Skip to main content

CBT Pathway

This pathway is designed for trainees who wish to work towards accreditation as Cognitive Behavioural Therapists (CBT) with the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP).

The CBT pathway is aiming to achieve BABCP Level 1 course accreditation. This means that it is designed to support trainees in meeting some of the BABCP criteria, with further opportunities to fulfil additional requirements throughout the Programme.

The CBT Pathway aims to:

  • Foster a supportive learning environment that integrates teaching, clinical practice, reflection and professional development within the field of CBT.
  • Provide trainees with specialised training in CBT theory and practice.
  • Support trainees in meeting a proportion of the BABCP accreditation criteria.
  • Offer opportunities to progress toward meeting additional accreditation criteria during the doctoral Programme.
  • Support trainees develop a comprehensive CBT practice portfolio to evidence their skills and experience for accreditation.
  • Offer support to clinical supervisors involved in the Pathway.
  • Provide information on the support available through the DClinPsychol Programme post-qualification and accreditation.

Clinical supervisors play a crucial role in supporting trainees on the CBT Pathway, helping them develop their skills and meet the necessary training requirements. This section outlines the expectations from supervisors, the support available, and key opportunities for professional development.

Supervisors are responsible for:

  • Ensuring that trainees have opportunities to work with suitable cases to develop their CBT competencies and familiarise with the Roth & Pilling framework and relevant evidence-based protocols.
  • Providing regular supervision (in line with BABCP requirements) to support trainees’ CBT skill development.
  • Offering live supervision on a regular basis (at least 50% of supervision sessions should include a live element).
  • Offering structured feedback on trainees’ clinical work, including session recordings and case discussions.
  • Engaging with the mid and end of placement visits with the trainee and their clinical tutor.
  • Encouraging reflective practice and guiding trainees in applying CBT principles effectively.
  • Completing necessary assessments and feedback forms related to trainees’ progress, including the PAF, one mid-therapy whole session CTS-R assessment, and signing off the trainees' logs on Pebblepad.

Please note, that supervisors are likely to need to rate several CTS-R recordings over the course of a placement in order to support their trainee to develop their skills to a level that reaches competency and a “pass” mark of 36 or above.

  • Proactively liaising with the trainee’s clinical tutor where needed in order to address difficulties and any concerns.

Support for supervisors

The Programme provides a range of support for clinical supervisors, including:

  • Inter-rater reliability workshops on the CTS-R: These workshops can help supervisors calibrate their assessment of trainees’ therapy sessions to maintain consistency and fairness in evaluation.
  • Regular structured support groups. Please, note this is not “supervision of supervision” due to the potential for conflict of interest; however, it is a space where general supervision issues and reflections can be shared and discussed and it can also involve CPD elements where needed and appropriate.
  • Mid and End of Placement Visits with the trainee and their clinical tutor.
  • Opportunities to liaise with their trainee’s clinical tutor and the CBT Pathway team as needed.
  • At least one CBT-related CPD event each year through the Programme’s West-Yorkshire Post Qualification Training (WY-PQT) initiative.
  • Advanced Supervisor Workshops (ASW).

Supervisor Training

The Leeds Programme in Clinical Psychology offers a three-day Introduction to the Supervision Programme which you should attend before commencing supervision.

The Programme also offers advanced supervisory workshops. These are advertised throughout the year so it may be important to consider your own training/skills and whether it would be beneficial for you to attend one of these events.

The West-Yorkshire PQT provides additional CPD events. To support our CBT Pathway supervisors, at least one of these events per year focuses on a CBT area and is delivered by a BABCP accredited practitioner. These are advertised on the West-Yorkshire Psychologists’ Post Qualification Training website and mailing list (contact  [email protected] to join this).

Placement Documentation

All trainees will need to demonstrate competence in CBT plus one other model of therapy at least across their three years of training.  This will need to be evidenced through the monitoring of competencies within individual therapies through the Therapy Competency logbook.

CBT Pathway trainees need to complete additional logs to evidence competency in CBT. Details can be found in the CBT Pathway Handbook.

CBT Pathway Handbook

View the CBT Pathway Handbook here