Talk therapy as a career. A master's degree, supervised hours, then a caseload that is often mostly your own private clients.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
The median pay is about $71,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $48,000 at the lower end to about $104,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
6 to 8 years after high school, on the usual route.
$58,000 to $92,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
It depends where you work. You need a licence, certificate or registration in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec. Elsewhere there is none to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Good demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$71,000
Lower end
$48,000
Upper end
$104,000
Job Bank's national median is $34 an hour, about $71,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The lower end ($23) and upper end ($50) are the bottom and top of the wage range for everyone in the group. Private practice income depends on how many client hours you fill, and rent, insurance and other costs come out of it.
$54.95 an hour
The Job Bank median in Nunavut, the highest in Canada
Among the provinces BC (British Columbia) is highest at $39.50, Ontario is $33, and Newfoundland and Labrador is lowest at $31. Community mental health agencies and university counselling centres hire new registrants.
Roughly, all in
$58,000 to $92,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
A four year undergraduate degree at $7,000 to $10,000 a year plus a two year master's in counselling or psychotherapy at $10,000 to $20,000 a year makes up most of the bill. The part people miss is clinical supervision during the qualifying period: $100 to $200 an hour for 100 hours or more, which you pay for out of pocket while earning little. Registration with the CRPO (College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario) is roughly $600 a year plus the registration exam. Private universities push the high end well past these figures.
Roughly $58,000 to $92,000 including supervision. The supervised hours are the hidden cost most people miss.
Pension and health plan
Only in agency, hospital or university jobs. In private practice there are none unless you buy them.
Flexibility
Private practitioners choose their hours, clients and location.
Clients can use insurance
Most workplace health plans in Ontario now cover registered psychotherapists.
No sales tax on your sessions
Since June 2024, psychotherapy and counselling therapy are exempt from GST and HST (the federal and harmonized sales taxes) across Canada.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
The Ontario route, which is the most structured. Other provinces are similar or looser.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
English, social sciences, any psychology course your school offers.
Bachelor's degree
4 years
Psychology is the usual choice but not required. Volunteer on a crisis line while you do it.
Master's in counselling or psychotherapy
2 years
Two years including a supervised practicum. Public university programs are competitive; private ones are easier to enter and cost more.
Qualifying registration and supervised hours
1 to 2 years
In Ontario you register with the CRPO (College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario) as a qualifying member, then log about 450 client hours and 100 supervision hours while working.
Registration exam, then full registration
After the hours are done
Pass the CRPO (College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario) exam and you become an RP (registered psychotherapist), allowed to practise independently.
English
Reading people and writing notes are the job.
Psychology or social sciences
Biology
Useful for the brain and medication side of the master's.
A second language
Therapy in a client's first language is in short supply.
You must register to work in Ontario, with the CRPO (College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario) or another college allowed to do psychotherapy, and in Quebec, which issues a psychotherapy permit. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick require registration as a counselling therapist. In BC (British Columbia) and most other places anyone can still call themselves a counsellor, so employers rely on voluntary credentials like the CCC (Canadian Certified Counsellor). Rules are tightening; check your province.
Counselling master's programs, public and private. A few examples:
University of Ottawa, Western, Wilfrid Laurier, Adler Graduate Professional School, Yorkville University (a large online program)
Ontario
UBC (University of British Columbia), Simon Fraser, Trinity Western, Adler University
British Columbia
University of Calgary, Athabasca (online), University of Manitoba
Prairies
McGill, Acadia, Memorial
Quebec and Atlantic Canada
Quebec has its own psychotherapist permit, issued by the order of psychologists, and you first need a master's and membership in another professional order.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
Earn your Secondary V diploma, the entry ticket to CEGEP (public college).
DEC (Diploma of College Studies)
2 years
A 2 year pre-university CEGEP (public college) program, such as Social Science (300.A0), which Dawson offers with a psychology profile.
Bachelor's degree
In a field whose order can lead to the permit: social work, nursing, occupational therapy, psychoeducation, sexology, criminology, guidance counselling or couple and family therapy.
Master's and order membership
Finish a master's in mental health and human relations, then join your professional order.
Psychotherapy training
765 hours of university-level theory, from therapy models to ethics, and a 600 hour supervised internship with at least 300 hours treating clients and 100 hours of individual supervision.
Permit from the order of psychologists
After training
The Ordre des psychologues du Québec (the Quebec order of psychologists) reviews your training and issues the psychotherapist permit.
Before tax, rates from April 1, 2026. Doctors and psychologists can practise psychotherapy without this permit.
Things you don't need, but that help.
CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) certification
The approach most requested by employers and insurers.
EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing)
Trauma treatment; a marketable niche.
Couples and family therapy
A separate set of skills, often with its own training.
Clinical supervisor
After 5 or so years you can supervise qualifying members and charge for it.
Crisis or distress line volunteering
Your own therapy
Most programs expect you to have been a client.
Comfort with silence and slow progress
Basic business skills
Most psychotherapists end up self-employed.
A lot of early-career work comes through EAP (employee assistance program) providers, which pay a set fee per session for short-term counselling of employees. It is steady, at a fee the provider sets. Many therapists start there and shift to their own caseload over 2 or 3 years.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Private practice: 5 or 6 back-to-back 50-minute sessions, some by video, with 10 minutes between for notes. Evenings and Saturdays fill fastest because clients work days. Agency work: intake calls, a group session, case notes, team meetings, and a waitlist you can never clear.
The good
The hard parts
Like the field but not this exact job?
Things people don't tell you.
The CRPO (College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario) opened in April 2015. Before that, anyone in Ontario could call themselves a psychotherapist.
Psychotherapy and counselling therapy became exempt from GST and HST (the federal and harmonized sales taxes) in June 2024, after years of lobbying. Clients keep the 5% to 15%, depending on the province.
Unlike psychologists, psychotherapists do not need a doctorate. The trade-off: in most provinces they cannot formally diagnose a mental disorder.
Job Bank counts about 69,900 people in Canada in 2023 in the group that includes psychotherapists and counselling therapists. It sees a moderate risk of a shortage over 2024 to 2033.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Mental health first, then the rest of the field. See every career in health.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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