Psychotherapist: Job description

Psychotherapists work with individuals, couples, families and groups to help them overcome a range of
psychological and emotional issues. Psychotherapists use personal treatment plans and a variety of nonmedical-based treatments to:

address the client's thought processes, feelings and behaviour;

understand inner conflicts;

find new ways to deal with, and alleviate, distress.

Psychotherapists take a variety of approaches according to the theoretical models they adopt and the
therapy they practise. These 'talking therapies' include:

cognitive behavioural therapies;

psychoanalytic and psychodynamic therapies;

humanistic and integrative psychotherapies;

systemic therapies;

hypno-psychotherapy;

experiential constructivist therapies.

Typical work activities

Psychotherapists work with individuals on a one-to-one basis, with couples and families, and with groups
of clients. The client is an active participant in the therapies.
Typical work activities include:

conducting a series of individual sessions with a client - normally lasting between 30 minutes to
an hour, one or more times per week. These assess need, build trust (a therapist may work with

clients for just a few sessions or over a longer period of two or three years) and explore issues.
encouraging the client to talk about and explore their feelings and behaviour;

running group sessions with people undergoing therapy in a clinical setting;

running group sessions in a training capacity for other professionals, such as social workers,
nurses and teachers, who are interested in learning more about how groups work and how they

function within them;

keeping abreast of developments in theory and research;
networking within the health professional community, and other potential business areas, to
maintain continuity of work and client base;
evaluating therapy outcomes and writing reports;
in certain settings (such as National Health Service (NHS) ), working to targets, such as seeing a
number of clients over a particular period in order to meet service expectations and performance

management targets;
undergoing supervision (in order to raise personal issues and professional concerns arising from
work) with another appropriately qualified person, as well as supervising other psychotherapists.

The role of psychotherapist can overlap with the role of counsellor. To find out more about the work of a
psychotherapist, see the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) website.

Case studies: Cognitive behavioural therapist: Jane

Jane is employed by a large Primary Care Trust (PCT) in the Midlands and work as a cognitive
behavioural therapist in a hospital psychotherapy unit...
My current role involves providing cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to individual clients. This usually
means seeing people with long-standing or complex mental health issues for one-hour sessions. I also
co-run a group for clients undertaking group therapy. My role in that group is to support the training of the
counsellor in group treatment.
The rest of my week is spent working at the PCT, which provides first-line treatment to people with mental
health issues. I provide clinical supervision to trainee CBT therapists in that trust. This involves group and
individual supervision where they talk about their client work and receive training, guidance and support. I
also provide some more formal training for them to supplement their training course, fill in gaps and
increase their confidence and competence to practise CBT.
I originally trained as an occupational therapist and worked in mental health in that role for a short while.
During my occupational therapy training I developed a particular interest in CBT when we were introduced
to it as part of our training. Once employed in a mental health role, I sought out training days in CBT and
used it to improve my work as an occupational therapist. I also used it when working in multidisciplinary
teams where we were encouraged to work as key workers, and professional titles were seen as less
useful than the therapeutic interventions available.
I was finally able to undertake formal training in CBT and obtained an MSc in Cognitive Behavioural
Therapy, which allowed me membership of the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive
Psychotherapies (BABCP) . I was then able to apply for CBT specialist posts and was successful in
obtaining such a post.
I particularly enjoy the client contact and the supervision of therapists, as I enjoy interacting with people. I
enjoy the active problem-solving approach of CBT and the collaborative therapeutic relationship that is
fundamental. CBT is a challenging therapy for clients and therapists, but this is part of what makes it
interesting. CBT can appear quite simplistic and easy to do but it can be used at many levels. There is a
lot of theory, knowledge and skills to maintain.
I would advise anybody who is interested in a career in CBT to obtain as much information as possible
about the therapy before making any decisions. Try talking to several CBT therapists, as it is good to get
a broad view and some therapists work quite differently from others. It is also useful to read some of the
self-help CBT guides that are available, as these can give a good insight into the role of the therapist. It
would also be useful to attend an introductory training day on CBT - these may be available in your local
area.