Registration closes @ 12 noon on 13.05.26
Formulation is central to our work as cognitive behavioural therapists. It allows us to have an individualised understanding of someone’s problem, understand relevant context informing their beliefs and what maintenance cycles may be keeping something going , all of which informs our treatment plan. While there are many, evidenced-based disorder specific models in CBT that we can draw on to guide our understanding and treat common mental health challenges, what do we do when a client doesn’t fit a model or for those whom an intervention according to the model does not work? Typically, this can be the case when there is no model for our client’s unique difficulties or when our client’s present with co-morbidity, chronic difficulties or when there are systemic factors at play.
The aim of this workshop is to help you formulate with confidence, go beyond the models and draw on appropriate theory to create something that helps you conceptualise your client’s difficulties and develop a course of therapy based on the client’s idiosyncratic needs. It is designed for therapists with a foundation in CBT through to advanced CBT practitioners.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand how to formulate from a CBT perspective to make sense of complexity
- In relation to comorbid, chronic and novel difficulties
- In relation to systemic, lifespan and developmental considerations
- To differentiate between a protocol driven and formulation driven intervention and their application in CBT practice
- To become familiar with models for formulating systemically within CBT
- Have an opportunity to practice developing formulations based on the above principles
Certificate of Attendance
A digital certificate that states the hours of live participation in the workshop will be emailed to you after the training event. You must attend the workshop live to receive a certificate.
New: Workshop recording is now available to attendees
By attending this workshop I understand I am giving my consent for the workshop to be video recorded and for this video recording to be available to people attending the workshop live and for it to be sold separately, for the amount of time determined by OCTC and outlined in the purchase agreement. My name, if displayed onscreen, and my image will make up part of this recording. Recordings are the property of OCTC and making copies of these recordings or sharing login details is not permitted. Please do not reveal details which may compromise the anonymity of clients.
The recording will be available to view for a period of three months.
Presenters
Jo Adams, Principal Clinical Psychologist

Jo Adams is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and a BABCP accredited Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist who has worked in child and adolescent mental health services for over fifteen years. Jo has substantial experience of working with children, young people and their families across a range of psychological difficulties, and currently holds a clinical position within a specialist child and adolescent eating disorder service. Within OCTC, Jo leads on the Post Graduate Certificate in Enhanced CBT for Children and Adolescents, as well as providing supervision and training for work with children, young people and families. Alongside her role at OCTC, Jo is an Academic and Course Tutor at the Oxford Institute of Clinical Psychology Training and Research, and leads the child and adolescent curriculum. Prior to this, she was a clinical tutor and lead for CAMHS on the Doctoral Programme in Clinical Psychology at the University of Bath. Jo is passionate about working with children and young people, and understanding their difficulties within a developmental and systemic context. Jo supervises a number of trainee research projects and has particular interest in adolescent development, eating disorders, social anxiety, perfectionism, self -esteem and understanding transdiagnosic CBT mechanisms across these presentations.
Olivia Plant, Senior Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist

Additional Information
Cancellation & changes policy
If you cancel more than 14 days prior to your booked event, we will refund your fee minus a charge of 15% to cover our administration costs. We regret that cancellations 14 days or less before the booked event cannot be refunded or changed/transferred.
If you wish to change/transfer your booking after confirmation we will do our best to accommodate you if you notify us 14 days prior to your booked event, and if there is space to do so. However there will be an administration charge of £15 per change/transfer.
Confidentiality
Workshops often contain clinical material. This is always anonymised as far as possible but delegates are none the less reminded to respect confidentiality.
All that is discussed in your therapy sessions will be treated as confidential, with the following exceptions.
We are required to seek supervision by our professional body (The British Psychological Society or equivalent) as a means of ensuring good practice. We will usually inform your referrer of your progress, but the details that we disclose will be discussed with you. We do have a statutory obligation to break confidentiality under rare circumstances, namely, if we believe that a client is of danger to themselves or to others (under the Mental Health Act, 2001) or if we believe that a child is at actual risk of physical or sexual abuse (The Children Act, Section 47, 1989).
If we felt that it would be helpful to request additional medical, social or legal information, we could only do this with your consent. Similarly, should another medical, social or legal professional request information from us, we would not release this without your consent.
Disclaimer
OCTC makes every effort to ensure that this programme is delivered as advertised. However, should a presenter have to cancel, we will endeavour to find another suitable presenter. We will inform attendees as soon as is reasonably practical and, if requested, will offer a refund. In the rare event that we are unable to substitute a presenter, we may cancel a workshop and refund payments already made by attendees. OCTC will not refund travel and accommodation costs that attendees may incur.
All the workshops in this programme are carried out by highly experienced therapists and trainers. The individual presenter is responsible for the content of the workshop and any views expressed do not necessarily represent those of OCTC.
Although highly informative, none of the open workshops or workshop series confer a formal qualification or assurance of competence in CBT (or a specialist area of CBT) since we are unable to assess attendee competency within the training event. However, credit and award-bearing courses that lead to formal qualifications are offered by OCTC in conjunction with the University of Oxford. More about these courses is available on our website www.octc.uk
Levels of competence
Before booking a place on a workshop, please ensure that it is pitched at the appropriate level of competence for you. The guide to levels is as follows:
Basic
Basic workshops are for people from a variety of backgrounds, who have at least one year’s clinical experience. Cognitive behavioural knowledge is not necessary for attendance at these workshops, though in practice, a number of attendees will have some skills in the area, and are refreshing/updating their knowledge.
Intermediate
Intermediate workshops are directed towards people who already have knowledge of CBT, and experience in using cognitive formulations and treatment methods – for instance, they are able to identify and test automatic thoughts, and design behavioural experiments. Most participants will be using CBT as part of their clinical practice, and may still be acquiring new CBT skills.
Advanced
Advanced courses are directed towards those professionals who use CBT routinely as part of their clinical practice. They have probably undertaken a significant number of training courses and/or workshops, and use a broad range of cognitive behavioural strategies to work with a range of presentations at varying levels of complexity.
Making reservations
Bookings can only be considered confirmed after we have received your online registration or application form and payment (or invoicing details, including an official purchase order document).
The registration closing date for each workshop is shown on the workshop description page. Please note that no applications received after this deadline will be permitted.
If you are booking a workshop place for someone else, you must complete your own details in the billing field, but ENTER THE WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS NAME/ADDRESS in the shipping field. If you wish to order items using a paper order form instead of online, you can view or download an order form in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format. Once downloaded, print it out, fill it in, and send off with your payment [cheque made payable to OXFORD HEALTH NHS FOUNDATION TRUST] to the address on the form.
Refreshments
The cost of the workshops includes hot drinks on arrival, mid-morning and mid-afternoon, but not usually lunch unless stated. However, for workshops that do include lunch, if you have any special dietary requirements please let us know at the time of application.
Accessibility requirements
We welcome applications from diverse backgrounds. If you have any particular needs, please contact us
prior to booking.