The work of a therapist can be extremely rewarding and many of us feel privileged to be able to support clients in the ways that we do. However, holding space for our clients and daily exposure to trauma inevitably impacts us emotionally. Without ways to recharge and restore we can be left feeling drained and burned out. To sustain themselves in their roles many therapists find that attending retreats can be an important form of self care.
To help you to learn more, I’ve rounded up the best retreats for therapists that are led by experienced and registered therapists. Each retreat is described by a facilitating therapist, to help you to get a flavour of what’s on offer. Some retreats are focused solely on self care and others contain an element of continued professional development. Read on and I think you’ll find at least one that appeals to you!
Mental Health Restoration & Wellness Retreats
Led by Kate Chartres, EMDR Consultant
As therapists, we spend our days supporting others, holding space, offering compassion, and navigating emotional landscapes that aren’t our own. While this work is deeply meaningful, it can also be energetically demanding. That’s why prioritising our own well-being isn’t optional, it’s essential.
Whilst the therapeutic retreats like we offer are not specifically designed to help therapists alone, on every retreat we have run therapists and others in therapeutic roles have attended and re-book. They rest, reconnect, and replenish. These are more than just getaways; they are carefully curated spaces where healing and professional sustainability intersect.
Our most recent Mental Health Restoration & Wellness Retreat at Wasdale Hall was a beautiful reminder of the power of pausing. One guest reflected, “I feel lighter, more open, and in touch with myself—strong and free!” Another described the experience as deeply restorative: “The sound healing was truly magical. I’ve never felt so deeply relaxed.”
The programme blends breathwork, yoga, sound healing, meditation, reiki, group hypnosis, EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) and time in nature to support nervous system regulation, emotional processing, and deep rest. As one attendee put it, “The yoga, breathwork, and massage was incredible. I left feeling renewed.”
The settings themselves are a therapeutic co-facilitator. Whether it’s the expansive mountains of the Lake District or the tranquil gardens of Dilston Physics Garden, the quiet retreat in Fuerteventura (October 2025) guests often comment on the power of the environment. “The setting was breathtaking- a perfect space for healing and connection.”
When we step away from our usual routines and give ourselves permission to slow down, we return to our work more resourced and grounded. These retreats are an investment not only in your mental health and well-being but in the quality of presence you bring to others.
If you are a therapist who gives generously to your clients, it is time to give back to yourself.
You can find out more about my upcoming retreats here
Ripple Surf Therapy Retreat
Described by Sophie Kelly, Psychotherapist and Retreat Facilitator
Ripple Surf Therapy offers a 7-day intensive surf & therapy retreat using a combination of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), daily yoga & mindfulness sessions, bespoke surf lessons and clinician-led group therapy. Personal development is facilitated by combining the awareness of our experiences with surfing, with the philosophy and techniques of ACT, to leave you with a new-found psychological flexibility to take into your outside life and practice beyond the retreat.
Throughout the week, each group therapy session will consist of a deep-dive into one of the 6 pillars of ACT, using experiential and group focused techniques to facilitate a new or further awareness of the self, body and mind. You will be held and guided by our wonderful clinicians, all trained to a minimum masters level in Psychotherapy, and with extensive experience in the field.
Each retreat is held in locations that offer peace and beauty and are within close proximity to the ocean. Guests can expect 3 freshly cooked meals per day using locally sourced ingredients, and surfing lessons conducted by qualified surf instructors. Our therapists are also on hand at the beach everyday, ready to offer support, insights, reflections and knowledge.
The uniqueness of Ripple Surf lies in the fusion of physical adventure and psychological safety, creating an experience that offers guests physical challenge in a beautiful natural environment, along with helping develop new tools for emotional resilience and personal freedom.
For more information or to book, head to www.ripplesurftherapy.com
The Success Psychology Breakthrough Retreat – Netherlands
Led by Dr Clair Burley, Clinical Psychologist
Step away from the demands of daily life and into a space designed for deep personal renewal. The Success Psychology Breakthrough Retreat is a 3-day, in-person experience set in the peaceful countryside of the Netherlands, offering a unique opportunity for self-reflection, emotional clarity, and meaningful connection.
This retreat is crafted for individuals in helping professions, like therapists, who are seeking their own space for personal growth. It offers a chance to reconnect with yourself, a space to renew and recharge, a place for new experiences, to look after yourself, outside the roles you hold for others.
Whether you’re at a crossroads, feeling the weight of emotional fatigue, or simply longing to reconnect with your deeper self, this retreat offers a reset. A reconnection. A remembering of who you are beyond the everyday demands, role, responsibilities, and expectations.
Hosted in a tranquil rural setting and surrounded by nature, and incredible horses, this retreat invites you into an immersive experience where nature supports insight and transformation. Through powerful and carefully guided activities such as equine-assisted experiences for emotional reflection, a fire-walk to shift limiting beliefs, and evenings under the stars by the fire, you’ll explore what it means to feel grounded, courageous, and connected, within yourself and with others sharing this unique experience with you.
Join us in the heart of the Netherlands for three days that offer rest, reflection, and reconnection. Not as a practitioner, but as a person.
You can find out more on the Success Psychology Leadership Retreats page
Small group CPD retreat in Spain for therapists to become a ´FUEL Your Resilience®´ Trainer and Facilitator
Led by Dr Rose Aghdami, Coaching Psychologist
Are you a therapist, psychologist, coach, or HR professional feeling as if you’re running on empty?
If so, this retreat is for you!
Join us this autumn in Spain for a transformative small-group CPD retreat where you’ll learn how to build resilience, which is the best antidote to stress, anxiety, and burnout. By learning how to strengthen resilience, you´ll be able to help yourself, and your clients, to regain energy, enthusiasm, and a greater sense of control over life’s challenges.
Become a Certified ‘FUEL Your Resilience®’ Trainer & Facilitator
This immersive 4-day retreat provides you with the opportunity to gain certification in the ´FUEL Your Resilience®´ approach, a well-established, structured method that embraces radical, compassionate, and deep resilience. This approach doesn´t believe that we have to be hard to be strong. It values our vulnerability, our emotions, and our human-ness, as well as honouring our capacity to face and cope well with challenges and crises.
You’ll learn how to train others to develop resilience skills while also strengthening your own.
What to Expect
- Professional Growth : A CPD-accredited programme focused on practical, evidence-based training to build resilience. The course will provide you with 12 CPD hours.
- Personal Development: Experiential learning to apply the FUEL approach to your own life situations for lasting change. Depending on your professional body, you may be also able to count these hours of experiential learning as CPD hours.
- Relax and Recharge: Enjoy the beauty of Moraira, Spain, a hidden coastal gem on the Costa Blanca, with stunning beaches and coves, beautiful sunsets, nearby mountains, and fabulous food.
Your retreat facilitator and course trainer is Dr Rose Aghdami CPsychol, MISCP, experienced chartered coaching psychologist and resilience specialist, with a clinical and counselling psychology background. She is passionate about the benefits of developing resilience, helping people to thrive even when under extreme pressure. She presents internationally on her well-regarded approach: ‘FUEL Your Resilience®’ and is BPS recommended to the media as a resilience expert.
In her free time, Rose is an enthusiastic paddle boarder and paddled the length of the non-tidal Thames a few years ago. When in Spain, she enjoys paddle boarding on the clear waters of her favourite bay in Moraira.
The ´FUEL Your Resilience®´ Approach
Rather than viewing resilience as “toughness,” the FUEL approach emphasises the importance of accepting, valuing, and embracing our vulnerability and emotions, whilst also recognising and honouring our capacity to face and cope well with challenges with courage and effectiveness.
It’s about developing personal strength; not just pushing through, but growing through.
If this sounds like the reset you need, then do get in touch! For more details, email: [email protected]
Therapy NorthWest Restorative Retreats
Led by Dr Zandra Bamford, Consultant Clinical Psychologist
Therapy NorthWest offer three-day healing and connecting Internal Family Systems Retreats. Participants are often but not always therapists, practitioners, psychologists or similar. The retreats offer a restorative space for all parts of you.
Each offer an intensive yet gentle healing experience, combining Internal Family Systems Therapy, polyvagal theory and somatic work with holistic approaches to healing trauma and providing missing experiences. They are a true mind, body, spirit experience.
Retreats are offered within beautiful surroundings in the UK. Non residential retreats will have accommodation options within walking distance. Residential retreats offer you a private room within shared accommodation with your small group in stunning countryside.
There is a maximum of 16 individuals per retreat to provide a high ratio of supporters and offering a balance of group experience and small group internal exploration.
- A retreat where all parts of you are welcome
- Opportunities to explore and map your internal system
- Body focused practices to access safety, connection and self compassion.
- Deeper inner work held by the compassion and safety of the facilitators and broader group each day
- Exploration and healing of experiences of shame
- Deepen your understanding of patterns that show up in your internal and external life which are barriers to a life more fulfilling and joyful.
- Multiple opportunities to practice ways to anchor the body into the energy of safety, compassion and connection with Self, others and Mother Earth.
- Leave the retreat with many practices to continue to enjoy in your daily life
- Yoga
- Breathwork
- Sound Healing
- Voice and somatic practices
- Optional follow up consultation for further integration
- Some retreats incorporate shamanic journeys and a greater emphasis on spiritual connection
These retreats will be led by Dr Zandra Bamford, a Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Approved IFS Consultant & Certified IFS Therapist with many years experience working with trauma within a deeply compassionate and holistic approach, and supported by other Psychologists, IFS approved consultants or/and therapists. We also collaborate with Yoga Therapists, Craniosacral Therapists, trauma specialists, sound and energy healers to provide sessions for a full mind, body, spirit experience.
You can find out more at The Therapy NorthWest retreats page
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There we have it; a round up of the best retreats for therapists. If you liked this article check out What are the benefits of yoga retreats?
