Professional Diploma in Process-based Behavior Therapy

Enrolment is currently open for Diploma beginning 2nd April 2025. For information on the possibility of late entry and future cohorts, please feel free to contact us.

Entry Requirements

Hold a degree in a discipline in which the primary focus is to provide psychological healthcare.

Course Details

7 module course
Accredited by the PBBT Institute and credit-rated by an external qualifications body.
1 Year Standard Student Membership included with the option to upgrade to Premium Student Membership at a reduced rate to avail of our member supports.

Standard Student Membership (Free with Diploma)

Newsletter
Access to Client Data Hub

Premium Student Membership (50% Discount with your Diploma)

Access to Client Tracking Hub
Advanced content (case studies, webinars, newsletters, readings, podcasts)
Live Masterclasses
Case Studies
Supervisory support
Community Support
Networking Events

Cost

The course is priced at €7995. If you are applying as an organization, group discounts will be applied.

Module Structure

The course comprises seven modules which guides your clinical work with every client from start to finish. Each module has clearly defined learning objectives to guide you on what you need to learn and what skills you will acquire along with that. The learning objectives also identify what you will be assessed on for each module. There are resources that support each module that are specifically designed to guide your clinical practice and your analysis of the client. The resource pack is a highly valuable aspect of the course. It gives you direct, practical support in understanding your client and their behaviour.

Module 1: Introduction to PBBT

The first module in the program shows how PBBT is a unique approach to Clients’ distress and offers a comprehensive treatment with depth and precision, entirely based on scientific concepts. We lay out the key structure of the PBBT Clinical Pathway, with its 10 Phases and core underlying terminology. We introduce you to the PBBT Resource pack that guides your clinical analysis of each Client’s individual System of Meaning, along with PBBT Techniques that organize your clinical narrative. You will come to appreciate the importance of directing the dialog as the modus operandi that gives your sessions direction, while retaining openness, warmth and humanity.

Module 2: Self-Meaning

The second module explores the PBBT structured approach to self-identity as Layers and Patterns that trap the Client’s self-worth through experiences from earlier life. In the Manifest Layer, you will see how identity is driven by a Key Emotional Experience that tells the Client who they are based on what they feel about their current life. In the Character Layer, you will be able to identify and explore with Clients their painful evaluations about their basic character, acquired from adolescence. In the Essence Layer, you will touch the deepest level of the Client’s identity, where childhood experiences have trapped them in a profoundly painful evaluation of their own worth. We will introduce you to the concepts of Detail and Truth and show you how Clients justify their painful self-identity through skewed details that convince them that what they believe about themselves is true in reality. You will also acquire the skills of undermining these details to show the Client how established self-identity is working against them.

Module 3: Self-Other Meaning

The third module shows you PBBT’s unique approach to how self-identity can be co-defined by others through early interactions. You will see how this Co-defining Pattern shapes Client relationships and even directs the first therapy sessions because the Practitioner is seen as a Proxy for Others. You will develop the skills of diminishing these unhelpful behaviours and their triggers, moving your Clients from being passively co-defined by others to acting assertively in a pattern of Self-Other Meaning that is based on equality and mutual respect.

Module 4: Responses

In the fourth module we will teach you how to classify Client behaviours as three key response types, encompassing actions, feelings, and lived experiences. You will learn how to distinguish between behavior that is an attempt by the Client’s System of Meaning to protect itself and behavior that is genuinely part of the formation of a new healthier identity. Abstracting the Dominant Active Response is a key clinical skill you will master from your knowledge base of the Client’s responses regarding themselves and others. You will come to respect the importance of the Avoidance Response as the emotional experience from childhood which the Client learned to avoid as a survival strategy, but which you can transform into an experience the Client can acknowledge, respect and live with.

Module 5: Techniques

The fifth module lays out the 15 PBBT Techniques and demonstrates how they are applied across the 10 therapy phases. For each Technique, you will learn its characterisation, purpose, and usage within specific phases, including the style through which each is communicated in-session. The module aims to equip you with the practical skills to facilitate behavioral and meaning change in Clients along a structured, technical therapeutic pathway and to build coherence and sophistication in your clinical analysis.

Module 6: Directing the Clinical Dialog

The sixth module is truly one of a kind in its meticulous illustration of how to construct and deliver a precise clinical narrative. The central focus on how to direct the clinical dialog shows you what to say in-session, how to say it, and crucially provides understanding of why a Practitioner needs to say specific things at certain times. The module walks you through each of the 10 phases, highlighting precisely the dialog points and what they need to achieve, including spoken ways for the Practitioner to check if their work so far has been effective. The module provides you with one of the largest and most detailed libraries of clinical narrative excerpts you will have ever seen, giving you the confidence to find your own voice while staying on the PBBT Pathway.

Module 7: Clinical Heuristic

The seventh and final module builds comprehensively on the previous six modules to equip you with the skills needed to conduct PBBT sessions along the Clinical Pathway, but in a way that is unique to you as a Practitioner and to each Client. The module focuses on the application of PBBT concepts and skills in the deconstruction of a Client’s established Self-Meaning and shows you how to orient the Client toward the growth of a new self. You will learn to use the Clinical Heuristic as a framework for conducting and sequencing sessions in an effective and integrative way. From your very first PBBT session with a Client to the Closing Phase, we will show you how to navigate the Clinical Pathway and use it as a referential tool to stop you getting lost and to maintain control of your sessions and your clinical interactions. By the end of the module, you will be equipped with the skills to deliver PBBT in whole cloth and thus to transform the lives of your Clients for good.

Clinical Pathway

The Clinical Pathway encapsulates the PBBT agenda, through 10 manageable and coherent Phases.

Resource Pack

The PBBT Resource Pack is an invaluable reference tool that improves the accuracy of your clinical judgements.

Why choose our Diploma?

The only global training in Process-based Behavior Therapy (PBBT)
Board Certification to practice PBBT (BC-PBBT title)
Enhances clinical precision and client outcomes
Improves clinical confidence and decision-making

Enhances professional standing and opportunities for career advancement
A very practical approach to training led by the developers of PBBT
External validation by the PBBT Institute’s Advisory Council
Academic Credit Rating - the course is credit rated by an external qualifications body

Learning Experience

Expand your knowledge through live webinars, tutorials, and engaging discussion forums.
Access course materials with ease on our user-friendly, accessible online platform.
Be apart of a vibrant professional community while you learn.
Practical learning tools and resources to guide your learning in PBBT.

Learning Outcomes

Improved clinical confidence and decision-making.
Enhanced clinical precision and client outcomes.
Know you're on the right track with every client.
Support in your Clinical Journey
Enhanced professional standing and opportunties for career advancement.