Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Training: CBT Essentials.
CBT Essentials is a 3-day course from the Association for Psychological Therapies (APT), a leading provider of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy training for professionals working in mental health and related fields in the USA. CBT Essentials is the benchmark for professionals who want an excellent introduction to CBT which will enable them to understand it and use it straight away. It is also the gateway to further CBT training including APT’s CBT Masterclass. The training is also approved by the American Psychological Association (APA).
Completion of the course results in 18 CE credits* and also gives you APT’s level one Accreditation in CBT, with the option of sitting in exam to obtain level two (free of charge) and from there through more study right up to APT's CBT Masterclass and level four Accreditation.
Founded in 1981, APT has grown to become a trusted source of gold-standard training, from introductory through to masterclass level. Over 150,000 mental health professionals have attended APT’s post-qualification courses, commissioned by numerous healthcare systems, hospitals, and providers.
APT’s CBT training uniquely combines built-in APT Accreditation with automatic access to our renowned post-course resources to help you support your clients. It is available for both teams and individuals, face-to-face or online, and can also count towards (a) the Extended Training in CBT course, (b) The APT Diploma in Psychological Therapies or (c) The APT Diploma in Working with common mental health diagnoses.
Executive Summary:
APT was one of the earliest organizations to teach CBT, starting in 1982, three years after the seminal book Cognitive Therapy of Depression was written by Beck, Rush, Shaw and Emery. Since that point, this course has constantly been one of the most attended of any of APT's courses. Constantly developing, this course was one of the first to systematically teach '5-factor CBT', also advocated by Padesky in the 'hot cross bun' and Linehan in DBT. Including not just emotions, behavior and cognitions, the 5-factor approach adds biological factors and social/environmental factors into the mix, without which many conditions would not be addressed adequately.
Who should attend this CBT course?
This is an ‘introductory’ course to CBT and people who attend normally fall into one of two categories:
1. Professionals who see patients in 1:1 treatment settings, have a significant degree of clinical skill, and wish to add CBT techniques to their repertoire.
2. 'Whole teams' (either in inpatient or community settings) seeking to develop a common approach to CBT or to their clinical work.
The professional affiliations of people attending this course include: mental health/psychiatric nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, clinical psychologists, educational psychologists, psychiatrists, probation officers and others working in a variety of settings including: Adult Mental Health, Children and Adolescents, Older People, Substance Misuse, Forensic, Learning Disability, and Brain Injury.
The CBT Essentials course covers:
CBT Essentials consists of the three days described below.
Day 1 (Module One)
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Module One: The framework for successful CBT. Covering the topics:
- The History and defining characteristics of CBT.
- The first session or two: building the relationship, and making an assessment.
- Case Formulation.
- How to structure CBT: A typical session-plan; How often you should see a patient, and What Notes you should keep.
- Guided discovery: diary keeping (an overview) and Socratic Dialog.
- Evidence-based practice and ‘Practice-based evidence’.
Day 2 (Modules Two & Three)
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Module Two: Treatments based on Behavioral factors and approaches. Covering the topics:
- Behavioral interventions tend to be reliable, and respected by patients. They are also important and effective:
- In depression, Lewinsohn first highlighted the fact that many depressed people lead depressing lives. The task therefore is to help them lead more rewarding ones.
- In anxiety, graded exposure to the feared stimulus appears to be much more effective than systematically avoiding it (which patients often resort to).
- Diary keeping: keeping a diary gives patients a new perspective on their lives and it also records current behavior and implies or suggests behavioral changes. It allows both patient and therapist an insight into the patient’s life, and enables adjustments to be agreed to make the person’s life more enjoyable and more meaningful.
- Scheduling: helping people schedule more rewarding activities and de-schedule less rewarding ones is an important skill: it literally helps the person build a more rewarding life.
- Video analysis of scheduling.
- Behavioral Activation. Behavioral activation is a clear strategy which is effective in helping depressed people. It hinges on scheduling key behaviors into the person’s day.
- Hedonism versus Eudaimonic well-being and the work of Ryan and Deci. What constitutes ‘a rewarding activity’? Why isn’t fun more fun, and why do some people enjoy work? As Noel Coward once said: “Work is more fun than fun”. ‘Poor little rich girl’: the girl who has all the fun in the world, yet is still miserable. Video: Martin Seligman.
- Mini case study and examples.
- Teaching new skills. The teaching of helpful skills has always been an important part of behavior therapy (and hence cognitive behavior therapy), so a CBT therapist should feel relaxed about teaching helpful skills such as those involved in regulating emotions and tolerating distress.
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Module Three, Treatment techniques based on Biological factors. Covering the topics:
- Increasingly recognized in importance, biological factors are probably still the most under-rated of the 5 inter-relating factors in CBT. A pity, because patients like to address them and they can make a massive impact.
- Illnesses: such as hyperthyroidism (mimics anxiety) and hypothyroidism (mimics depression) and are themselves important to address medically.
- Sleep. People who do not sleep well tend to suffer impaired mood during the day as a result, and have extra time at night when they can dwell - or become agitated - about life events.
- Routine. An impaired circadian rhythm is highly disruptive, and quite widespread.
- Diet. Some people may consume plenty of calories, or even too many calories, yet may not get the nutrients they need for a healthy physical and mental state.
- Exercise. Journal articles over many years have pointed to the beneficial effects of exercise in alleviating depression and anxiety.
- Alcohol, its harmful effects, and how to address it and them.
- Relaxation, why it works so well, and available relaxation exercises.
- Exercises and suggested post-course project.
Day 3 (Modules Four & Five)
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Module Four: Treatments based on the Surroundings, especially Social. Covering the topics:
- President Clinton, in explain politics to a colleague, famously said “It’s the economy, stupid”, meaning everything hinges on the economy. In mental health, the importance of relationships is similar: they appear to fundamental to a person’s sense of wellbeing, so we need to be good at helping people address them.
- The Grant and Glueck (the Harvard study). This massive, four-generational study of Harvard graduates and under-privileged Boston children, demonstrates the immense power of relationships to influence and determine both our mental and physical health.
- IPT (Interpersonal PsychoTherapy). An overview of the problems addressed by IPT, and the strategies for addressing them.
- ‘Popular People live longer. The meta-study by Holt-Lunstad, ( Brigham Young University) reviewing 148 investigations published over 28 years on the effects of social relationships.
- Slavich and Cole, (human social genomics at the University of California, Los Angeles): how our genomic make up reacts to social rejection.
- Exercises, case-studies, addressing (yourself, your friends and acquaintances if you want to, and) your own case-load.
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Module Five: Treatment techniques based on Cognitions and Thinking style. Covering the topics:
- The ability to address people’s thinking style was the original breakthrough behind cognitive therapy and cognitive behavior therapy.
- Core beliefs: ‘Rigid, long-lasting views about the nature of oneself, other people, the world.’ Adaptive ones work well for us and maladaptive ones very much don’t. Triads: Core beliefs which interact with each other to produce depression and anxiety.
- Negative Automatic Thoughts and Core Beliefs: the interaction.
- “Everything I touch always goes wrong.”
- Unhelpful thinking styles, Negative Automatic Thoughts, and ‘Thinking Errors’. Terms often used to mean much the same thing, and we can often influence core beliefs by repeatedly tackling such ‘thinking errors’ and unhelpful thinking styles.
- Where do these thinking styles come from?
- The Top10 thinking errors and the 5 key interventions: Graded Questions; Putting a name to it; and an overview of Logical evidence-based reasoning; Guided Discovery, and Hypothesis Testing.
- Why do I get so upset about such a small thing? ‘Critical Incidents’: sometimes an apparently minor incident can have a seemingly disproportionate effect.
- Feature Exercise: Straightening out cognitive distortions.
- What’s BEST to think about? Enough of thinking errors, what should we think about if we want a sense of wellbeing? Includes video featuring Philip Zimbardo.
- Logical Evidence-Based Reasoning / Cognitive re-structuring.
- Identifying Hot Thoughts and cooling them down using logical evidence-based reasoning.
- Included are forms available to you as a download for 3 years, renewable.
- Video: Cognitive Restructuring:
- Exercise: Using it with yourself
- Exercise: Practising it with you’re a colleague.
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Throughout the modules: Practice. To learn to swim you need to get in the pool.
- In this highly practical and extended module, the tutor takes the role of a patient, and attendees – as a group - have the opportunity to take the role of the therapist, and receive helpful feedback.
- Then, attendees have the chance to practise in pairs or trios, and again receive feedback.
- The practice covers three stages of therapy:
- 1. The first session or two: completing an assessment and obtaining enough information to produce a formulation of the problem.
- 2. Middle session: checking on events and progress, agreeing the agenda, tackling the agenda, agreeing homework, summarising and obtaining feedback.
- 3. Session near the end of therapy: covering a similar sequence, but gearing the agendas towards termination of therapy.
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Finally:
- Throughout, you are invited to think on how you can best apply your knowledge and skill to your work situation.
- Throughout, you are invited to think on how you can best apply your knowledge and skill to your work situation.
Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this course, the learner will be able to:
- Explain the history and purpose of the CBT approach.
- Describe the 3 factors that make up the 3 Factor Model in CBT.
- Recite what techniques are used in the CBT approach and why.
- Demonstrate how to use the major cognitive, behavioural, and cognitive-behavioral techniques with patients.
- Describe how a stance of ‘Collaborative Empiricism’ is adopted in CBT between therapists and patients.
- Explain how a first therapy session is structured in CBT.
- Discuss why case formulations are important in CBT.
- Critique how the CBT approach fits in with other behavioral interventions and how it can be used.
What you receive as a result of attending the training:
You will be registered as having attended the course, thereby gaining APT's Level 1 accreditation, and receive a certificate to this effect. The accreditation gives you access to online resources associated with the course and access to the online exam if you wish to uprate your APT accreditation to Level 2.
Your registration lasts indefinitely, whilst your accreditation lasts for 3 years from the date of completion and is renewable.
Your accreditation is given value by the fact of over 150,000 people having attended APT training. See APT accreditation for full details
CE Credits from the APA:
*The Association for Psychological Therapies (APT) is approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) to sponsor continuing education for Psychologists. The Association for Psychological Therapies (APT) maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
Upon completion of this course you can apply for CE certification for an additional cost of $20 USD (for training purchased after 08/14/2023).
Requirements for completion: To be awarded CE credits for this course 100% attendance is required for live training. For the 'online anytime' (self-paced) version, you are required to complete the course in full and complete a multiple choice exam whereby a pass marks of 80% is required (failure on the third attempt would result in having to go back through the content again).
Note: there may be other professional licensing boards that accept CE credits earned from APA-approved sponsors. Because CE regulations vary by state and profession, we recommend that participants check with their state licensing board to inquire whether credits will be accepted for renewal of licensure. We do not have any authority over whether credits earned will be accepted, as this authority rests with the state licensing boards.
Instructor credentials and endorsements:
Note, all APT tutors are consultant clinical psychologists (or similar) and have not received any commercial support for this program or its contents and will not receive any commercial support prior to or during this program. Similarly, no benefit of endorsements have been received.
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CBT Courses and Resources
How to become a CBT Therapist ❯
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy ❯
10-minute CBT: The BITS™ Course ❯
CBT Plus, for Anger and Violence ❯
What works with Alcohol & Substance Misuse ❯
Trauma-Focused CBT, for all ages ❯
The ADDRESS® Course for working with Personality Disorder ❯
CBT Plus, for Suicide Prevention ❯
CBT for Non-Suicidal Self-Injury ❯
CBT for Working with Offenders ❯
Live Feedback Ratings.
Every delegate rates our courses for presentation and relevance and the averages below update automatically as each new course runs.
These live results also power APT’s acclaimed Accreditation System — so widely valued because it is evidence-based, drawing directly on the real-time ratings of professionals who have completed the training.
Face-to-Face*
Presentation:
Relevance:
Online Live*
Presentation:
Relevance:
Online Anytime**
Overall Rating:
* Feedback taken from the last 10 runnings of this course (each course has around 15 people attending).
** Feedback taken from the last 20 people completing the course. Delegates give a single overall rating to anytime courses.
If the course has run less than the stated number of times, the percentage score will be based on the number of times the course has been completed.
Reviews.
APT prides itself on the feedback we receive about our courses. Below are just some of the great comments the CBT Essentials course has received.
“Without a doubt, the most relevant, inspirational and achievable course I have done since being in the team. I feel enthusiastic about applying the skills and theory to my practice. The course was superbly delivered by a very knowledgeable, competent tutor who was down to earth and humorous in appropriate places. Excellent!"
"I've had a number of inputs on CBT - this one clearly the best yet!!"
