better work-life balance and also to address a “total lack” of people of colour in the profession.
From HR manager to counsellor
Unlike many would-be counsellors, Maria* was not in therapy before embarking on training. A human resources manager, she decided to leave the City and set up a consulting business after becoming disillusioned by unsympathetic treatment of employees at the investment bank where she worked.
Then, there was little institutional support, and staff would not come forward with problems. “We have come such a long way since those days, from a generational perspective. People are prepared to talk and disclose,” she says.
After observing mental health crises in her own family, Maria decided to make the step to retrain as a therapist. In some ways, it was an unexpected decision.
“I come from a working-class Italian background — we didn’t really discuss feelings and emotions,” she says. “If you’d asked me in 2010 would I go down this route, I’d have said no.”
She has just finished her foundation year. Next comes more intensive training, including an in-work placement one day a week, alongside one-on-one personal therapy. “I’ve learnt so much about myself . . . I would highly recommend it as a journey.”
At 47, she feels her experience — both in life and in running her own business — will make her better at her new career. It is also practically useful, as she has savings to fund her studies and will continue working as a consultant alongside training.
As the mother of two teenage children she hopes to specialise in child and adolescent psychology, perhaps setting up a private practice or working for a charity, while continuing her consulting work. “I’ll be working for myself, choosing my own hours of work whether in HR or counselling,” she says.
Despite 20 years on the couch, she only recently found a therapist who shared her south Asian heritage, highlighting how a lack of cultural understanding had been an obstacle. “I wanted to start offsetting that problem.”
She has had to empty her savings to fund training though, and believes the high costs stop people like her entering the industry.
Trainees also generally have to be in therapy themselves, adding costs of up to several hundred a month. Established members of the profession getting paid by newcomers feels uncomfortable to some. “It’s really just a Ponzi scheme,” Kaspar*, who begins study this year, wryly comments.
Life-long self-reflection, however, is a main attraction in this trade. “You think you’re going in to help other people [but] you’re actually going in to help yourself and to learn about yourself,” says Ball.
Working on her own psychology, through personal therapy and classes, has been “incredible”, if challenging, Samia adds. “You really feel like your whole being is torn apart and scrutinised.”
At Tavistock Relationships, a couple’s counselling provider that also trains therapists, a four-year masters course delivered in partnership with London university Birkbeck costs £7,395 annually. Routinely oversubscribed, it has this year attracted applicants from journalism and air travel, where workers skilled in analytical thinking or communications have been made redundant.
Andrew Balfour, Tavistock Relationships chief executive, says the course involves “working intimately” on profound questions — just like the job students are studying for. “Therapy is concerned with the tangles we really get into in our lives and relationships, [and] understanding that at an unconscious level,” he says. “It starts to be about the meaning of life.”
This year, several applicants were inspired by Couples Therapy, a TV series filmed in therapist Orna Guralnik’s mid-century-styled consultation room, he adds.
BACP does not recommend newcomers set up their own private practice, though some do. For many new therapists, a more realistic first role might be on an employee assistance programme (EAP). Firms in this fast-growing subsector offer companies mental health services for their staff, usually in the form of telephone consultations or fixed-term, targeted counselling courses.
Some therapists are sceptical of these providers, arguing they offer a relatively superficial form of assistance and lower pay. But Ambler says they provide a “good route”, often alongside private work or pro bono counselling for charities.
Employers including law firms Hogan Lovells and Linklaters and bank Goldman Sachs have also begun offering psychological support to staff, with therapists available on-site.
Manchester-based EAP Health Assured, where Barnes works part-time, says demand has soared, in part because employers are worried about mental ill health driving absence among their staff. “It’s not letting up and we’re not turning anyone away,” says clinical lead Kayleigh Frost.
Clients have more complex needs than previous years, she adds, and EAPs have become a “lifeline” in part because of pressures on government health services.
About 20,000 psychotherapists are employed by the NHS, according to the Psychological Professionals Network. Although the UK government is expanding talking therapies, limited funding means waiting lists are long.
And as more people consider working in therapy, poor public sector pay and conditions mean sectors such as nursing and social work are suffering staff shortages.
Lorna*, 34, is an NHS mental health nurse, but is retraining to become a sex therapist. While she will continue working in nursing part-time, in the long run she hopes therapy will offer better pay and conditions.
“The system is so pressured, and when I’m 60 I can’t see myself working the way I do now,” she says. “It’s about planning for the future, doing something I really want to do.”
*Some names have been changed
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Bethan Staton
