Organisations and registers
Which body a solo practitioner joins, and what each one actually covers.
Registration in the UK is voluntary and fragmented: no single regulator covers psychotherapy or counselling, and the body you join shapes your complaints route, your CPD obligations and, in practice, your referral sources. The notes below are about fit rather than prestige.
United Kingdom
None of these is a statutory regulator for psychotherapy. Each maintains a register accredited by the Professional Standards Authority, which is what most insurers, EAPs and NHS commissioners actually check.
Organised as a federation of member colleges by modality, psychoanalytic, humanistic, systemic, CBT and others, so you join through a training organisation rather than directly. That structure suits practitioners with a long, modality-specific training and matters if you want your psychoanalytic or Jungian orientation to be legible on a public register. Its complaints process runs centrally, but standards and CPD expectations vary by college, so read your own college's requirements, not just the UKCP's.
The largest register, and the one most often named in job adverts, EAP contracts and low-cost service contracts. Individual membership is open on qualification; accredited status is a separate application requiring supervised practice hours and a written case commentary, and it is the accredited tier that most commissioners mean when they say 'BACP registered'. Its Ethical Framework is the reference point most UK insurers and complaint panels apply, whichever body you are actually registered with.
Registers psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists and Jungian analysts trained at its member institutions. Smaller and more specific than UKCP or BACP, with a training requirement built around personal analysis at frequency. Worth knowing about mainly if you work analytically and want referrals from people looking specifically for that; it does not serve as a general-purpose register for integrative or CBT practice.
The learned society for psychologists, not a psychotherapy register. Useful for research access, division membership and CPD, but membership alone does not entitle you to practise as a psychologist: the protected titles, including counselling psychologist and clinical psychologist, are held by the HCPC. If you are a psychologist doing therapeutic work, you will usually need both, and only one of them is a legal requirement.
The statutory regulator, and the only body on this list with legal force. It protects psychologist titles and arts therapist titles; it does not regulate psychotherapists or counsellors, which is the source of most confusion about who may call themselves what. If you hold a protected title, HCPC standards override your membership body's framework wherever the two differ.
Not a professional body, but a registration you almost certainly owe: most private practitioners process health data as a controller and must pay the annual data protection fee. Its guidance on the special category conditions, subject access and retention is the source your data protection policy should cite, and its self-assessment tools are more practical than most paid compliance products.
Europe
Relevant mainly for cross-border recognition, and for practitioners who see clients living in other EU or EEA states.
Awards the European Certificate of Psychotherapy through national umbrella organisations. Its practical value is portability: the certificate provides a common reference when a national body has no direct equivalent to a UK training. It is not a licence, and no member state grants practice rights on the strength of it alone, so check the destination country's own requirements before relying on it.
The federation of national psychology associations, and the body behind the EuroPsy certificate. Chiefly of interest for its standards work and for anyone seeking recognition of a psychology qualification across borders; it has no individual membership and no complaints jurisdiction over practitioners.
Publishes the guidelines that national data protection authorities apply to EU GDPR, including the ones on international transfers that determine whether your note-taking software may lawfully be hosted outside the EEA. If you see clients resident in the EU, these guidelines, not the ICO's, are the ones your supervisory authority will read.
Ireland
Statutory regulation of counsellors and psychotherapists has been legislated for and is being introduced through CORU, so the voluntary registers below are the operative ones in the meantime.
The largest register in the Republic, and the one most often named by Irish EAPs and insurers. Accreditation requires a recognised training, supervised client hours and ongoing supervision at a stated ratio. Its directory is the default route by which Irish clients find a private practitioner.
The humanistic and integrative register, with a longer training requirement than general counselling accreditation and a strong emphasis on the practitioner's own therapy. Recognised alongside IACP by most Irish services.
The state regulator for health and social care professions. It already registers psychologists and social workers, and counsellors and psychotherapists are being brought in by registration board. Watch this rather than the voluntary registers for the date the titles become protected in law.
The Irish supervisory authority for GDPR. Its guidance, not the ICO's, governs your record keeping and your choice of hosting if you are established in Ireland or see clients resident there.
France
France protects the title rather than the activity. Psychotherapist is a supplementary title layered on a medical degree or a psychology master, held on the national health register, and there is no professional order for psychologists or psychotherapists at all. The code of conduct for psychologists has moral force only. Psychanalyste is not a protected title, so an analytic society's own member list is the only credential a reader can check.
Registration authority
The seventeen regional health agencies decide who may use the title of psychotherapist and enter them on the national register. Registration is compulsory. Where the training is not automatically accepted the file goes to a regional commission, and silence for two months counts as a refusal. This is the body to write to about the title itself. It has no role in complaints about how someone practises.
The public register
The public face of the RPPS, the shared national register of health professionals, run by the Agence du Numérique en Santé. It replaced the older ADELI listing for psychologists in June 2024 and for psychotherapists in October 2024. It is the only way to check that someone is lawfully using the title. It records the qualification and the practice address, and nothing about conduct.
FF2P
A federation of training institutes and individual practitioners across modalities, founded in 1995, and the French route to the European Certificate of Psychotherapy. Useful if you train or practise outside the psychoanalytic and cognitive behavioural mainstreams and want an affiliation a French colleague will recognise. Membership is voluntary and confers no legal standing. It is not a substitute for the register.
AFTCC
The main cognitive behavioural body, founded in 1971 and open to psychologists, psychiatrists and physicians. It operates a practitioner label and publishes a directory of the people who hold it, runs the annual congress and publishes the Journal of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy. Worth joining for referrals and continuing education if you work in this tradition, and of little use if you do not.
SPP
Founded in 1926 and the largest French analytic society, training through its own institute. Because psychanalyste is unprotected, a society's member list is the only verifiable credential in the analytic field, which makes this a reference point for referral as much as for training. Admission is long and runs through personal analysis and supervised work.
CNIL
The French data protection authority. Its reference document for medical and paramedical practices is the practical guide to records held in independent practice, and it sets retention at five years live then fifteen archived. Read it knowing that it names doctors, nurses and similar professions and does not name psychologists, so practitioners apply it by analogy rather than by obligation.
Germany
Germany has genuine statutory registration, so the British habit of reading a professional body as a register does not transfer. Approbation from a state authority carries the title, chamber membership is compulsory, and discipline ends in a professional court rather than an internal panel. Keep two things apart: the licence to practise, and the much narrower right to be paid by the statutory insurance system. Records are kept for ten years, and professional secrecy sits in the criminal code, not only in data protection law.
BPtK
The federal umbrella of the twelve state chambers. Membership of the chamber where you practise is compulsory, not a choice: the chamber holds the register, sets the professional code, accredits continuing and specialist training, and runs the complaints process. The BPtK itself has no individual members and no disciplinary power. Use it to find your own chamber, which is where a complaint is actually made.
DPtV
The largest voluntary association, and the most useful single source on the administrative side of practice: billing under the private fee scale, the statutory contract system, the electronic patient record and a legal helpline. Free for trainees. It represents practitioners rather than registering them, so joining changes nothing about your right to practise.
bvvp
For practitioners holding a statutory health insurance contract, which in Germany is a scarce transferable asset rather than a licence, normally acquired by succeeding to an existing practice. Organised as sixteen independent state associations, so you join the one where you work. Directly relevant if you are buying into a practice, of limited use if you work privately only.
DGPT
The umbrella for psychoanalytic and depth psychological practitioners, and the professional voice for the two psychodynamic methods the statutory system reimburses. Full membership requires training at a recognised institute. The analytic training itself runs through its sister societies, the DPV and the DPG. This is where the professional and political side sits.
KBV
The umbrella of the seventeen regional associations that administer statutory health insurance practice, and which represent contract psychotherapists as well as doctors. Worth knowing even in private practice, because a statutory patient treated under the reimbursement route brings the paperwork with them. None of it applies to purely private work.
Data protection
Data protection supervision in Germany is by state, not federal, so a private practice answers to the authority of the state it is established in and the federal commissioner is the wrong address. This is the current list. Bavaria is the trap: it splits the public and private sectors, and private practices there answer to the Landesamt für Datenschutzaufsicht rather than to the state commissioner.
Italy
Italy regulates psychotherapy tightly and by qualification. Only a psychologist or a doctor who has completed a recognised four year specialisation may practise, registration is compulsory, and practising without it is a criminal offence rather than a professional matter. There is no lawful standalone route for counselling, which is the sharpest difference from the United Kingdom and the thing to understand before taking on Italian work.
CNOP
The national council of the twenty one territorial orders. Registration on the Albo is a precondition of lawful practice. Psychotherapy is not a separate register but an annotation against a psychologist's own entry, granted on evidence of a recognised four year specialisation. Complaints go to the territorial order the practitioner is registered with, with appeal to the council, and must be signed. Anonymous complaints are not accepted.
The public register
The public search over the national register. Two things to check, not one: that the person is registered, and separately that the psychotherapy annotation stands against their name. A reader looking for an Italian register of psychotherapists will not find one, because this is it and the annotation is the part that carries the meaning. Doctors are listed separately by their own medical order.
Pension and welfare fund
The compulsory pension and welfare fund for self employed psychologists. Membership is triggered by the first professional fee received rather than by opening a VAT position, and the integrative contribution is itemised on the invoice and charged to the client rather than absorbed. Administrative rather than professional, and the part most often missed by someone setting up.
SPI
Founded in 1925 and recognised by the International Psychoanalytical Association, running a training institute whose diploma counts toward the psychotherapy annotation. Membership is voluntary and follows candidature, personal analysis and supervised work. Useful for training and for referral. Like every Italian association it sits on top of registration rather than in place of it.
SITCC
The main cognitive behavioural society and the Italian member of the European association in that tradition. It accredits training and runs continuing education. Worth joining if you work this way, and it says nothing about your entitlement to practise, which comes from the Albo and the annotation alone.
Data protection
The Italian data protection authority. Its 2019 clarification on health data is the practical reference and corrects the most common local mistake: the lawful basis for care is not consent, it is the provision of health care by a professional bound by secrecy. It also states that a solo practitioner needs no data protection officer, and that the record of processing activities is still required because special category data is involved.
Spain
Spain splits regulation three ways and none of the three looks like the British model. The state sets the qualification, and a psychology degree on its own is not enough: the general health psychology master is the gate. The region authorises the premises, so a solo consulting room is registered as a healthcare centre. The colegio holds the discipline, and membership is compulsory. Psicoterapeuta is not a protected title, but treating people without a health qualification is a criminal offence.
COP
The umbrella of the twenty three regional colegios. Membership of the colegio where your main practice sits is compulsory and covers the whole country, so you do not join one per region. The colegio holds the disciplinary power through its ethics commission, with appeal to the council and then to the administrative courts. It can only act against its own members, which is the limit of the system.
State register
The state register of health professionals, fed by the colegios and by employers rather than by self declaration, with a public lookup for anyone who wants to check a practitioner. Use it to confirm that someone holds a health qualification. The qualification a private practitioner actually needs is the general health psychologist master, or the clinical psychology specialty won through the national residency.
FEAP
The federation that accredits psychotherapists and psychotherapy trainings, organised in eight sections by modality. You join a member association rather than the federation itself, and accreditation asks for supervised practice, personal therapy and documented experience in mental health. Since the word psychotherapist carries no legal protection in Spain, this is the closest thing the country has to a quality mark.
Voluntary register
A voluntary register run jointly by three bodies and created in 2010, precisely because psychotherapy has no legal framework of its own. It is the nearest Spanish equivalent to a British voluntary register and carries no statutory weight. Listing comes through one of the guarantor associations rather than by direct application.
AEN
A multiprofessional mental health association founded in 1924, open to every profession in the field and strongly identified with the defence of public provision. Publications, congresses and a policy voice rather than accreditation, although it is one of the three bodies standing behind the national psychotherapy register.
Data protection
The Spanish data protection authority. Its 2022 guide for health professionals is the one to read: a practitioner working alone in private practice is exempt from appointing a data protection officer, consent is not the lawful basis for care, and the patient's right of access does not reach the practitioner's own subjective notes. Retention comes from health law, and the national floor of five years is raised well above that by several regions.
North America
Licensure is granted at state and provincial level, not nationally, so the associations below set standards and the licensing board where you practise sets the law.
Sets the ethics code that most US state psychology boards adopt or mirror, and accredits doctoral programmes. It does not license anyone: licensure is by state board, and the requirements, including supervised hours and jurisprudence examinations, differ from state to state.
The body behind the largest group of US psychotherapy providers, licensed clinical social workers. Its code of ethics is the one cited in most US clinical record keeping and confidentiality disputes involving that licence.
Standards body for systemic and couples work in the US and Canada, including approved supervisor designation. Useful if your practice is relational rather than individual, and its supervision requirements are recognised by several state boards.
The national association for psychologists in Canada. Regulation is provincial, so registration runs through bodies such as the College of Psychologists of Ontario or the Ordre des psychologues du Quebec, and mobility between provinces is negotiated rather than automatic.
Holds the Canadian Certified Counsellor designation, recognised nationally. In regulated provinces, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Alberta among them, you still need the provincial college registration as well.
Australia and New Zealand
One of the two national registers for counsellors and psychotherapists in Australia, organised by college and modality. Counselling and psychotherapy are not registered under the national scheme, so this and the ACA are the operative credentials for private practice.
The other national register, with a tiered membership structure keyed to qualification and supervised hours. Commonly the one named in Australian employee assistance contracts.
The statutory scheme, which does register psychologists. Psychologist is a protected title in Australia; counsellor and psychotherapist are not, which is the single most common misunderstanding among clients comparing practitioners there.
The professional body for psychotherapists in New Zealand, where psychotherapist is a protected title registered by the Psychotherapists Board of Aotearoa New Zealand. Membership and board registration are separate steps and both are usually expected.
Last checked 19 August 2026. External links are provided for reference; Vestibola is not affiliated with these organisations. If an entry is out of date or wrong, write to hello@vestibola.com and it will be corrected.