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Mental health

Psychological Therapies (CBT and DBT) Diploma

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A practical diploma in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) skills for clinicians: what the evidence and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommend, how to use the core techniques well within your current role, and where the line sits between using these skills and practising as a therapist.

Twenty-five weekly sessions across five modules take you from the foundations of CBT, through depression, anxiety, sleep, trauma, psychosis and eating disorders, to the DBT model and skills and safe, supervised practice, taught live by practising therapists and specialists you can question. The diploma does not qualify you to practise as a CBT or DBT therapist: that needs a recognised postgraduate therapy training with supervised clinical cases and, for DBT, team-based intensive training.

Course director
To be announced
Format
25 live weekly sessions on Zoom, in 5 modules
Dates
Confirmed when enrolment opens

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You are registering for Psychological Therapies (CBT and DBT). We email you first when it opens for enrolment, and we will not pass your details to anyone outside PMI.

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A quiet therapy room with armchairs facing each other across a small table with a vase of flowers.
Image: a therapy room by RMtherapies via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Who it is for

Psychiatrists, psychiatry trainees, GPs, mental health nurses and other clinicians who want to use CBT and DBT skills in their current work, worldwide.

The programme

25 one-hour sessions in 5 modules, each with its learning objectives. This is the draft programme: the course director reviews and refines it before enrolment opens, so session titles may change.

Module 1 · Sessions 1 to 5Foundations of CBT

  1. 1. What CBT and DBT are, and what this diploma can and cannot do

    • Describe the cognitive behavioural model linking thoughts, emotions, body and behaviour
    • Place low-intensity and high-intensity psychological work within stepped care
    • Distinguish using CBT and DBT skills in your current role from practising as a therapist
    • Describe the supervised clinical practice that formal therapist training requires

  2. 2. Assessment, formulation and outcome measures

    • Conduct a CBT assessment that produces a shared problem list and goals
    • Build a maintenance formulation with the person
    • Use routine outcome measures to track progress session by session
    • Judge when CBT is not the right first step and refer appropriately

  3. 3. Structure, collaboration and the therapeutic relationship

    • Structure a CBT session with an agreed agenda, summaries and feedback
    • Use guided discovery questions instead of persuasion
    • Design and review between-session tasks the person is likely to complete
    • Rate a recorded session using a recognised competence scale

  4. 4. Cognitive techniques: working with thoughts and beliefs

    • Help a person identify the automatic thoughts linked to a specific situation
    • Plan a behavioural experiment to test a feared prediction
    • Use a thought record without turning it into an argument
    • Recognise when to work at the level of assumptions and core beliefs

  5. 5. Behavioural techniques: activation and exposure

    • Deliver structured behavioural activation for depression
    • Build an exposure hierarchy with the person
    • Identify and reduce the safety behaviours that keep anxiety going
    • Troubleshoot avoidance and low motivation during behavioural work
Module 2 · Sessions 6 to 10CBT for depression, anxiety and sleep

  1. 6. CBT for depression

    • Choose between behavioural activation and cognitive therapy for a person with depression
    • Plan a course of CBT for depression with the person
    • Work with rumination and hopelessness in therapy
    • Build a relapse prevention plan at the end of treatment

  2. 7. Generalised anxiety and panic disorder

    • Formulate generalised anxiety disorder using a CBT model of worry
    • Teach applied relaxation as a high-intensity alternative to CBT
    • Use interoceptive exposure to treat panic disorder
    • Choose between guided self-help and high-intensity CBT using stepped care

  3. 8. Social anxiety disorder

    • Formulate social anxiety disorder with the person
    • Use video feedback to correct a distorted self-image
    • Drop safety behaviours through planned behavioural experiments
    • Explain why individual CBT is preferred to group CBT for social anxiety

  4. 9. Obsessive-compulsive disorder and body dysmorphic disorder

    • Distinguish obsessional intrusive thoughts from genuine risk
    • Design an exposure and response prevention programme
    • Reduce reassurance seeking and family accommodation
    • Adapt the approach for body dysmorphic disorder

  5. 10. Insomnia: CBT for insomnia

    • Assess chronic insomnia using sleep diaries
    • Deliver sleep restriction and stimulus control safely
    • Explain why CBT for insomnia comes before hypnotic medication
    • Choose between in-person and digital CBT for insomnia
Module 3 · Sessions 11 to 15CBT for trauma, psychosis and complex presentations

  1. 11. Post-traumatic stress disorder: trauma-focused CBT

    • Assess post-traumatic symptoms and readiness for trauma-focused work
    • Explain which trauma-focused treatments national guidance recommends and when
    • Describe how trauma memories are updated in trauma-focused CBT
    • Adapt the approach for complex trauma, refugees and survivors of conflict

  2. 12. CBT for psychosis

    • Engage a person with psychosis in a collaborative CBT formulation
    • Use normalising explanations for voices and unusual beliefs
    • Target distress and functioning rather than arguing about beliefs
    • Involve families in line with national guidance

  3. 13. Eating disorders: eating-disorder-focused CBT

    • Introduce regular eating and in-session weighing collaboratively
    • Choose guided self-help or individual eating-disorder-focused CBT
    • Recognise medical risk that must be managed before or alongside therapy
    • Address shape and weight concerns in therapy

  4. 14. Long-term conditions, persistent physical symptoms and pain

    • Formulate the links between physical symptoms, thoughts and behaviour
    • Apply CBT and acceptance and commitment therapy principles to chronic primary pain
    • Address health anxiety without increasing reassurance seeking
    • Coordinate psychological work with the person's medical team

  5. 15. Adapting CBT for culture, age and neurodiversity

    • Adapt CBT language, examples and goals to the person's culture and beliefs
    • Work effectively through an interpreter in therapy
    • Adapt the delivery of CBT for autistic adults and older adults
    • Decide when remote delivery is safe and suitable
Module 4 · Sessions 16 to 20Dialectical behaviour therapy

  1. 16. DBT: the model, the structure and the evidence

    • Explain the biosocial theory of emotion dysregulation to a person and their family
    • Describe the modes and functions of a comprehensive DBT programme
    • Summarise the UK and US guideline recommendations for DBT
    • Distinguish DBT-informed skills work from standard DBT

  2. 17. Commitment, diary cards and behavioural chain analysis

    • Use commitment strategies to agree treatment goals
    • Prioritise session targets using the DBT target hierarchy
    • Use a diary card to set the session agenda
    • Complete a behavioural chain analysis and link it to solutions

  3. 18. Mindfulness and distress tolerance skills

    • Teach core mindfulness skills in plain language
    • Coach a person to use crisis survival skills during acute distress
    • Explain radical acceptance without implying approval of what happened
    • Help people generalise skills beyond the session

  4. 19. Emotion regulation and interpersonal effectiveness skills

    • Teach a person to identify and name emotions and their functions
    • Use opposite action to change unhelpful emotional responses
    • Coach interpersonal effectiveness skills for a specific real situation
    • Link skills practice to the person's own goals

  5. 20. Self-harm, suicidal crises and DBT for young people

    • Respond to a suicidal crisis using validation and change strategies
    • Set and keep limits on between-session coaching
    • Explain when national guidance recommends DBT adapted for adolescents
    • Use a consultation team or supervision to manage your own stress
Module 5 · Sessions 21 to 25Practising safely and well

  1. 21. Other evidence-based therapies and when to use them

    • Compare the aims and methods of the main third-wave and integrative therapies
    • Recognise when a person needs a different therapy and refer
    • Combine CBT skills with acceptance-based techniques where appropriate
    • Explain the evidence for each approach to a colleague

  2. 22. Groups, digital programmes and guided self-help

    • Plan and run a CBT or DBT skills group
    • Support people using guided self-help and digital CBT programmes
    • Set up safety checks and escalation for digitally delivered care
    • Evaluate a service using engagement and outcome data

  3. 23. Competence, supervision and routes to practise as a therapist

    • Use recordings and competence ratings to get useful supervision
    • Describe the training and supervised practice required to practise as a CBT therapist
    • Describe the team-based training and supervised cases required to deliver standard DBT
    • Plan a realistic next step in formal therapy training if you choose to pursue it

  4. 24. Ethics, boundaries and harm in psychological therapy

    • Obtain informed consent for a psychological intervention, including possible adverse effects
    • Repair a rupture in the therapeutic relationship
    • Recognise deterioration during therapy and respond to it
    • Work within the limits of your competence and refer when needed

  5. 25. Integrated case review: choosing and sequencing therapies

    • Apply the course to complex cases in a panel discussion
    • Sequence treatments for a person with several co-occurring conditions
    • Decide when psychological therapy should be combined with medication
    • Build a personal plan for supervised practice and further training

What the diploma includes

  • 25 live sessions on Zoom, one evening a week, with recordings for the weeks you miss.
  • Practising specialists teaching live, so you can put your questions to them.
  • Weekly MCQs and a final written assessment.
  • A digital certificate carrying your final classification.

Lead or teach the Psychological Therapies (CBT and DBT) Diploma

We are looking for a course director and faculty from the specialty. Sessions are one hour in the UK evening, live on Zoom, and paid.

Apply to teach