The Berne Institute

Why choose "The Berne"?

At "The Berne" we aim to be not only a centre of learning, but also a lively community. Pictured above are "Berne" students at the end-of-year party, raising a glass to celebrate completion of their fourth year of on-going training. Seated (front) are "Berne" Co-Directors Ian Stewart and Adrienne Lee.

Everyone has her or his own reasons for choosing a particular centre to train at, or as a place to come to workshops or seminars, and we guess this is also true of you. To help you in making your choice, you will probably want to consider the positive features that each centre offers you. So, here are the particular strong points that we think you will find at "The Berne". If you would like to go straight to more detail on each point, just click it in the list.

• Central, easily accessible location


• Experienced, highly-qualified trainers


• Dedicated training centre, giving you a fine environment for learning


• Proven track record of successes in professional exams


• Courses validated for University awards


• A lively and growing professional community

Central, easily accessible location
Our training centre, Berne House, is situated ten miles south of Nottingham and just one mile away from Junction 24 on the M1. This motorway junction is also the Northern terminus of the M42/A42, giving you fast access by car from the West Midlands and South-West. If you prefer to travel by train, you can get to Berne House easily by bus or taxi from any of three mainline stations - Nottingham, Derby or Loughborough. You can even fly in if you like: we are just five miles away from East Midlands Airport. For detailed directions, please go to the page on How to find us. The village of Kegworth, in which Berne House is situated, offers a fine variety of eating-places and local shops.

Experienced, highly qualified Co-Directors and trainers
The Berne Institute's Co-Directors, Adrienne Lee and Ian Stewart, personally lead all "The Berne's" on-going training courses. Ian and Adrienne are both accredited by the International and European TA associations as Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analysts (TSTA) - the highest training qualification offered by these bodies. Both Co-Directors have many years' experience as teachers in further and higher education, and are also among Britain's most experienced trainers in transactional analysis. With them on the training team are Associate Director Mark Widdowson TSTA and Academic Tutor and Supervisor Frances Townsend PTSTA. If you'd like to learn more about our training team, please visit our page "Meet our Training Faculty".

Dedicated training centre, giving you a fine environment for learning
Our training centre, Berne House, has a long history. It began life a century or so ago as a "town house" with a church vestry attached. When we bought it, in 1994, it was serving as a cafe and bed-and-breakfast place. Now, the ex-vestry, ex-cafe room is our big training room (pictured on our home page), with lots of space and a fine original wooden floor and ceiling. Also on the ground floor is our bistro-style coffee room, pictured below.

Upstairs you will find a smaller training room, plus three counselling rooms of various sizes - one of these also houses our Library. At the back of Berne House is our walled garden - great for coffee or for "breakout groups" when the weather is good. In front, there's off-road parking.

Proven track record of successes in professional exams
The Berne Institute's Co-Directors, Ian Stewart and Adrienne Lee, have been conducting an on-going TA psychotherapy training programme since 1984. (Before the foundation of The Berne Institute in 1994, the training programme went under the titles of NECTA and Training Central England). Over the years, trainees from our programmes have been consistently successful in the professional examinations set by the European Association for Transactional Analysis (EATA) and the International Transactional Analysis Association (ITAA).

Courses validated for University awards
Since 1999, our on-going psychotherapy training course has been validated by Middlesex University for the award of Master of Science in Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy, and our counselling course for the award of the Postgraduate Clinical Diploma in Transactional Analysis Counselling. Over the years since the validation, "Berne" students have shown a consistent record of success in both University awards.

A lively and growing professional community
As part of our mission, we want "The Berne" to be not just a place for learning and study - though that's important - but also a centre of community. That's why we run monthly free seminars and publish a newsletter that is free to our members. It's why we see to it that Berne House is furnished and provisioned in a friendly and welcoming way, and why we run a membership scheme. We hope we may welcome you soon as part of our community!

If you would like more information on "The Berne" and our various activities, please explore the pages in this web site. For any further details that you can't find here, please email us here >> , call or fax us on 01509-673649 (24-hours answering machine) or write to: The Course Registrar, The Berne Institute, Berne House, 29 Derby Road, Kegworth DE74 2EN.