--- title: CBT Practitioner Skills url: https://thestudyguild.com/programmes/cbt-practitioner-skills type: programme published: 2026-04-01 last_reviewed: 2026-07-05 reviewed_by: priya-raman publisher: The Study Guild --- # CBT Practitioner Skills A 10-week live programme in cognitive behavioural techniques for non-clinical practitioners, taught by a chartered psychologist with assessed competency review. ## Programme facts - Price: £449 (payment plans available, never discounted) - Format: Live online + self-paced - Live contact hours: 22 - Expected self-study hours: 40 - Duration: 10 weeks - Level: Intermediate - Tutor: priya-raman ## Learning outcomes - Explain the cognitive model accurately and use it to structure a conversation - Identify and work with unhelpful thinking patterns using established techniques - Design and review a behavioural experiment with a client - Recognise presentations that require clinical assessment and refer them - State and hold your scope of practice explicitly with clients - Use structured measures appropriately without over-claiming what they show ## Curriculum 1. **The cognitive model** — How thoughts, feelings, behaviour and physiology interact, and how to use that model in a conversation. Topics: The cognitive model in plain language; Maintenance cycles; Socratic dialogue; Collaborative empiricism 2. **Scope of practice** — The boundary between CBT-informed practice and therapy, established before any technique is taught. Topics: What non-clinical practice can and cannot address; Risk indicators and escalation; Stating your limits to a client; Documenting the boundary 3. **Assessment and formulation** — Gathering the right information and organising it into a shared understanding. Topics: Structured information gathering; Building a formulation with the client; Using measures responsibly; When assessment reveals clinical need 4. **Working with thoughts** — Identifying and testing unhelpful thinking patterns without dismissing a client's experience. Topics: Thought records; Common cognitive distortions; Evidence-testing done well and badly; Avoiding forced positivity 5. **Behavioural experiments** — Designing real-world tests that change belief more effectively than discussion does. Topics: Designing a genuine test; Predicting and recording; Reviewing disconfirmation; When experiments go wrong 6. **Avoidance and activation** — Behavioural activation and graded exposure principles, and their limits outside a clinical setting. Topics: Activity scheduling; Graded hierarchies; Safety behaviours; The clinical boundary in exposure work 7. **Working with worry and rumination** — Process-focused techniques for the patterns that dominate everyday presentations. Topics: Worry postponement; Metacognitive approaches; Intolerance of uncertainty; Distinguishing worry from anxiety disorder 8. **Practice observation: round one** — Role-play under observation with structured feedback from tutor and peers. Topics: Role-play protocol; Self-assessment; Receiving critique; Targeted improvement 9. **Ethics, records and supervision** — Working safely: consent, records, data protection and why supervision is not optional. Topics: Informed consent; UK GDPR and sensitive data; Finding supervision; Insurance 10. **Final assessment clinic** — Recorded sessions and formulations reviewed live against the rubric. Topics: Final recording review; Formulation critique; Referral decisions examined; Continuing development ## Assessment A recorded role-play session demonstrating a structured CBT-informed conversation, plus a written case formulation with an explicit scope-of-practice and referral analysis. Marked by Dr Priya Raman against a published rubric in which referral judgement is weighted most heavily. Written feedback with one free resubmission. ## Upcoming cohorts - 2026-10-01 to 2026-12-10 — Thursdays 19:00–21:00 UK, 10 weeks (open, cap 20) - 2027-02-04 to 2027-04-15 — Thursdays 19:00–21:00 UK, 10 weeks (open, cap 20) ## Can you practise CBT after a short course? No. Practising as a CBT therapist requires accredited clinical training, supervised clinical hours and professional accreditation, typically through the BABCP. A short programme can make you genuinely more skilful at using cognitive behavioural techniques within a non-clinical role, and that is what this one does. We state this plainly because the distinction is routinely obscured in this market, and the consequence of obscuring it falls on vulnerable clients. What this programme produces is a practitioner who uses CBT-informed technique competently within a stated scope, recognises what falls outside it, and refers. That is a genuinely valuable and honestly describable capability. It is not a therapist. Sources: - [BABCP accreditation — minimum training standards](https://babcp.com/Accreditation) — British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies ## What is CBT-informed practice? CBT-informed practice means using techniques drawn from cognitive behavioural therapy — thought records, behavioural experiments, activity scheduling — within a non-therapeutic role such as coaching, wellbeing support or management. The techniques are the same; the scope, contract and client group are not. ## Who genuinely benefits from CBT practitioner training? People who already have structured conversations with others and want a firmer evidence base for them: coaches, wellbeing leads, pastoral staff, managers and support workers. The training also helps trainee therapists get additional observed technique practice, which is often scarce. ## How is referral judgement assessed on this programme? It carries the heaviest weighting in the marking rubric. Your written case formulation must include an explicit scope-of-practice analysis identifying what you would not work with and where you would refer. Missing a clear clinical indicator is the one failure that cannot be offset by good technique. ## Common questions **Will I get a diploma in CBT?** You receive a credential recording that you passed an assessed programme in CBT practitioner skills, naming the assessor and the rubric. It does not describe you as a CBT therapist, because you would not be one. **Is this accredited by the BABCP?** No, and it does not claim to be. BABCP accreditation applies to clinical training courses that meet its minimum standards, which this programme does not attempt to meet. Our CPD accreditation application is separate and in progress. **Do I need to be in a helping role already?** It helps considerably, because the practice work and the assessment both rely on you having conversations to apply this to. If you are changing career into one, tell us at enrolment and we will make sure the practice element works for you. --- Source: https://thestudyguild.com/programmes/cbt-practitioner-skills · The Study Guild