The Association for Psychological Therapies' top 10 most ordered courses over the past 3 months (training that people have commissioned to be delivered exclusively for their team, either face-to-face or live online).*
*Updated April 2025.
A 3-day course.
An exposition on Compassion Focused Therapy, in a way that enables and encourages delegates to use it in their practice.
Although compassion focused therapy is delivered compassionately, its main focus is to encourage patients to be compassionate towards themselves. This is achieved by (a) specific techniques and approaches we cover on the course and (b) by educating patients about what happens in the brain so they realize that their emotions, behaviours, thoughts and fantasies are not their 'fault', and yet they can take certain actions to make things better for themselves (which we also cover). This is a course for people who do not necessarily want to be exclusively “a compassion focused therapist” but certainly DO want to know all about compassion focused therapy in order to build CFT ideas and techniques into their clinical repertoire. It therefore covers both the theory and the skills of CFT in a way they can be applied immediately.
A 3-day course. (2-day version also available.)
Using existing clinical skills and Davies's structured interview.
Assessing adolescents and children in crisis settings often causes professionals a lot of concern. They wonder whether they have the necessary skills, they are concerned about the potential volatility of the situation, they are unfamiliar with having another adult (the parent) present and concerned, they are not sure about consent and confidentiality issues, and they are not completely sure what their role is: assessment, risk-assessment, management, or what?
Also known as SFBT (Solution-Focused Brief Therapy).
A 3-day course.
An approach to problems that is fundamentally positive and comes as a breath of fresh air to professionals and clients alike.
Another of APT's top courses, this aims to introduce you to the principles of SFT / SFBT in a way that gives you a firm grasp of them and enables you to use them in a safe and helpful way. You should become at home with the approach which is often seen as a 'breath of fresh air' both to client and professional, looking for and finding effective solutions for problems, rather than being sucked further and further into the problem itself.
A 3-day course.
Instruction in the key components of DBT for those who want to add them to their repertoire without necessarily becoming 'a DBT therapist'.
DBT brings together a series of skills and techniques which are powerful and well chosen ones, for working with personality disorder as well as in other areas. Many people want to familiarize themselves with these skills without necessarily becoming a DBT therapist exclusively, and this 3-day course is for you if you are one of those people as well as if you are thinking of taking the first step in becoming a DBT therapist. As well as covering the 'overall concept of DBT', it covers its 'essential elements', namely the concepts of: Validation; Metaphor; Relentless Problem Solving; and Contingency Management, and the skills of: Mindfulness; Distress Tolerance; Interpersonal Effectiveness; and Emotional Regulation.
A 3-day course. (Online version also available.)
A favorite introduction to this powerful, evidence-based technique.
Now in its latest form this course has introduced Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to thousands of people ever since 1983. It addresses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in a way that you can use after the course. It covers: the history and meaning of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, conceptualising cases in CBT terms, the format of a standard CBT session, and the most important CBT techniques. All in a way that applies it constantly to practical examples.
A 3-day course.
'Once in a while there is a unique contribution to psychotherapy.'
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) moves away from focusing too closely on ‘symptom reduction’ towards teaching how to live in a stable and rewarding way. So it teaches how to get in touch with your values, how to act in accordance with them, how to be aware of ‘the you that is always there’, how to see your passing thoughts and feelings for just that, how to accept thoughts and feelings you don’t like without over-struggling with them, and so how to live mainly in the present.
Available in 3-day and 2-day versions.
A cogent system that actually facilitates clinical work, this is one of our most renowned courses. Thousands of professionals have already attended it.
With the starting point that excellent risk management involves excellent clinical practice, The DICES® System for Risk Assessment and Management shows what is necessary to properly assess and manage risk easily, reliably and to the benefit of all, and this accounts for its staggering popularity.
Part one covers the nature and theory of risk assessment and management: why we do it and what we aim to achieve by it. Part two covers risk assessment specifically: if you don't notice the risk there is no chance you will manage it correctly. Part three covers risk management: there is no virtue in spotting a risk if you are not able to manage it. The end result is that not only do you know about risk assessment and management, you also have the ability and the equipment to do so reliably and well.
A 3-day course.
This course is available 'Open' (where you come to us) or Onsite (we come to you and deliver it to a group of up to 15 delegates).
Based on Miller and Rollnick's latest book, this course describes an organized way of helping people to recognize their problems and to do something about them. Principally it addresses behavior about which the client has mixed feelings: drinking and substance misuse for example, but a suprising array of common mental and physical health problems as well. Issues from taking psychoactive medication through to eating more healthily can all be addressed using motivational interviewing.
A 3-day course.
Instruction in the key components of DBT for those who want to apply DBT to working with adolescents.
DBT brings together a series of skills and techniques which are powerful and well chosen ones, and DBT-A focuses it on working with adolescents. Whether you want to simply learn about DBT and how to apply it effectively, or are thinking of establishing a full DBT service, this course has it covered. The course covers the delivery of effective DBT at its most relevant for adolescents, including: confusion about self, impulsivity, lack of emotional control, interpersonal problems, family problems and dilemmas, high risk behaviors, including suicidal behavior and non-suicidal self-injury.
A 3-day course.
A relentlessly positive approach to working with disturbed and challenging behavior.
The 3-day RAID® course is a leading positive psychology approach for tackling disturbed and challenging behavior at source: over 20,000 professionals have attended it. It is a comprehensive approach which teaches staff a philosophy and practice not only to deal with disturbed and challenging behavior when it occurs, but also to prevent it by tackling it at source. Staff feel pleased to share a unified system and to know what they are doing and why they are doing it, while clients delight in a relentlessly positive and empowering approach. The essence of the RAID® approach is to play down disturbed and challenging behavior as far as safety allows, and to nurture and develop positive behavior so that it systematically overwhelms and displaces the disturbed and challenging behavior.
The APT offers a range of over 80 separate courses, all of which are available exclusively to your team.
They can be brought to you live face-to-face, or live online via Zoom or Teams. Click below to see all courses.