Teaching: Developing and supporting therapists is essential

About me as a Teacher/Trainer/Lecturer

I am a BABCP accredited trainer. I am skilled and experienced as a teacher and have spent several years as a clinical lectuerer, teaching CBP to trainees as well as teaching post graduate and skilled CBT therpaists in post registration courses. I co-write the content for and teach onto the PG. Dip in CBP at the University of Sheffield. This is a BABCP accredited course . I provide training sessions on various aspects of CBP in practice for the trust. I am an assessor for the IAPT service training programme at the University of Sheffield.  I contribute to D. Clin. Psychology at the University of Leeds.

Teaching in CBT Training

Dissemination and training of quality CBT therapists has become a recent focus for CBT programs throughout the world. There is a renewed focus in the field of CBT and on the skills needed to effectively teach and supervise. In fact, CBT supervision skills have independently been recognized as a competency in recent years.

Training has been defined as the effective transfer of knowledge about and practice of the key skills of CBT. It represents both knowing that and knowing how. Most skills are taught both in training and supervision.  Therapists or students first learn the rationale for a skill; they watch experts, and model what they have learned in practice with roleplayed “clients” of varying degrees of difficulty (with corrective and confirming feedback). Once trainees have the necessary skills, they can then be supervised with actual clients in a setting of “real world complexity.”

I work and teach along the Roth and Pilling (2007) competency guidelines. The programme I teach on is a BABCP level 2 course so I understand well the skills and knowledge mix needed to offer effective training.

CBT as a Supported Intervention

CBT therapists rarely work alone. One of the roles I have in teaching is tailoring teaching for people and services. I teach Nurses about CBT at several institutions. This is helpful in using CBT informed interventions, understanding their context and also supporting CBT treatment.