Course 1: Getting Better Results:

Core Tasks and Skills of Expert Psychotherapists

10 Modules

"Therapists get paid to listen to their patient’s stories in a compassionate and trust-engendering manner. The first thing every therapist should do is establish a warm and non-judgmental Therapeutic Alliance and use empathy to help a client to tell their story.”

- Don Meichenbaum

The course is designed to help psychotherapists to understand the nature of expertise in psychotherapy and the Core Tasks of expert psychotherapists. This will enable them to implement these principles and to apply professional self-doubt and deliberate practice whilst eliciting feedback, to become part of the 25% of psychotherapists who get 50% of the positive outcomes with their patients and clients.
Each module includes an extensive hand-out.
The usefulness and practicality of Don's lecture handouts are legendary!

Includes:

• Research into the nature of expertise in psychotherapy
• How to avoid HYPE in psychotherapy
• Case Conceptualization
• Therapeutic Alliance: Ways to develop, maintain and monitor the quality of the therapeutic alliance
• The art of questioning and guided discovery procedures
• Collaborative goal setting that nurtures hope
• Psychoeducation and collaborative engagement
• Skills training and generalisation guidelines
• Relapse prevention

Course 2: Treating Specific Disorders

And the Power of Transdiagnostic Strengths-Based Narrative Approaches

10 Modules

“As psychotherapists we are privileged to listen to other people’s stories. We are all Homo narrans or storytellers. In order to be an expert psychotherapist, you need to be an exquisite listener, compassionate and empathic.  But listening alone is insufficient; Language structures reality and the questions we ask and the feedback we provide to clients and patients alters the stories they tell themselves and others as well as the beliefs that they hold.  It is our job to bring out the good, not just the bad.”

- Don Meichenbaum

The course is designed to help psychotherapists to understand the nature of specific disorders, and to apply evidence-based interventions for those disorders using a person-centered and strengths-based, Constructive Narrative approach. It draws on, and continues to emphasize, the principles, skills and Core Tasks of psychotherapy that were introduced in Course 1 (although these courses do not need to be taken in that order). It will therefore focus on engendering strengths and signs of resilience, collaboration, and establishing, monitoring and maintaining the Therapeutic Alliance as key factors in successful treatment outcomes throughout this course.

Each module includes an extensive hand-out.
The usefulness and practicality of Don's lecture handouts are legendary!

The complete list of topics and modules covered:

• Module 11: How to develop chronic PTSD and co-occuring disorders: Treatment implications
• Module 12: Treatment of individuals with anxiety and depression
• Module 13: Treatment of individuals with PTSD
• Module 14: Treatment of individuals with prolonged and complicated grief and traumatic bereavement
• Module 15: Treatment of individuals with substance abuse disorders
• Module 16: Treatment of suicidal patients
• Module 17: Treating patients with co-occuring disorders
• Module 18: Treating patients with anger-control problems and aggressive behaviours
• Module 19: Integration of spirituality and psychotherapy in clinical practice
• Module 20: Putting it all together: Assessing your level of "expertise"

Course 3: Ordinary Magic! 

Building Resilience and Strengths Across the Life Span

10 Modules

"As we start the journey into Course 3 of this series, we are going to look at resilience across the entire lifespan. We'll start off with the nature of resilience itself. While trauma is everywhere, so is resilience!  
And in fact the good stuff is more critical than the bad stuff, in predicting how people will respond to difficult and challenging events.

It's our task in these Modules to see how these kinds of foundational building blocks and resilience engendering behaviours that we will explore, can be applied across the entire lifespan, and across different populations and groups, including, importantly, for yourselves as psychotherapists."
 - Don Meichenbaum

This unique course is designed to help you continue on your journey towards expertise by focussing ways in which to bolster resilience across different groups and populations, or to put this another way, to assist others (and ourselves) in the ability to bounce back from adversities.

The evidence suggests that most of us will be impacted by challenges, stress, anxiety, trauma and other difficulties over the course of our lifetimes, although ~25% of us will get stuck there. Our mission then is to help our patients become part of that 75% group who are able to go on and lead a full life despite those difficulties.

The complete list of topics and modules covered:

• Module 21: Ways to bolster resilience
• Module 22: Bolstering resilience in high-risk children
• Module 23: Treatment of children and adolescents who have experienced trauma and victimising experiences
• Module 24: Ways to bolster resilience in adolescents
• Module 25: Treatment of adolescent depression and suicidal behaviour
• Module 26: Ways to bolster resilience in couples, families and communities
• Module 27: Bolstering resilience in adults
• Module 28: Ways to bolster resilience in the elderly
• Module 29: Self-care for trauma psychotherapists and caregivers: Individual, social and organisational interventions
• Module 30: Summing up and taking stock

Each module includes an extensive hand-out.
The usefulness and practicality of Don's lecture handouts are legendary!