- Core theory and professional concepts relating to foundations & principles of cbt
- Course-specific assessment, formulation or application linked to foundations & principles of cbt
- Freudian lens: Considers how Freud's model of conscious, preconscious and unconscious mental life sits alongside CBT's focus on accessible cognition, inviting reflection on what structured work may leave unspoken or defended against.
- Lacanian lens: Reads the CBT emphasis on rational evaluation through Lacan's divided subject, questioning whether the speaking person is ever fully transparent to themselves and how the therapist's position as one who knows shapes the work.
- Applied case discussion, reflective exercise or skills practice
top of page
Advanced Professional Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
A live-online specialist programme in cognitive behavioural therapy, structured formulation and evidence-informed intervention.
Advanced Professional Diploma
Advanced Professional Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
A live-online specialist programme in cognitive behavioural therapy, structured formulation and evidence-informed intervention.
At a Glance
Course Details
€645Course Fee
€322.50Deposit
25 hrsLive Zoom Teaching
2,400 hrsSelf-Directed Learning
Overview
Course Description
The Advanced Professional Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a specialist live-online programme designed for counsellors, psychotherapists, healthcare professionals, students and allied helping practitioners. It develops a structured and professionally bounded understanding of cognitive behavioural therapy, structured formulation and evidence-informed intervention. The programme combines conceptual teaching, clinical reflection, applied skills, case discussion and ethical decision-making so that learners can connect theory with real-world therapeutic and helping contexts.
Teaching begins by establishing the principal concepts and language used in cognitive behavioural therapy, structured formulation and evidence-informed intervention. Learners examine how biological, psychological, relational, social and cultural influences shape presentation and recovery. The course then moves progressively into assessment, formulation, communication and intervention, with careful attention to what falls within the learner’s role and when specialist referral, multidisciplinary consultation or medical input is required.
A psychodynamic strand runs throughout the programme. Freudian concepts such as unconscious conflict, defence, repetition, transference and countertransference are used to deepen formulation, while Lacanian ideas concerning language, desire, the symbolic order and the subject’s relationship to the Other are introduced where they illuminate the course theme. These perspectives are integrated alongside contemporary evidence-informed approaches rather than presented as stand-alone doctrine.
Practical application is central. Learners participate in structured skills practice, case formulation, reflective exercises and scenario work designed to strengthen professional judgement. The programme emphasises relational safety, informed consent, scope of competence, cultural humility, safeguarding awareness, appropriate boundaries and the use of supervision. Learners are encouraged to notice their own emotional responses, assumptions and countertransference so that self-awareness becomes part of safe practice.
The live-online format supports direct lecturer engagement and peer discussion while Moodle provides structured resources for independent learning, revision and assessment preparation. The wider learning hours are used for reading, reflective practice, skills rehearsal and engagement with supplementary academic material. The overall design therefore combines live teaching with disciplined self-directed study rather than treating online delivery as passive distance learning.
By completion, learners should be able to discuss cognitive behavioural therapy, structured formulation and evidence-informed intervention with greater conceptual clarity, formulate relevant presentations using an integrated framework, communicate safely and respectfully, and apply course-specific skills within appropriate professional boundaries. The qualification is intended to strengthen continuing professional development and reflective practice; it does not replace statutory, medical, diagnostic or specialist training where those functions are legally or professionally restricted.
Why Choose This Course
Course Highlights
- Comprehensive specialist training in cognitive behavioural therapy, structured formulation and evidence-informed intervention.
- Live-online lecturer-led delivery with real-time discussion and applied learning.
- Course-specific assessment, formulation and intervention skills.
- Integration of contemporary evidence-informed approaches with reflective practice.
- Freudian concepts including unconscious conflict, defence, repetition and transference.
- Lacanian perspectives on language, desire, the symbolic order and the Other where relevant.
- Strong emphasis on ethics, scope of competence, safeguarding and professional boundaries.
- Applied case discussion, scenario work and structured skills practice.
- Moodle-supported self-directed reading, revision and assessment preparation.
- Attention to attachment, development, trauma and relational processes where relevant.
- Focus on supervision, practitioner self-awareness and countertransference.
- Final integration of learning into safe, reflective and professionally appropriate practice.
What You Will Achieve
Learning Outcomes
- Explain key theories, language and professional concepts relevant to cognitive behavioural therapy, structured formulation and evidence-informed intervention.
- Analyse presentations using integrated biological, psychological, relational and social perspectives.
- Apply structured assessment and formulation principles within the limits of the learner’s role.
- Use clear, respectful and non-stigmatising professional communication.
- Recognise indicators requiring referral, safeguarding action, medical review or multidisciplinary input.
- Integrate appropriate evidence-informed interventions with relational and reflective practice.
- Use Freudian concepts to consider unconscious conflict, defence, repetition and transference.
- Use selected Lacanian concepts to deepen understanding of language, desire and subjectivity where appropriate.
- Reflect on countertransference, assumptions and the practitioner’s use of self.
- Maintain ethical boundaries, confidentiality, informed consent and scope of competence.
- Use supervision and reflective practice to support safe and sustainable professional work.
- Integrate course learning into an ethically bounded plan for continuing professional development.
Good to Know
Additional Information
This programme provides a broad professional foundation in cognitive behavioural therapy, structured formulation and evidence-informed intervention. It should be applied within each learner’s existing role, competence, training background and ethical responsibilities. Where a presentation involves acute risk, safeguarding, complex medical questions, severe dissociation, statutory intervention or specialist assessment, learners are expected to follow appropriate referral and escalation pathways rather than practise beyond competence.
Live sessions are lecturer-led and may include demonstrations, reflective work, case discussion, skills rehearsal and breakout-room activities. Students are expected to participate actively and to maintain confidentiality when discussing practice material. Any case material brought to class should be sufficiently anonymised. The College may provide recordings of appropriate teaching segments for revision, while routine breakout rooms are not normally recorded.
Students are expected to engage consistently with Moodle, directed reading and assessment preparation. Professional learning in counselling and psychotherapy can evoke personal material; learners should use supervision, personal therapy or other appropriate supports where relevant. ICPS College also expects respectful communication, dignity, inclusivity, a non-judgemental attitude and adherence to College policies, procedures and codes of conduct throughout the programme.
Completion of the Advanced Professional Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) does not in itself confer a protected professional title or authority to diagnose, prescribe, provide statutory assessment or undertake specialist interventions outside the learner’s existing competence. Students seeking clarification about accreditation, attendance, assessment, progression or professional scope should contact the Registry Office at sheila@icps.ie.
Programme Structure
Course Curriculum — Ten Modules
- Core theory and professional concepts relating to assessment, goals & collaborative formulation
- Course-specific assessment, formulation or application linked to assessment, goals & collaborative formulation
- Freudian lens: Explores how the presenting problem may function as a compromise formation, and how early transference, resistance and ambivalence about change can colour goal-setting before any formulation is agreed.
- Lacanian lens: Considers what the client asks for at assessment as a demand addressed to the Other, distinguishing stated goals from desire and reflecting on how a collaborative formulation positions the clinician within the client's discourse.
- Applied case discussion, reflective exercise or skills practice
- Core theory and professional concepts relating to automatic thoughts, beliefs & cognitive distortions
- Course-specific assessment, formulation or application linked to automatic thoughts, beliefs & cognitive distortions
- Freudian lens: Approaches recurring automatic thoughts as possible derivatives of preconscious material, examining defence and the return of the repressed in images and self-statements that persist despite rational disputation.
- Lacanian lens: Treats automatic thoughts as chains of signifiers in which the subject is spoken as much as speaking, attending to repeated words and phrases that echo the discourse of the Other and its judgements.
- Applied case discussion, reflective exercise or skills practice
- Core theory and professional concepts relating to cognitive restructuring & guided discovery
- Course-specific assessment, formulation or application linked to cognitive restructuring & guided discovery
- Freudian lens: Reflects on how guided discovery may meet resistance, intellectualisation or rationalisation, and how insight that is understood but not felt can leave the underlying conflict and its affect undisturbed.
- Lacanian lens: Considers Socratic questioning in light of Lacan's four discourses, asking when restructuring operates as the discourse of the master or the university and when it opens space for the client's own speech.
- Applied case discussion, reflective exercise or skills practice
- Core theory and professional concepts relating to behavioural activation, exposure & experiments
- Course-specific assessment, formulation or application linked to behavioural activation, exposure & experiments
- Freudian lens: Examines avoidance through Freud's account of anxiety as a signal of internal danger, and how symptoms bind anxiety so that behavioural change may stir conflict that the avoidance previously contained.
- Lacanian lens: Explores exposure and behavioural experiments in relation to the Real and the encounter with what cannot easily be symbolised, attending to the fantasy that frames what the person most fears.
- Applied case discussion, reflective exercise or skills practice
- Core theory and professional concepts relating to cbt for anxiety & panic
- Course-specific assessment, formulation or application linked to cbt for anxiety & panic
- Freudian lens: Contrasts Freud's early view of anxiety as transformed libido with his later signal theory, offering a frame for thinking about panic as a response to an unconscious danger situation rather than random alarm.
- Lacanian lens: Reflects on Lacan's claim that anxiety is not without an object, considering panic as a moment in which the subject's relation to lack falters and something comes uncomfortably too close.
- Applied case discussion, reflective exercise or skills practice
- Core theory and professional concepts relating to cbt for depression & low mood
- Course-specific assessment, formulation or application linked to cbt for depression & low mood
- Freudian lens: Draws on Freud's Mourning and Melancholia to consider self-reproach, the harsh superego and anger turned against the self as theoretical perspectives alongside cognitive accounts of negative self-evaluation.
- Lacanian lens: Considers low mood in relation to desire and its fading, exploring how a subject may give ground on their desire and how a sense of emptiness can be read as a particular relation to lack.
- Applied case discussion, reflective exercise or skills practice
- Core theory and professional concepts relating to trauma-informed cbt & safety considerations
- Course-specific assessment, formulation or application linked to trauma-informed cbt & safety considerations
- Freudian lens: Introduces Freud's ideas of the protective shield, repetition compulsion and afterwardsness, reflecting on why traumatic memories may return in fragments and why safety must precede any interpretive work.
- Lacanian lens: Approaches trauma as an encounter with the Real that resists symbolisation, considering how carefully paced, safe speech may allow some of what was unspeakable to find a place in the Symbolic.
- Applied case discussion, reflective exercise or skills practice
- Core theory and professional concepts relating to schema, relapse prevention & maintenance
- Course-specific assessment, formulation or application linked to schema, relapse prevention & maintenance
- Freudian lens: Compares enduring schemas with Freud's notion of repetition compulsion and character, reflecting on why old patterns return under stress and how relapse may express unresolved conflict rather than simple failure.
- Lacanian lens: Reads core schemas as master signifiers that organise the subject's identity, and explores relapse in terms of jouissance, the paradoxical satisfaction that can keep a person returning to familiar suffering.
- Applied case discussion, reflective exercise or skills practice
- Core theory and professional concepts relating to integration, therapeutic relationship, ethics & reflective practice
- Course-specific assessment, formulation or application linked to integration, therapeutic relationship, ethics & reflective practice
- Freudian lens: Considers transference and countertransference within the CBT relationship, encouraging practitioners to notice their own reactions in supervision and to recognise when relational dynamics are shaping the structured work.
- Lacanian lens: Reflects on the ethics of desire and the position of the subject supposed to know, inviting practitioners to consider how they hold authority without imposing their own ideals on the client's choices.
- Applied case discussion, reflective exercise or skills practice
Assessment Breakdown
Assessment & Course Completion
Your overall course mark is made up of four assessment components, totalling 100%.
- Class Attendance — 10%: A minimum of 80% attendance at live online classes is required. Attendance is recorded automatically through Zoom and reconciled by the Registry.
- Skills Assessment — 40%: A demonstrated skills assessment is observed by the lecturer. This component includes Moodle Activity & Lecture Viewing — Mandatory: engagement is evidenced through Moodle activity logs, including lecture recordings viewed in full, resources accessed and module tasks completed. A minimum pass of 80% in the skills assessment is required to receive the course award. Learners who do not reach 80% at the first attempt will be offered a resubmission opportunity.
- Weekly Case Study Pieces — 20%: One case is followed throughout Modules 1 to 10. A 400-word case study piece is submitted for Case Pieces 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. These six pieces together account for 20% of the overall mark.
- Final Case Study — 30%: A 2,000-word final case study that develops the same case, assessed against the published marking rubric on Moodle.
Total Percentage Achievable: 100%. The minimum attendance requirement and the mandatory Moodle activity and lecture viewing must also be met.
Credits & Learning Hours
- Live online teaching: 2.5 hours weekly for 10 weeks — 25 hours and 25 CPD credits
- Ten modules, each carrying 9.5 credits
- 240 hours of self-directed learning per module — 2,400 hours
- Total learning hours: 2,425
- Total award: 120 credits
Live Online Attendance & Self-Directed Learning
Students are required to attend 25 hours of live online lecturer-led Zoom sessions. The normal attendance requirement is 80%, meaning students may normally miss only two classes except where approved extenuating circumstances apply. The wider independent-learning component includes extended reading, revision, applied reflection, skills practice, lecture notes, Moodle resources and supplementary academic materials.
Live Delivery
Zoom Delivery
All live online classes are delivered via ICPS College's secure enterprise Zoom platform, providing a stable, professional and confidential environment for lecturer-led teaching, discussion and skills practice. Students are expected to engage fully with live sessions, including breakout room discussions and applied skills practice, to gain the maximum benefit from the programme.
Given the personal and reflective nature of some of the material covered in this course, students are encouraged to attend live sessions from a private, confidential space and to take breaks or seek support where needed. Students experiencing technical difficulties should contact the College promptly so that alternative arrangements can be made where possible.
Learning Platform
Moodle LMS
Students are provided with access to the College's Moodle Learning Management System, where lecture notes, reading materials, module resources and assessment guidance are made available throughout the course. The Moodle LMS supports independent study and allows students to revisit key concepts, review recorded material where applicable, and prepare thoroughly for assessment.
Students are expected to engage regularly with the Moodle LMS as part of their self-directed learning hours. The platform is updated throughout the course to reflect the content covered in live sessions and to support consistent, structured academic progression.
Professional Accreditation & Important Information
Professional pathway and membership options may be available through the Irish Counselling, Psychotherapy & Allied Healthcare Professionals Association (ICPHAA) and recognised continuing-professional-development structures, subject to the current criteria of the relevant body. Students should confirm any specific pathway requirements with the lecturer, course leader or Registry Office.
By enrolling, students agree to comply with ICPS College policies, procedures and codes of conduct. Official course/cohort WhatsApp groups are College-moderated. Unofficial or unmoderated course/cohort groups should not be created for College-related communication without prior College knowledge and consent. These arrangements support student welfare, confidentiality, professional boundaries and protection from bullying, harassment, intimidation, exclusion and reputational harm.
Advanced Professional Diploma
Advanced Professional Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
A live-online specialist programme in cognitive behavioural therapy, structured formulation and evidence-informed intervention.
At a Glance
Course Details
€645Course Fee
€322.50Deposit
25 hrsLive Zoom Teaching
2,400 hrsSelf-Directed Learning
Overview
Course Description
The Advanced Professional Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a specialist live-online programme designed for counsellors, psychotherapists, healthcare professionals, students and allied helping practitioners. It develops a structured and professionally bounded understanding of cognitive behavioural therapy, structured formulation and evidence-informed intervention. The programme combines conceptual teaching, clinical reflection, applied skills, case discussion and ethical decision-making so that learners can connect theory with real-world therapeutic and helping contexts.
Teaching begins by establishing the principal concepts and language used in cognitive behavioural therapy, structured formulation and evidence-informed intervention. Learners examine how biological, psychological, relational, social and cultural influences shape presentation and recovery. The course then moves progressively into assessment, formulation, communication and intervention, with careful attention to what falls within the learner’s role and when specialist referral, multidisciplinary consultation or medical input is required.
A psychodynamic strand runs throughout the programme. Freudian concepts such as unconscious conflict, defence, repetition, transference and countertransference are used to deepen formulation, while Lacanian ideas concerning language, desire, the symbolic order and the subject’s relationship to the Other are introduced where they illuminate the course theme. These perspectives are integrated alongside contemporary evidence-informed approaches rather than presented as stand-alone doctrine.
Practical application is central. Learners participate in structured skills practice, case formulation, reflective exercises and scenario work designed to strengthen professional judgement. The programme emphasises relational safety, informed consent, scope of competence, cultural humility, safeguarding awareness, appropriate boundaries and the use of supervision. Learners are encouraged to notice their own emotional responses, assumptions and countertransference so that self-awareness becomes part of safe practice.
The live-online format supports direct lecturer engagement and peer discussion while Moodle provides structured resources for independent learning, revision and assessment preparation. The wider learning hours are used for reading, reflective practice, skills rehearsal and engagement with supplementary academic material. The overall design therefore combines live teaching with disciplined self-directed study rather than treating online delivery as passive distance learning.
By completion, learners should be able to discuss cognitive behavioural therapy, structured formulation and evidence-informed intervention with greater conceptual clarity, formulate relevant presentations using an integrated framework, communicate safely and respectfully, and apply course-specific skills within appropriate professional boundaries. The qualification is intended to strengthen continuing professional development and reflective practice; it does not replace statutory, medical, diagnostic or specialist training where those functions are legally or professionally restricted.
Why Choose This Course
Course Highlights
- Comprehensive specialist training in cognitive behavioural therapy, structured formulation and evidence-informed intervention.
- Live-online lecturer-led delivery with real-time discussion and applied learning.
- Course-specific assessment, formulation and intervention skills.
- Integration of contemporary evidence-informed approaches with reflective practice.
- Freudian concepts including unconscious conflict, defence, repetition and transference.
- Lacanian perspectives on language, desire, the symbolic order and the Other where relevant.
- Strong emphasis on ethics, scope of competence, safeguarding and professional boundaries.
- Applied case discussion, scenario work and structured skills practice.
- Moodle-supported self-directed reading, revision and assessment preparation.
- Attention to attachment, development, trauma and relational processes where relevant.
- Focus on supervision, practitioner self-awareness and countertransference.
- Final integration of learning into safe, reflective and professionally appropriate practice.
What You Will Achieve
Learning Outcomes
- Explain key theories, language and professional concepts relevant to cognitive behavioural therapy, structured formulation and evidence-informed intervention.
- Analyse presentations using integrated biological, psychological, relational and social perspectives.
- Apply structured assessment and formulation principles within the limits of the learner’s role.
- Use clear, respectful and non-stigmatising professional communication.
- Recognise indicators requiring referral, safeguarding action, medical review or multidisciplinary input.
- Integrate appropriate evidence-informed interventions with relational and reflective practice.
- Use Freudian concepts to consider unconscious conflict, defence, repetition and transference.
- Use selected Lacanian concepts to deepen understanding of language, desire and subjectivity where appropriate.
- Reflect on countertransference, assumptions and the practitioner’s use of self.
- Maintain ethical boundaries, confidentiality, informed consent and scope of competence.
- Use supervision and reflective practice to support safe and sustainable professional work.
- Integrate course learning into an ethically bounded plan for continuing professional development.
Good to Know
Additional Information
This programme provides a broad professional foundation in cognitive behavioural therapy, structured formulation and evidence-informed intervention. It should be applied within each learner’s existing role, competence, training background and ethical responsibilities. Where a presentation involves acute risk, safeguarding, complex medical questions, severe dissociation, statutory intervention or specialist assessment, learners are expected to follow appropriate referral and escalation pathways rather than practise beyond competence.
Live sessions are lecturer-led and may include demonstrations, reflective work, case discussion, skills rehearsal and breakout-room activities. Students are expected to participate actively and to maintain confidentiality when discussing practice material. Any case material brought to class should be sufficiently anonymised. The College may provide recordings of appropriate teaching segments for revision, while routine breakout rooms are not normally recorded.
Students are expected to engage consistently with Moodle, directed reading and assessment preparation. Professional learning in counselling and psychotherapy can evoke personal material; learners should use supervision, personal therapy or other appropriate supports where relevant. ICPS College also expects respectful communication, dignity, inclusivity, a non-judgemental attitude and adherence to College policies, procedures and codes of conduct throughout the programme.
Completion of the Advanced Professional Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) does not in itself confer a protected professional title or authority to diagnose, prescribe, provide statutory assessment or undertake specialist interventions outside the learner’s existing competence. Students seeking clarification about accreditation, attendance, assessment, progression or professional scope should contact the Registry Office at sheila@icps.ie.
Programme Structure
Course Curriculum — Ten Modules
- Core theory and professional concepts relating to foundations & principles of cbt
- Course-specific assessment, formulation or application linked to foundations & principles of cbt
- Freudian lens: Considers how Freud's model of conscious, preconscious and unconscious mental life sits alongside CBT's focus on accessible cognition, inviting reflection on what structured work may leave unspoken or defended against.
- Lacanian lens: Reads the CBT emphasis on rational evaluation through Lacan's divided subject, questioning whether the speaking person is ever fully transparent to themselves and how the therapist's position as one who knows shapes the work.
- Applied case discussion, reflective exercise or skills practice
- Core theory and professional concepts relating to assessment, goals & collaborative formulation
- Course-specific assessment, formulation or application linked to assessment, goals & collaborative formulation
- Freudian lens: Explores how the presenting problem may function as a compromise formation, and how early transference, resistance and ambivalence about change can colour goal-setting before any formulation is agreed.
- Lacanian lens: Considers what the client asks for at assessment as a demand addressed to the Other, distinguishing stated goals from desire and reflecting on how a collaborative formulation positions the clinician within the client's discourse.
- Applied case discussion, reflective exercise or skills practice
- Core theory and professional concepts relating to automatic thoughts, beliefs & cognitive distortions
- Course-specific assessment, formulation or application linked to automatic thoughts, beliefs & cognitive distortions
- Freudian lens: Approaches recurring automatic thoughts as possible derivatives of preconscious material, examining defence and the return of the repressed in images and self-statements that persist despite rational disputation.
- Lacanian lens: Treats automatic thoughts as chains of signifiers in which the subject is spoken as much as speaking, attending to repeated words and phrases that echo the discourse of the Other and its judgements.
- Applied case discussion, reflective exercise or skills practice
- Core theory and professional concepts relating to cognitive restructuring & guided discovery
- Course-specific assessment, formulation or application linked to cognitive restructuring & guided discovery
- Freudian lens: Reflects on how guided discovery may meet resistance, intellectualisation or rationalisation, and how insight that is understood but not felt can leave the underlying conflict and its affect undisturbed.
- Lacanian lens: Considers Socratic questioning in light of Lacan's four discourses, asking when restructuring operates as the discourse of the master or the university and when it opens space for the client's own speech.
- Applied case discussion, reflective exercise or skills practice
- Core theory and professional concepts relating to behavioural activation, exposure & experiments
- Course-specific assessment, formulation or application linked to behavioural activation, exposure & experiments
- Freudian lens: Examines avoidance through Freud's account of anxiety as a signal of internal danger, and how symptoms bind anxiety so that behavioural change may stir conflict that the avoidance previously contained.
- Lacanian lens: Explores exposure and behavioural experiments in relation to the Real and the encounter with what cannot easily be symbolised, attending to the fantasy that frames what the person most fears.
- Applied case discussion, reflective exercise or skills practice
- Core theory and professional concepts relating to cbt for anxiety & panic
- Course-specific assessment, formulation or application linked to cbt for anxiety & panic
- Freudian lens: Contrasts Freud's early view of anxiety as transformed libido with his later signal theory, offering a frame for thinking about panic as a response to an unconscious danger situation rather than random alarm.
- Lacanian lens: Reflects on Lacan's claim that anxiety is not without an object, considering panic as a moment in which the subject's relation to lack falters and something comes uncomfortably too close.
- Applied case discussion, reflective exercise or skills practice
- Core theory and professional concepts relating to cbt for depression & low mood
- Course-specific assessment, formulation or application linked to cbt for depression & low mood
- Freudian lens: Draws on Freud's Mourning and Melancholia to consider self-reproach, the harsh superego and anger turned against the self as theoretical perspectives alongside cognitive accounts of negative self-evaluation.
- Lacanian lens: Considers low mood in relation to desire and its fading, exploring how a subject may give ground on their desire and how a sense of emptiness can be read as a particular relation to lack.
- Applied case discussion, reflective exercise or skills practice
- Core theory and professional concepts relating to trauma-informed cbt & safety considerations
- Course-specific assessment, formulation or application linked to trauma-informed cbt & safety considerations
- Freudian lens: Introduces Freud's ideas of the protective shield, repetition compulsion and afterwardsness, reflecting on why traumatic memories may return in fragments and why safety must precede any interpretive work.
- Lacanian lens: Approaches trauma as an encounter with the Real that resists symbolisation, considering how carefully paced, safe speech may allow some of what was unspeakable to find a place in the Symbolic.
- Applied case discussion, reflective exercise or skills practice
- Core theory and professional concepts relating to schema, relapse prevention & maintenance
- Course-specific assessment, formulation or application linked to schema, relapse prevention & maintenance
- Freudian lens: Compares enduring schemas with Freud's notion of repetition compulsion and character, reflecting on why old patterns return under stress and how relapse may express unresolved conflict rather than simple failure.
- Lacanian lens: Reads core schemas as master signifiers that organise the subject's identity, and explores relapse in terms of jouissance, the paradoxical satisfaction that can keep a person returning to familiar suffering.
- Applied case discussion, reflective exercise or skills practice
- Core theory and professional concepts relating to integration, therapeutic relationship, ethics & reflective practice
- Course-specific assessment, formulation or application linked to integration, therapeutic relationship, ethics & reflective practice
- Freudian lens: Considers transference and countertransference within the CBT relationship, encouraging practitioners to notice their own reactions in supervision and to recognise when relational dynamics are shaping the structured work.
- Lacanian lens: Reflects on the ethics of desire and the position of the subject supposed to know, inviting practitioners to consider how they hold authority without imposing their own ideals on the client's choices.
- Applied case discussion, reflective exercise or skills practice
Assessment Breakdown
Assessment & Course Completion
Your overall mark is made up of four components, totalling 100%.
- Class Attendance — 10%: A minimum of 80% attendance at live online classes is required, recorded through Zoom.
- Fishbowl Skills Assessment — 30%: A live, observed session assessed by your lecturer. A minimum of 80% is required for the award, and a resubmission opportunity is offered.
- Case Histories 1–5 — 20%: Five linked case histories of 500 words each (4% each), following one client/patient from Module 5 to Module 10.
- Case History 6 — 40%: A 3,000-word full case formulation that brings your earlier case histories together.
Each written case history requires 60% to pass and is marked against the published rubric on Moodle. This grading is the same across all ICPS College Advanced Professional Diplomas.
Credits & Learning Hours
- Live online teaching: 2.5 hours weekly for 10 weeks — 25 hours and 120 CPD Credits
- Ten modules, each carrying 9.5 credits
- 240 hours of self-directed learning per module — 2,400 hours
- Total learning hours: 2,425
- Total award: 120 credits
Live Online Attendance & Self-Directed Learning
Students are required to attend 25 hours of live online lecturer-led Zoom sessions. The normal attendance requirement is 80%, meaning students may normally miss only two classes except where approved extenuating circumstances apply. The wider independent-learning component includes extended reading, revision, applied reflection, skills practice, lecture notes, Moodle resources and supplementary academic materials.
Live Delivery
Zoom Delivery
All live online classes are delivered via ICPS College's secure enterprise Zoom platform, providing a stable, professional and confidential environment for lecturer-led teaching, discussion and skills practice. Students are expected to engage fully with live sessions, including breakout room discussions and applied skills practice, to gain the maximum benefit from the programme.
Given the personal and reflective nature of some of the material covered in this course, students are encouraged to attend live sessions from a private, confidential space and to take breaks or seek support where needed. Students experiencing technical difficulties should contact the College promptly so that alternative arrangements can be made where possible.
Learning Platform
Moodle LMS
Students are provided with access to the College's Moodle Learning Management System, where lecture notes, reading materials, module resources and assessment guidance are made available throughout the course. The Moodle LMS supports independent study and allows students to revisit key concepts, review recorded material where applicable, and prepare thoroughly for assessment.
Students are expected to engage regularly with the Moodle LMS as part of their self-directed learning hours. The platform is updated throughout the course to reflect the content covered in live sessions and to support consistent, structured academic progression.
Professional Accreditation & Important Information
Professional pathway and membership options may be available through the Irish Counselling, Psychotherapy & Allied Healthcare Professionals Association (ICPHAA) and recognised continuing-professional-development structures, subject to the current criteria of the relevant body. Students should confirm any specific pathway requirements with the lecturer, course leader or Registry Office.
By enrolling, students agree to comply with ICPS College policies, procedures and codes of conduct. Official course/cohort WhatsApp groups are College-moderated. Unofficial or unmoderated course/cohort groups should not be created for College-related communication without prior College knowledge and consent. These arrangements support student welfare, confidentiality, professional boundaries and protection from bullying, harassment, intimidation, exclusion and reputational harm.
bottom of page