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FREE Live Webinars and Online Courses.
COVID-19 restrictions are still with us so our free webinars are here too! We have masses of wonderful feedback that keeps us going (e.g. “This is the one good thing to come out the crisis”) so we are hosting a series of online events and you are welcome to attend.
All of the upcoming free events are delivered live via Zoom, and all mental health and related professionals are welcome to attend, as is everybody.
Recordings of past Free Events
Upcoming Events:
The APT Awards for Excellence 2022
Thursday 29th September 2022, 10am-3.30pm (UK Time)
The APT Awards for Excellence were established to keep people enthusiastic about how they can apply techniques effectively in their practice, and the finalists will be presetting their submissions here.
All mental health professionals are eligible to attend this free event, and the award categories featured on the day are:
- The APT Award for Excellence in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy
- The APT-DICES® Award for Excellence in Risk Assessment and Management
- The APT-RAID® Award for Excellence in Working with Challenging Behaviour
- The APT Award for Fostering Good Mental Health in the Workplace.
Past Events and Recordings:
Major therapeutic interventions in mental health, 5: Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT).
Wednesday 19th May 2021
In this module we introduce Compassion-Focused Therapy, what it is, how it works and who it works for, and some of the principles of delivering it effectively.
Speaker: Dr William Davies, chaired by Amy George
Dr William Davies is the Head of Applied Clinical Psychology at the APT and is the author of post qualification courses on Compassion Focused Therapy, CBT, DBT and more.
Amy George is the Deputy Director of the Association for Psychological Therapies and renowned for her incisive, warm and humorous style of involving the audience.
Living a Rewarding Life 4: How we think and What we think about.
Wednesday 12th May 2021
This is the fourth of four webinars for mental health professionals and anyone else who feels it may be helpful to them, covering: Biology, Behaviour, Relationships, and our Thinking Style. In this fourth one we look at our thinking and how we can actively guide and modify it to greatly benefit our wellbeing.
Although the webinar is for mental health professionals, it is available subsequently free of charge and you may wish to signpost some of your colleagues or clients to it.
Speaker: Dr William Davies, chaired by Amy George
Dr William Davies is the Head of Applied Clinical Psychology at the APT and is the author of post qualification courses on CBT, DBT, ACT, motivational interviewing, and more. These have been attended by well over 125,000 mental health professionals in the UK alone.
Amy George is the Deputy Director of the Association for Psychological Therapies and renowned for her incisive, warm and humorous style of chairing.
Major therapeutic interventions in mental health, 4: The RAID® approach.
Wednesday 5th May 2021
In this module from the APT, we introduce the RAID approach, a relentlessly positive approach to working with disturbed and challenging behaviour. The UK's most popular approach in this area it is used 'across the board' from secure hospitals to bringing up children.
Speaker: Dr William Davies, chaired by Amy George
Dr William Davies is the Head of Applied Clinical Psychology at the APT and is the author of post qualification courses on CBT, DBT, ACT, motivational interviewing, and the RAID course.
Amy George is the Deputy Director of the Association for Psychological Therapies and renowned for her incisive, warm and humorous style of involving the audience.
Living a Rewarding Life 3: Relationships.
Wednesday 28th April 2021
This is the third of four webinars for mental health professionals and anyone else who feels it may be helpful to them, covering: Biology, Behaviour, Relationships, and our Thinking Style. In this third one we look at relationships, why the are so important, common relationship difficulties, and even some guidelines for successful relationships.
Although the webinar is for mental health professionals, it is available subsequently free of charge and you may wish to signpost some of your clients to it.
Speaker: Dr William Davies, chaired by Amy George
Dr William Davies is the Head of Applied Clinical Psychology at the APT and is the author of post qualification courses on CBT, DBT, ACT, motivational interviewing, and more. These have been attended by well over 125,000 mental health professionals in the UK alone.
Amy George is the Deputy Director of the Association for Psychological Therapies and renowned for her incisive, warm and humorous style of chairing.
Major therapeutic interventions in mental health, 3: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
Wednesday 21st April 2021
In this module from the APT, we introduce Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, what it is, how it developed, and the principles of delivering it effectively.
Speaker: Dr William Davies, chaired by Amy George
Dr William Davies is the Head of Applied Clinical Psychology at the APT and is the author of post qualification courses on CBT, DBT, ACT, motivational interviewing, and more.
Amy George is the Deputy Director of the Association for Psychological Therapies and renowned for her incisive, warm and humorous style of involving the audience.
Living a Rewarding Life 2: Behaviour - the importance of what we do.
Wednesday 14th April 2021
This is the second of four planned webinars for mental health professionals: Biology, Behaviour, Relationships, and our Thinking Style. In this second one (Behaviour) we look at the advice from great philosophers and thinkers such as Aristotle, Viktor Frankl, and Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as techniques from modern CBT, especially guided discovery in the form of diary keeping and Socratic dialogue. All with the aim of benefitting our mental health.
Speaker: Dr William Davies, chaired by Amy George
Dr William Davies is the Head of Applied Clinical Psychology at the APT and is the author of post qualification courses on CBT, DBT, ACT, motivational interviewing, and more.
Amy George is the Deputy Director of the Association for Psychological Therapies and renowned for her incisive, warm and humorous engagement of the audience.
Major therapeutic interventions in mental health, 2: Motivational Interviewing
Wednesday 7th April 2021
In this module from the APT, we introduce Motivational Interviewing, what it is, what it is used for, how it works, and the principles of delivering it effectively.
Speaker: Dr William Davies, chaired by Amy George
Dr William Davies is the Head of Applied Clinical Psychology at the APT and is the author of post qualification courses on CBT, DBT, ACT, motivational interviewing, and more.
Amy George is the Deputy Director of the Association for Psychological Therapies and renowned for her incisive, warm and humorous style of involving the audience.
Living a Rewarding Life 1: Biology
Wednesday 31st March 2021
This is the first of four planned webinars for mental health professionals and anyone else who feels it may be helpful to them, covering: Biology, Behaviour, Relationships, and our Thinking Style. In this first one we look at biological factors such as illnesses, sleep, exercise, and diet, and how we can modify them to greatly benefit our mental health.
Speaker: Dr William Davies, chaired by Amy George
Dr William Davies is the Head of Applied Clinical Psychology at the APT and is the author of post qualification courses on CBT, DBT, ACT, motivational interviewing, and more. These have been attended by well over 125,000 mental health professionals in the UK alone.
Amy George is the Deputy Director of the Association for Psychological Therapies and renowned for her incisive, warm and humorous style of chairing.
Major therapeutic interventions in mental health, 1: A one-hour introduction to DBT
Wednesday 24th March 2021
DBT has pretty much taken the therapeutic world by storm and yet there are plenty of people still unsure as to what is an isn't DBT. This hour long session aims to clear that up, show you how you can take it further if you want to, and maybe even suggest a couple of things you can implement straight away.
Speaker: Dr William Davies, chaired by Amy George
Dr William Davies is the Head of Applied Clinical Psychology at the APT and is the author of post qualification courses on CBT, DBT, ACT, motivational interviewing, and more. These have been attended by well over 125,000 mental health professionals in the UK alone.
Functional Analysis: most ‘problems’ serve a purpose, and revealing that purpose can be the key to success
Wednesday 17th March 2021
In this webinar from the APT, we talk about the functions our patients' problems and behavior serve for them, what fallacies exist around for example 'attention-seeking behavior', and what to do once we have uncovered the functions of the behavior. We'll look at hunches and ABC Analysis, depression, behavior that has 'built-in' functionality, and the importance of verifying that there aren't underlying physical causes. Functional Analysis is a concept that has long been recognised by those working with 'challenging behavior' but in fact it relevance is much wider than that.
Speaker: Dr William Davies, chaired by Amy George
Dr William Davies is the Head of Applied Clinical Psychology at the APT and is the author of post qualification courses on CBT, DBT, ACT, motivational interviewing, and more. These have been attended by well over 125,000 mental health professionals in the UK alone.
Evidence-Based Practice: as important as looking where you’re heading when you’re driving
Wednesday 10th March 2021
In this webinar from the APT, you'll learn about evidence-based practice, practice, based evidence, and how to use them to help monitor and track the progress your patients make. We are rightly encouraged to base our practice on established evidence, and yet there isn't a protocol for every condition that every patient arrives with, so we lean heavily on 'practice-based evidence' - obtaining evidence from our practice and the patient we are working with. It is crucially important to do because without it we may be heading in the wrong direction - doing the patient more harm than good - but with it we are both encouraged and empowered.
Speaker: Dr William Davies, chaired by Amy George
Dr William Davies is the Head of Applied Clinical Psychology at the APT and is the author of post qualification courses on CBT, DBT, ACT, motivational interviewing, and more. These have been attended by well over 125,000 mental health professionals in the UK alone.
Engaging Your Patients: if you don’t do this then everything else is wasted time
Wednesday 3rd March 2021
This webinar will take you through the most critical elements of engaging your patients. Even with the best tools and training in the world, if we can't properly connect with and engage our patients, we won't be able to help them. All therapists mean to engage with their patients but many have never really been taught how to do it, as though it is achieved simply through an act of will on the part of the therapist. In fact there are clear principled strategies for achieving it, and this is what you learn here.
Speaker: Dr William Davies, chaired by Amy George
Dr William Davies is the Head of Applied Clinical Psychology at the APT and is the author of post qualification courses on CBT, DBT, ACT, motivational interviewing, and more. These have been attended by well over 125,000 mental health professionals in the UK alone.
Differentially Reinforcing Adaptive Behaviour: a simple piece of jargon that can make or break therapy
Wednesday 24th February 2021
In this webinar from the APT, we talk about the practice of differentially reinforcing adaptive behaviour, so your patients are encouraged to do more of what is helping them, and less of what isn't. Highlighted in DBT but relevant and effective in virtually every form of therapy, we look at why it works so well and what pot-holes there are to avoid; effectively we focus on how to 'water the flowers and not the weeds'.
Speaker: Dr William Davies, chaired by Amy George
Dr William Davies is the Head of Applied Clinical Psychology at the APT and is the author of post qualification courses on CBT, DBT, ACT, motivational interviewing, and more. These have been attended by well over 125,000 mental health professionals in the UK alone.
Consultation Meetings: why you should set them up, and how to do it
Wednesday 17th February 2021
In this distance learning module from the APT, we talk about what consultation meetings are, why they're valuable, and how to structure them for maximum benefit. If you work with extremely distressing and demanding conditions - as many mental health professionals do - or work with very specific therapeutic approaches which need close adherence to their principles, then it is virtually certain that your work will be tremendously facilitated by well organised consultation meetings. This module shows you how to achieve just that.
Speaker: Dr William Davies, chaired by Amy George
Dr William Davies is the Head of Applied Clinical Psychology at the APT and is the author of post qualification courses on CBT, DBT, ACT, motivational interviewing, and more. These have been attended by well over 125,000 mental health professionals in the UK alone.
Case Formulation: making sense of the information you obtain
Wednesday 10th February 2021
In this Case Formulation Module from the APT, you'll learn how to appraise the 6 P's of case formulation: the patient's problem, pre-disposing factors, precipitating factors, perpetuating factors, positive and protective factors and of course, the plan! It enables us to form a powerful strategy to organise the information we obtain in the assessment so we can help the patient as quickly and effectively as possible. And without it, we can be very much 'stumbling in the dark.'
Speaker: Dr William Davies, chaired by Amy George
Dr William Davies is the Head of Applied Clinical Psychology at the APT and is the author of post qualification courses on CBT, DBT, ACT, motivational interviewing, and more. These have been attended by well over 125,000 mental health professionals in the UK alone.
Avoiding the fatal Second Arrow: Acceptance
Wednesday 3rd February 2021
In this module from the APT, we'll be talking about how to neutralise the extremely destructive 'second arrow,' through a principle of mindfulness: acceptance. The 'second arrow' refers to the spiral that so often occurs when for instance a person becomes depressed and then becomes frustrated that they are depressed, which makes them more distressed, which makes them more depressed and frustrated, and so on downwards. An exactly parallel effect occurs with anxiety, irritability, psychotic conditions and more.
Speaker: Dr William Davies, chaired by Amy George
Dr William Davies is the Head of Applied Clinical Psychology at the APT and is the author of post qualification courses on CBT, DBT, ACT, motivational interviewing, and more. These have been attended by well over 125,000 mental health professionals in the UK alone.
Assessment: how to ask the right questions
Wednesday 27th January 2021
In this Assessment Module, you'll learn or re-learn how to achieve one of the fundamental starting points of effective therapy: how to conduct consistent, subjective assessment of the key factors affecting each patient. This is an essential skill in any therapeutic endeavour and is too often 'glossed over' in the often unrealistic hope that even the most distressed patients will easily tell us just what is the matter. In reality, a skilled assessment provides hope for both the patient and for us.
Speaker: Dr William Davies, chaired by Amy George
Dr William Davies is the Head of Applied Clinical Psychology at the APT and is the author of post qualification courses on CBT, DBT, ACT, motivational interviewing, and more. These have been attended by well over 125,000 mental health professionals in the UK alone.
Leadership: Worry not about becoming one, worry more about how to do it
Wednesday 20th January 2021
Dr Davies takes the view that the question “What makes a leader?” is much less important than the question “What do good leaders do?” and this hour reflects on the latter because when we answer that question it means that most people can be leaders when they are required to.
Speaker: Dr William Davies, chaired by Amy George
Shortlisted for Investor in People Leader of the Year in 2020, Dr William Davies is the CEO and Head of Applied Clinical Psychology of the Association for Psychological Therapies.
Improving your mental health (Part 1):
All you need to know in one hour!
Wednesday 23rd December 2020
The presentation takes the view that good mental health needn’t be complicated to acquire so it examines all the most convincing ways to develop it, along with gaining a good degree of resilience.
Speaker: Dr William Davies, chaired by Amy George.
Dr William Davies is the Head of Applied Clinical Psychology at the APT and is the author of post qualification courses on CBT, DBT, ACT, motivational interviewing, and more. These have been attended by well over 125,000 mental health professionals in the UK alone.
Improving your mental health (Part 2):
All you need to know in one hour!
Wednesday 13th January 2021
The presentation takes the view that good mental health needn’t be complicated to acquire so it examines all the most convincing ways to develop it, along with gaining a good degree of resilience.
Speaker: Dr William Davies, chaired by Amy George.
Dr William Davies is the Head of Applied Clinical Psychology at the APT and is the author of post qualification courses on CBT, DBT, ACT, motivational interviewing, and more. These have been attended by well over 125,000 mental health professionals in the UK alone.
An overview of DBT, and what it may have to offer during the Covid-19 pandemic
Wednesday 27th May 2020
Speaker: Dr William Davies, author of Overcoming Anger and Irritability, author of the RAID Course for extreme behaviour, and Academic Director of the Association for Psychological Therapies.
The APT’s Free 1-hour Wednesday Webinars.
The Association for Psychological Therapies' key principle is to offer the most relevant and engaging input for mental health professionals (in this case, to help you help people get through the COVID-19 crisis), and every Wednesday from the 8th April 2020 the APT hosted a series of FREE live webinars to help you help people get through the COVID-19 crisis as well as they possibly can do. Below is the programme we offered and the recordings taken from each webinar.
Wednesday 17th June 2020
5 Covid-Specific thoughts from CBT. Speaker: Dr William Davies, author of Overcoming Anger and Irritability and Academic Director of the Association for Psychological Therapies.
Questions to the panel, where the questions can be on whatever relevant subject you like (as usual they will be selected and read by Amy George), and the panel consists of all of the mental health professionals who have presented over the past 11 weeks. From Ireland, Malta and the UK they are: Charlie Azzopardi, Rebekah Chadwick, Kairen Cullen, William Davies, Paul Gaffney, Sophie Marshall.
Wednesday 10th June 2020
Minding the children during the pandemic: thoughts from an applied psychologist about what parents can do.
Speaker: Dr Kairen Cullen, Educational and Media Psychologist and Writer.
Wednesday 3rd June 2020
A Brief Introduction to Brief Solution-Focused Therapy and its relevance during the pandemic crisis.
Speaker: Dr Charlie Azzopardi, APT tutor and the founding chair at the Institute of Family Therapy Malta where he now teaches and works, consulting to families, couples, individuals and organisations. Dr Azzopardi is also a RC Airplane enthusiast, a Musician and Artist.
Wednesday 20th May 2020
Self-soothing in Times of Crisis: using Compassion Focussed Therapy to offer understanding and support in the Covid-19 pandemic.
Speaker: Dr Rebekah Chadwick. Rebekah is a British Clinical Psychologist, registered in the UK and also in Malta where she is currently living and working. She has worked across a range of settings and is currently working with children and adults in a private interdisciplinary service as well as doing a small amount of volunteering with non-governmental organisations. She often uses principles of Compassion Focussed Therapy in her therapeutic work, and finds it very applicable to thinking about the current pandemic. She is especially interested in maternal mental health and early attachment, as well as developmental trauma and the impacts this can have into adult life. In her free time, she enjoys hiking and rock-climbing, travelling and cooking.
Wednesday 13th May 2020
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and the COVID Crisis: an overview of ACT and how we can apply it simply and practically to help people get through the crisis, and with minimum post crisis effects.
Speaker: Dr William Davies, author of Overcoming Anger and Irritability, author of the RAID Course for extreme behaviour, and Academic Director of the Association for Psychological Therapies.
Wednesday 6th May 2020
Addressing Domestic Abuse under lockdown: a positive, constructional, RAID, approach.
Speaker: Dr William Davies, author of Overcoming Anger and Irritability, author of the RAID Course for extreme behaviour, and Academic Director of the Association for Psychological Therapies.
Wednesday 29th April 2020
When the 5000-1 event happens: What the Leicester City FC story can teach us about getting through the COVID-19 crisis.
Speaker: Dr Paul Gaffney is service lead for the Primary Care Psychology Service in Cavan, Ireland, Lead Consultant in High Performance Sport Clinical Psychology with the Sport Ireland Institute, and a Consultant Tutor with the APT. He has also written books including The Family Game: What sport & psychology teach us about parenting (2018).
Wednesday 22nd April 2020
First Aid for health anxiety: Helping people cope with their health anxieties when health anxiety is entirely justified. Dr Sophie Marshall. Consultant forensic and clinical psychologist.
Wednesday 15th April 2020
A webinar in two parts;
1. Attendees share ideas and progress about how well they are doing in supporting others – friends, family, patients - to get through the crisis.
2. Understanding the financial impact of COVID-19 on small and medium enterprises: a candid interview with Steve Wenlock, printer.
Wednesday 8th April 2020
Helping people get through quarantine and social isolation. A review of Brooks et al’s paper The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: a rapid review of the evidence. Dr William Davies, Consultant Psychologist, CEO of the APT.
Maintaining your wellbeing during self-isolation
PAID FOR online courses
DBT Essentials
18 hours, APT accreditation Level 2
Instruction in the key components of DBT for those who want to add them to their repertoire without necessarily becoming 'a DBT therapist', and for those thinking of taking the first step in becoming a specialised DBT therapist.
"Really good course, very informative with lots of practical implications, not just the theory. Very well narrated."
CBT Essentials
18 hours, APT accreditation Level 2
Now in its latest form this course has introduced Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to thousands of people in the UK ever since 1983. It addresses Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in a way that you can use after the course. It covers: the history and meaning of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, conceptualising cases in CBT terms, the format of a standard CBT session, and the most important CBT techniques. All in a way that applies it constantly to practical examples.
"I have really enjoyed this course, it has given me a really good introduction to the principles of CBT and started me on a journey of feeling much more confident to use these principles in my clinical practice. I have been able to easily fit the course around my work and family commitments and this flexibility is really important to me when choosing which courses to do."
ACT Essentials
18 hours, APT accreditation Level 2
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) moves away from focusing too closely on ‘symptom reduction’ towards teaching how to live in a stable and rewarding way. So it teaches how to get in touch with your values, how to act in accordance with them, how to be aware of ‘the you that is always there’, how to see your passing thoughts and feelings for just that, how to accept thoughts and feelings you don’t like without over-struggling with them, and so how to live mainly in the present.
"Brilliant course. Very engaging and accessible. Complex information was presented in a very easily to understand way. I completed this course online and found I got more out of it than in-person courses - there were less distractions. I would highly recommend this course to any professional working in mental health."
Motivational Interviewing, and how to use it effectively
18 hours, APT accreditation Level 2
Based on Miller and Rollnick's latest book, this course describes an organised way of helping people to recognise their problems and to do something about them. Principally it addresses behaviour about which the client has mixed feelings: drinking and substance misuse for example, but a surprising array of common mental and physical health problems as well. Issues from taking psychoactive medication through to eating more healthily can all be addressed using motivational interviewing.
"I want to genuinely thank you for such an interesting, interacting and clearly-explained course. I found I was able to really engage with the learning and used your suggestions from the master plan to really reflect on how to apply it afterwards in my practice. So THANK YOU for the most useful CPD I have probably ever done."
SFT Essentials
18 hours, APT accreditation Level 2
Another of APT's top courses, this aims to introduce you to the principles of SFT / SFBT in a way that gives you a firm grasp of them and enables you to use them in a safe and helpful way. You should become at home with the approach which is often seen as a 'breath of fresh air' both to client and professional, looking for and finding effective solutions for problems, rather than being sucked further and further into the problem itself.
"Have loved completing this course. So easy to follow and engaging. I have learnt so much to use in my own coaching. Would highly recommend it."
CBT with Non-Suicidal Self-Injury: There Must Be A Better Way®
12 hours, APT accreditation Level 2
The title of this course captures the philosophy behind it. Self-harm, though inexplicable to anyone who has never felt the urge to harm themselves, normally serves a very clear purpose. The secret of success is, therefore, to identify that purpose and achieve it in a less traumatic way. Simple in theory, far from simple in practice, this course examines exactly how to achieve it successfully.
"Amazing course - thank you. Very informative and I am feeling much more confident to work with my patients who self-harm."
The RAID® Course: The positive approach to working with disturbed and challenging behaviour
18 hours, APT accreditation Level 2
The UK’s leading positive psychology approach for tackling disturbed and challenging behaviour at source: well over 20,000 professionals have attended this course. It is a comprehensive approach which teaches not only how to deal with disturbed and challenging behaviour when it occurs, but also to prevent it by tackling it at source. Professionals feel pleased to share a unified system and to know what they are doing and why they are doing it, while clients delight in a relentlessly positive and empowering approach.
"I really enjoyed the presentation of this course, it has truly open my eyes up to a totally different approach to positive reinforcement of extreme behaviours. Taking this course puts me at ease dealing with extreme behaviours from here on out."
The DICES® Risk Assessment and Management System
18 hours, APT accreditation Level 2
This exciting Risk Assessment and Management System is designed for use by whole services and organisations, and is used by over 6,000 mental health professionals.
"An informative and well structured course. I have taken a great deal of learning from its completion, that I believe will support my future practice."
Higher Order Therapy
1 hour modules
A series of one hour 'online anytime' modules, each consisting of an audio lasting 15-30 minutes, plus an exercise and resources for you to you use and practice with afterwards. The series is so named because it features all the 'higher order' factors that make therapy successful.
"Fantastic course and really brings ideas of practice to life. Many things we, as clinicians, should be considering to improve the quality of lives of the people we care for."
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