ELIGIBILITY | Schema Therapy Works

Eligibility Criteria to begin UK, ISST-Approved

Schema Therapy Training Programmes - Minimum Standards

Anyone can join our workshops, but if you would like to become certified in schema therapy, the certification programme is only open to candidates who are already qualified practitioners allowed to provide one-to-one psychological therapy to clients.

Qualified practitioners are candidates who will have:

graduated from a counselling, psychotherapy or applied psychology training programme run by an approved professional body.
The training programme will have included research and significant amounts of supervised one-to-one clinical practice within the adult population, culminating in accreditation of that regulatory body, conferring the right to practice one-to-one therapy.

The candidate, both as a schema therapy trainee and later as an accredited schema therapist must be, and then continue to be a fully accredited member of the regulatory body that accredited the training programme they attended which in turn conferred the right to practice one-to-one therapy, and their clinical practice will continue to be regulated by it.

Currently, training and regulatory bodies recognised by UK, ISST-Approved Schema Therapy Training Programmes are:

The British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy (BABCP)
The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP)
The British Psychological Society (BPS)
Health Care Professions Council (HCPC)

Being fully accredited to such a body before embarking on a schema therapy training programme leading to accreditation as a schema therapist will also facilitate gaining and maintaining the required Professional Indemnity Insurance.

Proof of accreditation to one of these bodies will be required by the directors of training programmes and by the ISST. Psychologists should be registered with the Health Care & Professions Council (HCPC) and continue to be registered both as a trainee schema therapist and as an accredited schema therapist.

Applicants are expected to be academically capable of following the rigorous accreditation route for schema therapy and they must hold at least a bachelor’s degree.

Applications for UK certification programmes will be scrutinised on a case-by-case basis.

Applicants will be required to produce detailed evidence to the UK Training Programme Director and possibly later to the ISST of their eligibility to join a training programme leading to accreditation as a schema therapist. This includes:

1. Full Accreditation to the BABCP

2. At least Individual Counsellor/Psychotherapist Accreditation to the BACP

3. HCPC registration as one of the following:

Clinical Psychology
Counselling Psychology
Forensic Psychology

If accepted for training onto a UK, ISST-approved schema therapy training programme the candidate, both as a schema therapy trainee and later as an accredited schema therapist, must be and continue to be a fully accredited member of that regulatory body and their clinical practice will be regulated by it.

If you do not meet these criteria, please get in touch via schematherapyworks@gmail.com to discuss submission of a portfolio to gain eligibility to join the certification programme.