Therapists are required to have supervision and as such it is a tax deductible expense, it is mandatory for practicing members of BACP for example
Personal therapy is often part students training but I have had confirmation from BACP that it is not a requirement of membership, here is their response
“Students of counselling are on occasion required by the course provider to have therapy themselves to full fill course criteria.
Once a student has graduated, it is not a requirement of BACP membership that our members continue with therapy.”
If you have personal therapy then HMRC will use the argument “duality of purpose” this means if there is a personal as well as business reason for the expenditure and it cannot realistically be apportioned between business and personal it fails the “wholly and exclusively” test and is not tax deductible. In my view this will be the case with personal therapy and as such is not tax deductible
This is quoted from a tax case
In a leading case, Azam, the costs of counselling were not allowed as a business deduction, despite it being accepted that one of the purposes of the sessions was to help run Mrs Azam’s business. However, the personal benefits gained by the therapy sessions were found to be more than incidental, so the deduction was disallowed completely through duality of purpose
These views are my own and should not be relied upon without taking specific advice you can contact me here
