Applications open for 2025/2026
We are accepting applications for the academic year 2025 / 2026. To apply, please send an e-mail to secretariat.accpi@gmail.com or call 0040744333362.
Course Philosophy
What is child psychotherapy
Child psychotherapy refers to the practice of the principles and techniques of psychotherapy which aim to modify and solve emotional, cognitive, behavioural and interpersonal problems in children. The goals of child psychotherapy are mainly three: detecting behavioural excesses, accelerating behavioural deficits and maintaining behavioural acquisitions (Polemikos, 1997).
The training curricula in integrative child and adolescent psychotherapy
Basic training takes place in the first three years of training in child and adolescent psychotherapy. It includes a theoretical and a practical component. The training modules have a duration of 20 hours, out of which about 4 hours of theory, 11-12 hours of practical applications and 5 hours of individual work. In basic training students acquire abilities and knowledge necessary for the application of various interventions and work techniques with the client / patient. The practical component of the training is especially important in this context – we cannot learn psychotherapy from books alone. The basic training in psychotherapy, taught in English, can take place online or live, depending on your option. Basic training includes 20 training modules, detailed here: basic training
The advanced training programme
The advanced training in integrative child and adolescent psychotherapy takes place in the 4th and 5th year of training and includes techniques, interventions and conceptual case models for the main diagnostic categories in the DSM 5. The training modules have a duration of 20 hours, out of which about 4 hours of theory, 11-12 hours of practical applications and 5 hours of individual work. Advanced training familiarizes the beginner psychotherapist with diagnostic and treatment plans, mainly the development of treatment plans and the choice of adequate interventions, depending on the client / patient individuality. The advanced training in psychotherapy, taught in English, can take place online or live, depending on your option. Advanced training includes 10 training modules, detailed here: advanced training
Group personal development
Personal development is one of the fundamental components of the training in child and adolescent psychotherapy. Research shows that the level of the psychotherapist’s personal development is directly linked to psychotherapy efficiency. If we don’t know ourselves well enough, or the psychological problems we have are not sufficiently tackled, we will not be able to avoid projecting onto the client / patient our own emotions and personal way of thinking. Active and empathic listening and clarifying the patient’s problems without significant counter-transferential obstacles is the beginner psychotherapist’s greatest task.
To become an integrative child psychotherapist, you need at least 25 hours of individual therapy, with a psychotherapist of your choice, and 12 modules of group personal development / therapy.
Supervision takes place in the 4th and 5th year of training and has the purpose of supporting the beginner psychotherapist in working with clients / patients. When we begin our career in psychotherapy, there are still many things unknown and many uncertainties. We need more experienced colleagues to guide us when we are stuck, and we need support with our anxieties when we are not sure we do well what we do.
Group supervision modules have a 15-hour duration, and they are online. If you need additional individual supervision, you can ask any of our supervisors.
During the supervision period, you will work with your clients / patients, in your private practice or in an institution. To graduate and finalize supervision you need to work with clients / patients for at least 300 hours, and have supervision protocols for at least 10 supervised cases, from various pathologies.
You can read more about supervision here: Supervision
Intervision / peer supervision
Intervision is organized monthly, online, an dis free of charge for ACCPI members. Intervision sessions are of 3-4 hours. Intervision helps in emergency situations or in situations in which you need some quick advice or a short answer. Intervision cannot replace supervision, but can be an additional resource for our students.
Intervision meetings are announced monthly on our Whatsapp group.
Exams
You will have both theoretical and practical examinations. Theoretical examinations are wither oral (online) or written (live). You will have examinations at the end of the 1st, 3rd and 5th year. You need to write at least 4 essays and book reviews, 10 case protocols and two dissertation papers: at the end of the 3rd and 5th year of training.
Integrative psychotherapy with children and adolescents
Our training course (Integrative strategic psychotherapy with children and adolescents) is derived from two psychotherapeutic models we created in the course of time: integrative strategic psychotherapy for adults and a model called “The Wizarding School Program for children”.
Integrative strategic psychotherapy is a research-informed approach to psychotherapy, organized around the centrality of the therapeutic relationship. It works with a model of the Self, which integrates several major theories in a coherent framework based on research in neurobiology and attachment. The basic principles of integrative strategic psychotherapy take into account the common elements of most psychotherapeutic approaches. In other words, the common therapeutic factors are considered the main forces behind therapeutic change, whilst the therapeutic relationship stands out among these factors. At the core of the therapeutic relationship are the client and therapist variables, and in this context the left-right brain hemisphere interplay is considered crucial for a positive therapeutic outcome.
Integrative strategic psychotherapy proposes that there are a series of central assumptions found in most theoretical approaches to psychotherapy and that the growing body of knowledge needs to constantly influence the way we conduct therapy. Whilst presenting a coherent model of the Self and a series of core principles, integrative strategic psychotherapy leaves room for integrating even more theories and models of intervention.
We are working with a four-domain model of the Self (proto-self, core self, plastic self and external self – derived from Damasio’s theory of the Self), intersected by six psychological axes: biological, cognitive, emotional, psychodynamic, transgenerational and existential. The behavioural domain was not considered separately, taking into account that each of the afore-mentioned domains results in a behavioural impact. Attachment relations shape the proto-self and the resulting core self is an output of attachment issues and the core set (contained in the core self). In the mind of the child mental states of other individuals become represented within the neural functioning of the brain, leading to the formation of the core self. The interaction of self with others at a nonverbal, emotional level, through the output of the right hemisphere of both infant and caregiver becomes mapped in the brain at the level of core self. The emerging proto-self takes in the signals from caregivers and maps the changes, leading, together with other factors, to the foundation of the core self. Therefore the core self becomes the second order neural mapping for attachment (first order neural mapping being contained in the proto-self). The proto-self is primarily non-verbal, while the core self is a combination of verbal and nonverbal neural maps. This concept is congruent with what transactional analysis theory describes in terms of scripts (formed primarily at a non-verbal level) and counterscripts (verbal level), with the attachment theory and psychodynamic theories.
Secure attachment, the development of the core self and the integrating role of verbal and non-verbal processing are fundamental for collaborative interpersonal relationships, in the same time involving the process of neural integration. In other words, integration is achieved at both intra- and inter-personal level.
The human brain has both the capacity to differentiate and integrate its functioning, being genetically capable of “connecting to other brains”. The first-order neural maps are contained in the proto-self; the core self consists of second order neural maps, whilst the third-order neural maps of the plastic self are the result of the way the individual interacts with others. Secure attachment leads to coherence between the here-and-now core self and the plastic self. Individuals learn from childhood different adaptive strategies for communicating with others, and these communication patterns are disrupted in the presence of insecure attachment. The neural integration of the processes dominant in the left and the right hemisphere lead to coherence, but for this coherence to occur, the right hemisphere needs to be ‘properly addressed to’ in childhood.
The perception of emotion in an adult creates a resonant emotional state in the infant. The link between the perception of non-verbal cues and brain activation is a mechanism through which the emotional states of two individuals are coordinated. Thus, a relational state and an internal state are simultaneously constructed. Inner experience (the plastic self) is organized in this interactive context.
Although there is very little consensus when it comes to the nature and status of the Self, most psychotherapists agree that the sense of Self is a fundamental feature of human experience. Each major psychotherapeutic orientation describes the Self as a part of a global hologram: accurately but incompletely (Fall, Holden & Marquis, 2010). The integrative strategic model does not mean to claim it manages to capture ‘the entire hologram’, but it takes a step forward toward the understanding of the complex system which is the human mind.
Within this framework, we integrated the particularities of child and adolescent psychotherapy. A major difference in comparison to adult psychotherapy is that many times children cannot verbalize their problems and difficulties. But all children play and playing is an important part of a child’s development. Through playing children learn the abilities they need for participating in their world, and while they play, children improve their knowledge and the understanding of the self, of others and of their physical world.
According to current studies, child psychotherapy needs to take into consideration various approaches in order to obtain the best results. The therapist can use both insight-oriented and problem solving interventions. The therapeutic relationship is facilitated by the fact that the therapist is a playing partner for the children, working with the children, and using a language that is specific for children. By taking part in the game, the therapist is a permissive adult who facilitates the child’s implication at multiple levels. In the same time the child is offered the necessary safety for involvement in the activties and imagery that facilitate therapeutic change.
One of the present dilemmas in child psychotherapy is how much should the therapist get involved in playing with the child. But the therapist’s implication and direction of implication seems to depend on the general theoretical approach. The way in which the therapist uses playing in therapy also depends on the way the therapist conceptualizes the mechanisms of change. Freedheim & Russ (1983, 1992) identify 6 major mechanisms of change in individual child therapy: 1. Expression, catharsis and the labeling of feelings; 2. The corrective emotional experience; 3. Insight, non-experience and working with the game, labeling feelings, thoughts and events, and interpretation for conflict resolution and working with the problem; 4. Problem solving techniques and coping strategies; 5. Object relations, internal representations and interpersonal development: probably the most important aspect is the therapist’s relationship with the child; 6. Non-specific variables: expectancy for change, and the child’s feeling that he/she is not alone.
Our integrative programme centres on the child’s thoughts, fantasies and his/her environment; it ensures a strategy for developing more adaptive thoughts and behaviours (the child is taught coping strategies for feelings and situations); it is structured in a directive manner and it is goal oriented, more than having an open ending; the program incorporates some empirically demonstrated interventions (i.e. modelling); and it allows for the empirical examination of the treatment. This conceptual frame also has common ground with the more traditional person centred and psychodynamic approaches, namely: the importance of the therapeutic relationship, communication through playing, therapy as a safe place and playing as a means for giving clues to the child. Technically speaking, our program is close to supportive psychotherapy, the main techniques used in the program being focused on problem solving strategies, alternate ways of perceiving the self and the situation, acknowledging available help and establishing a therapeutic relationship based on trust, coping strategies and solving immediate problems.
In addition, we take into account the fact that the child’s problem doesn’t exist in isolation, but emerges in the context of family dynamics which can cause, maintain or modify the child’s behavioural patterns. Consequently, the therapeutic approach is centred not only on the child, but also on the interpersonal relations and family transactions.