Training Pathway

How to become a Psychotherapist or Counsellor
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Next Steps

Your pathway into Transactional Analysis
Psychotherapy and Counselling training

We designed this pathway for people who want depth and rigour, without losing their lives to training

The Metis Institute is applying to the UK Association for Transactional Analysis (UKATA) to become a Recognised Training Establishment (RTE). If successful, this would enable graduates of the programme to apply for UKCP registration via UKATA, subject to meeting all relevant criteria.

Pathways at a glance

Entry requirements

Entry point: TA101

Training Year 1
Foundations

Training Year 2 and 3
Diploma

Training Year 4
Advanced Diploma

Advanced Recognitions
CTA & UKCP

Calendar

 

Fees

Pathways at a Glance

All our training courses include a 2-course lunch, all-day refreshments, and free parking. We also have the option for residential accommodation that further includes a bed, breakfast, and an evening meal.

COURSE QUALIFICATION DURATION
TA 101 Leads to TA101 Certificate 2 days
Training Year 1 Leads to Depth TA Theory Certificate 10 weekends
Training Years 2 & 3 Leads to Diploma in Psychotherapeutic Counselling  10 weekends per year
Training Year 4 Leads to Advanced Diploma in Integrative Psychotherapy 10 weekends
Advanced Training Leads to Certified Transactional Analyst (CTA) (application to UKATA underway) Ongoing
Advanced Training Leads to UKCP Accreditation – Registration (application to UKATA underway) Ongoing

Entry requirements

  • We value life experience, independent study, and professional learning that prepares you to engage with rigorous psychotherapy training
  • A university degree or professional qualification is helpful, but not essential
  • A capacity for self-reflection and openness to feedback
  • Emotional maturity and resilience, alongside a willingness to be honest about struggles
  • An interest in working with others in groups, and the ability to tolerate difference and diversity
  • Experience in helping professions, education, pastoral work, or community roles is welcome, though not required
  • Having engaged in personal therapy before applying is an advantage. A willingness to be in ongoing therapy during training is essential
  • A genuine interest in psychotherapy and the personal journey it entails
  • A sense of resonance with our integrative approach, combining Transactional Analysis with Analytical and Depth Psychological perspectives.
  • The training asks for time, energy, financial commitment, and emotional availability. We encourage applicants to reflect carefully on their readiness.
  • Proficiency in English is important to fully participate in learning and group processes.

Course Fees

Our course fees cover the teaching and core delivery of the training and form one part of the overall investment in professional development.

In line with the requirements of UK professional bodies, students should also plan for annual additional essential costs such as personal therapy, clinical supervision, professional membership, insurance, and external assessment fees where applicable.

We believe it is important to be open about these expectations from the beginning, so that trainees can enter their training with clarity, confidence, and realistic planning.

Entry point

TA101

TA101 is a two-day, internationally recognised and EATA-accredited Transactional Analysis (TA) introductory course, offered in person and on selected dates online. It is designed for beginners, career-changers, and early-career helpers who want a clear, practical framework for understanding human behaviour, communication, and repeating relationship patterns.

At The Metis Institute, TA101 is taught with a Depth Psychology focus. Alongside core TA concepts, we listen for what is unspoken and symbolic in relationship, and for the unconscious patterns that quietly organise how we relate, choose, and change. TA becomes both a map and a language, helping you name what is happening, and discover where new options might be possible.

Teaching is interactive and experiential, combining structured input, discussion, practice exercises, and reflection, grounded in real-life examples. On completion, you receive an internationally recognised TA101 certificate, a prerequisite for further TA training.

TA101 Dates
Hand sketching a simple diagram in a notebook during TA101 Transactional Analysis training at The Metis Institute.
Gill Dawson facilitating an experiential learning exercise during the Metis Institute Certificate in Transactional Analysis Theory programme.

Training Year 1

Depth Transactional Analysis Theory Certificate

The Foundation Year Certificate is a standalone qualification and the first substantial step into Transactional Analysis (TA) psychotherapy training. Entry requires a TA101 certificate, so you begin with a shared TA language and an internationally recognised foundation. In this year, you study core TA theory and its epistemological roots, developing a clear framework for ego states, communication patterns, and life script dynamics that shape adult experience. Alongside this, we integrate experiential, non-verbal methods—including embodied awareness, movement, and creative practice—so learning becomes alive.

An introduction to Jungian Analytical Psychology adds a depth lens, sharpening your capacity to work with symbolic material and unconscious dynamics in relationship. Teaching is structured, relational, and reflective, supporting the development of clinical presence from the beginning.

Training Year 1 dates
  • 24th-25th October 2026
  • 21st-22nd November 2026
  • 12th-13th December 2026
  • 23rd-24th January 2027
  • 20th-21st February 2027
  • 13th-14th March 2027
  • 10th-11th April 2027
  • 1st-2nd May 2027
  • 5th-6th June 2027
  • 10th-11th July 2027

Training Year 2 and 3

Diploma in Psychotherapeutic Counselling

Our Counselling Training guides students through Training Years 2 and 3, shaping the transition from inner work into confident clinical practice. Rooted in Transactional Analysis (TA), this pathway integrates relational, embodied, and creative learning with a depth-informed lens, so theory becomes lived skill in the room.

Entry into Counselling Training requires completion of a TA101 certificate and the Foundation Year Certificate in Depth TA Theory, ensuring a shared language and a strong theoretical base.

In Training Year 2, students move from concepts to applied clinical practice, developing reflexive awareness of the therapist’s position, power, and subjectivity. Learning emerges through the relational and embodied therapeutic encounter, attending to conscious and unconscious dynamics, countertransference, enactments, and bodily responses, held with humility, curiosity, and reflective presence.

In Training Year 3, students deepen from apprentice to practitioner, consolidating an ethically attuned stance and strengthening their capacity to hold complexity and uncertainty. Creative, imaginal, and embodied methods remain central, supporting work with symbolic material and supervision-informed professional development.

Training Year 2 and 3 dates
  • Training Year 2: Oct 2027
  • Training Year 3: Oct 2028
Spiral staircase viewed from above, symbolising the structured, developmental journey of psychotherapy training over time.
Diploma in Integrative Psychotherapy — integration, structure, depth.

Training Year 4

Advanced Diploma in Integrative Psychotherapy

Training Year 4: The Alchemical Vessel: Transformation, Depth, and Clinical Maturity brings students to the threshold of qualifying as psychotherapists, refining advanced clinical practice through complexity, containment, and therapeutic presence. Rooted in Transactional Analysis (TA), the year integrates TA with archetypal and depth psychology, alongside arts-based and movement-informed clinical methods, supporting work with symbolic material and embodied process.

Diversity becomes central in all its expressions—psychological, physical, cultural, and spiritual—strengthening the therapist’s stance as a relational, ethically accountable practitioner. Students engage with severe distress and complex presentations, including psychosis and personality disorders, as well as cultural and intergenerational trauma, and the existential dimensions of psychotherapy.

TA theory is applied to advanced clinical work, including structural diagnosis, transference patterns, and scripts and games in more severe presentations, with particular attention to strengthening the Adult ego state in complex relational fields. Research is approached as disciplined enquiry, integrating meaning-making, literature, and reflective practice, rather than a mechanistic task.

Training Year 4 dates
  • Training Year 4: Oct 2029

Advanced recognitions

CTA Pathway

The CTA Pathway offers progression within a training route aligned with UKATA and EATA standards, designed to support trainees towards the title of Certified Transactional Analyst (CTA). This is a long apprenticeship of mind, heart, and practice, where Transactional Analysis psychotherapy training is refined into a clear professional identity and an ethical, reflective stance within the wider TA community. The CTA written and oral examinations are typically held during professional conferences, so assessment is not only an individual milestone, but also a communal rite of passage—witnessed, supported, and situated within the living culture of TA. Here, qualification becomes belonging as well as competence.

(application to UKATA underway)

 

UKCP registration

At the end of training, students may choose to sit a written and oral examination leading to qualification as Integrative Psychotherapists. This is not a hoop to jump through, but the coronation of the training: the moment where sustained study, supervision, personal work, and clinical practice begin to show their full return. The written element gathers psychotherapy training into a coherent clinical voice, integrating theory, practice, and reflective enquiry, while the oral exam tests the capacity to stay present when the work becomes complex, ambiguous, and ethically charged. It is a threshold where Transactional Analysis and depth-informed practice are held together, and readiness is demonstrated with rigour, flexibility, and care.

CTA pathway — journey towards becoming a Certified Transactional Analyst.

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