psychotherapy training
Dr Donald Meichenbaum’s Psychotherapy Programme
The essence of psychotherapy
Developing expertise, better outcomes and the narrative approach in psychotherapy
“As I celebrate my 80’s and after 55 years of clinical research, practice seeing patients, consultation and supervision, I have decided to put together a LEGACY COURSE of all the clinical wisdom and experiences that I have acquired. Please enjoy!”
— Dr Donald Meichenbaum, Professor Emeritus, University of Waterloo Canada, Research Director of the Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention, Miami
55 Years of Psychotherapy wisdom from Dr Donald Meichenbaum
“I would like to share my knowledge and expertise with others to ensure that the level of therapists is high and that all who complete my course are able to really understand why some therapists are more effective than others, how to spot hype in the field of psychotherapy as well as really understand what the transtheoretical behaviour change principles are to all forms of therapy and be able to bolster resilience across the entire life span. This, in turn, will lead to better results and outcomes.”
— Dr Donald Meichenbaum
The programme is made up of three courses, as outlined below
This course brings together 55 years of Dr Donald Meichenbaum’s expertise in clinical research, practice, consultation and supervision. This psychotherapy course focuses on how to develop expertise, treating specific disorders and developing resilience across the life span.
Course 1
In Essence of Psychotherapy
Getting Better Results: Core Tasks and
Skills of Expert Psychotherapists
Course 2
In Essence of Psychotherapy
Treating Specific Disorders and the
Secret of Strengths-Based Narrative Approaches
Course 3
In Essence of Psychotherapy
Ordinary Magic:
Building Resilience
and Strengths Across
the Life Span
You do not need to do every unit and you also do not need to do units in a consecutive order.
Course 1: Getting Better Results: Core Tasks and Skills of Expert Psychotherapists
“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. Establishing, maintaining, and monitoring the quality of the Therapeutic Alliance is the single greatest predictor of treatment outcomes, and from which therapists enable the client to tell the ‘rest of their story’.”
Dr Donald Meichenbaum PhD
Course 2: Treating Specific Disorders and the Power of Transdiagnostic Strengths-Based Narrative Approaches
“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.”
Dr Donald Meichenbaum PhD
Course 3: Ordinary Magic: Building Resilience and Strengths Across the Life Span
“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, and my observation that while trauma is everywhere, so is resilience. And in fact, as you’ll come to see, 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.”
Dr Donald Meichenbaum PhD
The Evolution of cognitive behaviour therapy
FREE Sample of Course Materials
Dr Meichenbaum’s handouts for his lectures and seminars are legendary. Each is a condensed handbook, typically between 30 to 60 pages long, filled with tips, guidance, key points extensively and fully referenced. Complete the form below to get your sample:
What people have to say about Donald’s courses
“Prior to the Hypno-CBT training I had watched a recording of him doing a training session and I remember enjoying his style of CBT and thinking “if only it were possible to do a real live workshop with him”. So it has been wonderful to discover the links between this college and Donald Meichenbaum. I didn’t choose to do the Hypno-CBT training with this college for that reason (as I didn’t realise that then) but it has been a wonderful moment of serendipity!”
— Michelle, Counselling Psychologist
“Cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy gives you the tools to help clients with the now and moving forwards and this course gives you the background and more in-depth therapeutic alliance skill set in getting their trust and in moving them forwards…It’s broadened my knowledge and skill set on many levels.”
— Andrea, Hypno-CBT Therapist, Coach and Trainer
“Just want to say that this is a brilliant course. I feel so privileged to have the opportunity to learn from Dr. Meichenbaum – he is an incredibly skilled and knowledgeable psychologist and therapist and an inspiring teacher. I would like to think I could learn to use at least a small percentage of what he is offering. Thank you Mark for creating the opportunity and thank you Theresa for managing and co-ordinating the process so effectively.”
— Elizabeth, Educational Psychologist and Hypno-CBT Therapist
Ready to start your Hypno-CBT® journey?
Book a discovery call with our admissions team and find the right pathway for you.
Course facilitators
Theresa Brockway
Theresa is HCPC accredited Drama Psychotherapist and Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist. Theresa offers Hypnotherapy, Creative Psychotherapy and Public Speaking Coaching to her clients and has a background in performance, touring theatre, Shakespeare and G&C.
Slee Parrish
Slee is a CBH therapist and a consultant nurse within the NHS. With the onset of Covid-19 her practice has changed to concentrate on frontline staff and the very particular anxieties, fear, and stressors they face during the pandemic.
She is one half of the partnership that created a collection of free resources put together for frontline workers during Covid-19.
Chris People
Chris launched his practice in 2017 alongside a sister initiative, The Resilience Project Brighton, with the intention of improving access to evidence-based therapy and resilience coaching in Sussex and beyond.
His main therapeutic interests are in addressing those mood and motivation sticking points that can sometimes prevent us from our most valued living.
Frequently asked questions
Yes – this will be a mix of practical to-do tasks and a written assignment.
In order to receive the certificate, you will need to show you have made up the face-to-face learning hours.
Course 1 – 10 hours
Course 2 – 10 hours
Course 3 – 7.5 hours
Yes – you will receive a certificate of completion and the overall certificate is to be confirmed
No – we welcome all attendees however an understanding and interest in therapy will stand you in good stead for taking the course.
For the facilitated/live course, there are 3.5 hours of contact per week or 35 hours per Course. Each lecture is a slightly different length, but of each ‘Watch and Discuss’ sessions, roughly an hour is the lecture and the rest is discussion. This discussion element includes check ins, Q&A, deliberate practice, peer support and case discussion.
“I started this journey with the college way back in 2015, mostly out of personal interest and partly to try and become a better martial arts and boxing coach. I suppose at that time, I never really considered becoming a full-time therapist. I initially enjoyed integrating the methods into what I was already doing, and eventually started running a few group sessions and one-to-one therapy sessions both from a performance and resilience-building perspective. The more I spoke to people about my new skills and interests, the more people I encountered who told me they, or someone they knew, would also benefit from some assistance. This started growing slowly and shifted from being a side gig for me (or my ‘paid hobby’ as I sometimes called it!) to being a ‘part-time’ venture alongside my consultancy business. I also started coaching trainee therapists with the College, which I absolutely loved.”
— Chris People, Course Facilitator and Hypnotherapist