Physis Scotland

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Physis Scotland

Providing excellence in counselling & psychotherapy training. Nationally recognised qualifications.

We provide fun, fascinating and individually focused training in counselling and psychotherapy. We will enable you to become the best counsellor or psychotherapist that you can be.

12/04/2026

Have you been wondering about a change of direction? Looking at counselling training as an option?

A lot of people who feel drawn to this kind of work assume they'd need to go to university to train. That's one route, but it isn't the only one.

We've written a new blog post about what counselling training looks like at a specialist institute like Physis Scotland. It covers the the route to COSCA Diploma level and questions we hear most often:
Do I need a degree? What does the pathway look like? How much does it cost? Will I be able to work as a counsellor afterwards?

If you've been circling the idea for a while, it's a useful place to start.

Link in the first comment 👇

09/04/2026

🌱 What is your life story? 🌱How often do you get the chance to stop and really think about it?

These are two questions that have been with us recently.

In Transactional Analysis, the concept of life script suggests that many of us begin writing our story early in life. Through childhood experiences, the messages we receive, and the decisions we make about ourselves and the world, we can develop an unconscious “script” that shapes how we live, relate, and respond.

This script can show up in daily life in subtle but familiar ways. For example in the roles we take on in relationships, the expectations we place on ourselves, the patterns we repeat at work, and the way we respond under stress.

It can be present in the stories we tell ourselves: I have to get everything right, I must not need anyone, or this is just how things always go for me.

Sometimes that script supports us. Sometimes it can keep us repeating old patterns without even realising it.

TA101 offers a space to begin noticing those patterns and to reflect on the story you may have been living.

🌱 What parts of that story still serve you?
🌱 What parts might be ready to change?

Today is the last day to sign up for this weekend’s TA101 training.

If you’ve been thinking about joining, now is the time. Link in the comments⬇️

08/04/2026

Just a reminder - TA101 registration closes TOMORROW, Thursday 9 April. 🕐

If you've been on the fence: TA101 is two days online, no experience needed, and it covers more ground than most people expect.

It's the internationally recognised starting point for TA - and for many people it's the weekend that changes how they see everything.

11 & 12 April, Online, £220 for the 2 days.

Link in first comment

07/04/2026

The start of something new doesn’t always feel clear.

Sometimes it’s not a big decision. It’s just a sense… that you’re ready to begin something.

A different way of working. A deeper understanding of people. A path that feels more aligned with who you are becoming.

That’s often how people arrive at the TA101 Understanding You, Me and Us. Not because they have it all mapped out but because they want to take a first step and see where it leads.

This weekend (11–12 April), we’re running a 2-day introduction to Transactional Analysis online.

It’s a chance to:
• explore how we relate and communicate
• understand patterns in ourselves and others
• and see if this way of working speaks to you

You don’t need to have a plan. Just a bit of curiosity.

If you are thinking of training in some kind of therapy, its also a chance to experience what psychotherapy training is like.

For more info - link in comments

05/04/2026

Wishing you a peaceful and gentle Easter 🌿

May this season bring a sense of renewal, light, and quiet hope. A gentle reminder that even after the longest winters, something new can grow.

However you spend it, may it hold moments of rest, warmth, and connection.

Happy Easter 💛

02/04/2026

📢🚨 We are excited to share the news of a new partnership between Physis Scotland and Intact Academy. 📢🚨

We are especially pleased to welcome Drs Sari van Poelje .intact, an internationally respected master executive team coach, supervisor, and expert in agile business innovation, who brings more than 40 years of experience in leadership, coaching, and organisational development. 💚

Together, we are creating a new UK home for Organisational Transactional Analysis, bringing this world class training pathway to the UK for the first time as a structured, annually running programme.

This partnership is built on a shared commitment to rigorous learning, humanistic values, and the full development of practitioners. It feels like a natural fit between two organisations that care deeply about professional excellence and meaningful growth.

We look forward to welcoming coaches, consultants, and organisational practitioners into this exciting new chapter. 💚

01/04/2026

Working with couples is so different from working one to one. You are holding two peoples' stories and the dynamic that forms between them, often one that has been reinforced for years.

In this video, Kelly Scharver, trainer on the Certificate in Couples Work course, introduces one of the key elements on the course - knowing what the concept and theory look like and sound like in the therapy room.

With role play and demos to show the models working with actual couples, you'll feel real confidence when putting the learning into practice.

The course runs online over four months and is designed for counsellors and psychotherapists at any stage of their couples work journey, whether you are just beginning or looking to add new frameworks and confidence to an existing practice.

Now taking applications. Deadline for signing up is 30th April 2026.
Full course details in the first comment.

31/03/2026

🌱 As you train to become a TA therapist the question of where you are relating from right now will quietly sit in the background.

Berne’s Life Positions (1962) offer a simple but powerful frame for reflection, and Ernst’s OK Corral (1971) helps bring this to life by mapping the four positions we move through in relation to ourselves and others. From “I’m OK, You’re OK” to the positions we move into when stress, comparison, or old script beliefs take over, the grid gives you a way to notice where you are in the moment.

In the therapy room, the aim is the “I’m OK, You’re OK” stance, where you hold both your own worth and the worth of your client. This is the basis for respect, contact, and growth. Yet the journey through training is rarely smooth. There are days when you look around the room and other students seem more confident, more articulate, or more prepared. In those moments, your script can pull you toward “I’m not OK, You’re OK”. You begin to question yourself, your skills, and whether you are good enough to be in the room at all.

Ernst’s OK Corral offers a useful reflective tool here. Rather than judging yourself for moving out of the “I’m OK, You’re OK” position, you are invited to notice where you have shifted and what script belief might be driving it. Training is not about staying in one position all the time. It is about developing awareness of your movement across the grid and understanding how this shapes the way you meet clients, peers, and tutors.

If the journey feels bumpy, this is often where some of the deepest learning takes place. A couple of useful questions to hold today is:

🌱 Where am I in the OK Corral right now?
🌱 What is my script inviting me to believe about myself and others?

29/03/2026

"I came for professional development. I left with a completely new way of seeing my relationships."

That's how one TA101 participant described the experience, and it's a response we hear often.

For counsellors who have been working in their modality for a while, TA101 can feel less like professional development and more like an expansion of something you already knew. A different lens. A different vocabulary. A different way of sitting with what's happening between you and a client.

Fiona Firman PTSTA leads this two-day online course on 11 and 12 April. Places are still available, and booking closes on 9 April.

26/03/2026

🌼 It’s almost the end of March, and the end of the working week.

Last week, there was a softness in the air — a hint of spring. A gentle warmth and the quiet promise of growth, of things beginning again. And this week? Snow in some places, sleet in others. A return to cold that feels like a step back.

But maybe it isn’t a step back at all. Maybe it’s part of the rhythm of change —that movement isn’t always forward in the way we expect. That growth can arrive in starts and pauses, warmth and chill, hope and doubt sitting side by side. They are all valid.

Nature doesn’t rush its becoming. It wavers and it returns. It steadies itself again.

As we head into the end of this week, perhaps there’s something here to hold onto:

🌱 Even when it feels like we have gone backwards, something is still quietly unfolding. 🌼

25/03/2026

Thank you to everyone who joined us for last night's TA Taster. (If you couldn't make it, there are more dates coming up)

Transactional Analysis has a way of making the familiar suddenly make sense - why certain conversations go in circles, why we respond the way we do under pressure, why some relationships feel easy and others exhausting. Once you start seeing those patterns, it's hard to unsee them.

For many people, the Taster is just the beginning. TA101 is the natural next step - a full two-day online introduction that goes deeper into the theory and starts to show you how to use it, whether that's in your work, your relationships, or your own self-understanding.
11 & 12 April, Online, No experience needed. Link in the comments.

24/03/2026

What a truly special training weekend at Physis Scotland. 💛

Our Foundation Year students came together online with their wonderful tutors, Fiona Firman PTSTA-P, Fiona Cook PTSTA-P and Kate Simpson CTA-P, to explore psychological games in Transactional Analysis. 🎲

There was such a richness of learning, as students engaged with Time Structuring, the Drama Triangle and Winners Circle, alongside Stamps, Hungers and Relational Needs. It felt alive, thoughtful and connected throughout. 📚

As a part of the usual rhythm on Sunday morning, students start the day with a group process. However this time we have started our Saturday with it to account for moving this weekend online.
Group process here at Physis Scotland is an essential part of student's training. It offers a space to explore how they are relating within the group while deepening awareness of their own process. 🤓

Thank you for all your flexibility and care as we moved the weekend online.💖

Address

22 Drumsheugh Gardens
Edinburgh
EH37RN

Website

https://www.physisscotland.co.uk/, https://www.physisscotland.co.uk/ta-101-understanding-you-me-us, https://www.physissc

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