Maintaining your Accreditation

Practice as a Group Psychotherapist/Analyst

The Irish Council of Psychotherapy’s (ICP) continuous professional development (CPD) requirements are a minimum of 250 hours over the previous five years in nine categories detailed below.

IGAS recognises that there may be members who are no longer conducting groups but who are working from a group analytic perspective. Members who are not conducting groups at present will need to give a summary of their practice.

Supervision of Practice

To be eligible for re-accreditation, applicants must show that their practice is adequately supervised and that the practitioner avails of regular ongoing supervision. The supervisor for group analytic work must be a qualified and accredited Group Analytic Supervisor. A friend or person you socialise with is not appropriate.

Supervision may consist of individual (one-to-one) supervision or group supervision.

Peer group supervision can augment the supervision requirement for the purposes of re-accreditation but is not sufficient as the sole form of supervision.

Remote supervision hours will be recognised for re-accreditation purposes.

Following the first re-accreditation and thereafter, the psychotherapist is required to undertake one hour of supervision for every fifty hours of client work, with a minimum frequency of monthly supervision for eleven months of the calendar year.

Insurance

All applicants for membership re-accreditation must show that they have adequate insurance for their work as a psychotherapist/group analytic psychotherapist. Since March 2020, the insurance should cover working online and working remotely with clients.

Re-Accreditation Administration Fee

The administration fee of €65 must be paid electronically by bank transfer to the following Bank account, including your name and the reference “RENEWACCRED fee”. Cash or cheques will no longer be accepted. Proof of payment is required before the application is reviewed.

• BIC:  AIBKIE2D
• IBAN:  IE59 AIBK9 3105 5317 42034

Please note that a late application after 1st September (in a membership calendar year) will incur an extra charge of €35 and may have to wait until the next Re-Accreditation Committee meeting.

Failure to return the re-accreditation forms will mean that your membership as an accredited member will be deemed lapsed. Please contact the Graduate Accreditation Committee if particular circumstances need to be considered.

Continuous Professional Development

All applicants for re-accreditation must have continued their professional development as group analytic psychotherapists.

An average of 50 hours per year of CPD is required, with a total of 250 hours over each five-year period.

• Acceptable forms of CPD may come from any of the nine categories listed below:
• 15 hours per year should be taken from categories 2 and 3.
• The hours counted must be drawn from four of these categories, but they may be drawn from more or even all nine.

CPD Categories

Note: One hour of engagement/attendance is equivalent to 1 CPD point.

1. Engagement as a client in personal therapy or group therapy, or as a participant in other relevant experientially based group learning activities. (Maximum: 15 points per year.)
2. Attendance at additional or advanced psychotherapy and related training programmes. (Maximum: 15 points per year.)
3. Attendance at psychotherapy conferences, symposiums, lectures, workshops, seminars, reading groups, or other shared learning environments that address individual and group psychotherapy and organisational theory and practice. (Maximum: 15 points per year.)
4. Presenting at conferences, symposiums, lectures, workshops, etc. (Maximum: 15 points per year.)
5. Receiving supervision in accordance with requirements. (Maximum: 15 points per year.)
6. Engagement in activities for or on behalf of the society (e.g., committee work). (Maximum: 15 points per year.)
7. Working as a supervisor or trainer in psychotherapy or related fields that call for psychotherapeutic skills. (Maximum: 15 points per year.)
8. Engagement in self-care and/or self-reflective activities and/or practices (e.g., meditation, yoga, journaling). (Maximum: 10 points per year.)
9. Writing and publishing articles or books relating to psychotherapy. (Maximum: 15 points per year.)

Guidelines for filling out the Accreditation Forms

These guidelines are designed to simplify and streamline the process while ensuring best practice standards are maintained.

• There is one form for each year of practice since your last accreditation (see Appendix A – Renewal of Accreditation Form).
• Your application must demonstrate that you have achieved the required average of 50 CPD points per year over five years.
• One hour of engagement/attendance = 1 CPD point (e.g., Attending the IGAS AGM and Connectedness Meeting earns 3.5 CPD points: AGM = 1.5 points, Connectedness Meeting = 2 points).
• You are required to demonstrate your ongoing engagement in group analytic continuing professional development activities.
• When detailing each category, a breakdown of hours is required up to a total of 10 (Category 8) or 15 hours.
• Itemised lists of each session of personal therapy or each workshop/seminar attended are not necessary, as the maximum points per category is 15.

Example of completed form

• All applications are now completed and submitted using the upload form below or via email to igasaccreditation@gmail.com
• The completed documents should be saved with the file name containing your surname and current year e.g. Smith2024.pdf
• Please ensure that documents and scanned pages or photos are of high quality and legible. Do not use Zip files. PDF format is requested. 
• The accreditation document will also need to be accompanied by a scanned copy of your supervisors’ signed declaration, a copy of your insurance certificate and proof of payment of the administration fee. If you are unable to complete the document online, please print it, complete it and then send us a scanned copy of the completed form to the above email.
• It is not necessary to provide copies of CPD certificates.  It will be assumed that they are available on request.