Becoming a Therapist

During the first lockdown of COVID, I was hit with a harsh realisation. I’d spent 20 years working as a hairdresser and had never once been out of work. But suddenly, the salons were closed, and I wasn’t allowed within two metres of anyone. Cutting hair was completely off the table and for the first time in my life (as was the case for so many of us), I found myself without a job.

With all that stillness, I started thinking more deeply about my life and career. I’d always loved being a hairdresser, connecting with people, hearing their stories, but deep down, I’d long felt a pull in a different direction. I’d always been drawn to helping others, to really listening, and to offering support and advice. The idea of being a therapist had lived quietly in the background of my mind for years. I found people endlessly interesting, and I always felt a deep warmth in those shared, honest conversations.

But there was one major block: I’m not clever enough to be a therapist, am I? In my head, becoming a therapist meant being academic, intelligent, and capable, and at the time, I didn’t feel that applied to me.

Still, during lockdown, that old dream wouldn’t go away. I kept thinking about it, and before I knew it, I was browsing therapy courses online. That’s when I came across a training programme in Edinburgh called Physis Scotland that taught Transactional Analysis (TA), a modality I immediately felt connected to. I applied, got accepted, and began one of the most incredible (and challenging) journeys of my life.

I also want to mention Physis Scotland, where I trained, for the incredible support they offered me throughout the four years. The tutors, staff, my peers and learning community created such a safe, encouraging environment, especially in the moments when I doubted myself the most. Their belief in me helped carry me through the tough patches, and I’ll always be grateful for the care, professionalism, and encouragement they showed me during my training journey.

The Training

The training was four years long and taught at a postgraduate level. Each year included three essays, case studies, transcripts, and research papers. As someone who had never written an academic essay before, this was a huge leap. I was diagnosed with ADHD at school and also have dyscalculia, so writing in a formal, structured way felt physically painful at times.

I felt incredibly vulnerable, like a teenager again, struggling with those same old voices that haunted me growing up:
“You’ll never get anywhere.”
“You’re not clever enough.”
“You’ll never finish anything.”

This was the real work I had to face, not just the essays, but the ghosts of my past, the inner critic that told me I was stupid or bound to fail. I had to wrestle with those beliefs and decide not to let them win.

Learning TA, and Learning Myself

Learning Transactional Analysis opened my eyes to so much: my own life, my family dynamics, my beliefs about myself. It gave me language, meaning, and validation. But with that insight also came a deep sadness, grief for the things I didn’t get as a child, and a new awareness of the struggles within my family system.

There were moments it felt like crawling through a dark tunnel, seeing things I hadn’t seen before, feeling anger towards my parents, and at the same time, feeling compassion for them. I spent a lot of time in therapy myself to process all of it.

But I kept going. I completed the course and despite my old story that said “I never finish anything.” I had to face my success, which can be confronting when your internal narrative has always said you’re destined to fail.

TA gave me a roadmap of my life that I’d never seen before. It allowed me to look at my journey from a bird’s eye view, and most importantly, it taught me that my story could be rewritten.

Rewriting the Story

What I found most empowering through this whole process was realising that I could actually rewrite my story. For so long, I’d been living with a narrative that told me I wasn’t clever enough, that I’d never finish anything, that success was for other people, not for me. Those beliefs didn’t just appear out of nowhere; they came from early life experiences, from things said to me, from how I made sense of the world as a child. And I carried them, unquestioned, well into adulthood. But through therapy, and through training as a therapist myself, I started to see that those stories weren’t facts, they were just that: stories. And stories can change.

Therapy helped me trace those beliefs back to their roots, understand where they came from, and decide if I still wanted to live by them. That process wasn’t easy, it brought up grief, fear, even guilt, but it was also deeply freeing. I began to see myself differently. I realised I am capable, I can complete things, and I do have something of value to offer. Rewriting my story didn’t mean pretending the old one didn’t happen, it meant owning it, understanding it, and gently stepping into a new one that felt more true. And that’s the heart of therapy, really: it gives us a space to see ourselves clearly, to let go of what no longer fits, and to begin writing a life that actually belongs to us.

Rewriting your story sounds empowering, and it is. But it can also be terrifying. That young part of me, who had built her identity around not being good enough, and who felt lost. Who was she without that old story?

That’s where I had to learn how to care for her. To let her know that she no longer had to try so hard, that I would take care of her now. She could play, explore, and feel free to be in the world just as she was.

The Impact

Training as a therapist cracked me wide open. It exposed parts of myself I didn’t know existed. It changed how I saw the world, how I related to others, and how I understood myself.

Some friendships faded as I grew. Others deepened in ways I could never have imagined. I discovered that I can be successful and still be safe, still be loved. I found a sense of self that is intelligent, worthy, and strong, and I now get to bring that part of me into the therapy room with my clients.

This is what I hope to offer to the people I work with. I want to hold hope for them in the way others held it for me. I want to walk with them through the messy, difficult parts of change, and help them move towards something new, something more whole.

Because lasting change is possible, and you don’t have to go it alone.