Certificate in Working with Groups
Transform Your Understanding of Group Therapy and Enhance Your Professional Practice
Introduction
Whether you're looking to expand your therapeutic toolkit, deepen your understanding of group dynamics, or embark on a transformative professional development journey, our Certificate Course in Group Work offers a rich, experiential approach to mastering the art of group therapy. Drawing on the origins of transactional analysis as a group psychotherapy, this six-day course provides theoretical knowledge and practical skills that you can apply immediately in your practice.
Our highly practical, co-creative and experiential programme delves into the fascinating world of group dynamics, where our earliest patterns of relating emerge and powerful opportunities for change unfold. Through authentic engagement and respectful exploration, you'll discover how to harness the unique therapeutic potential that only groups can offer.
What does the Certificate Course in Group Work cover?
This comprehensive six-day course, delivered in three two-day modules, explores:
Module 1: The life and structure of a group
- Contracting and boundary-setting for effective group therapy
- Practical guidance on establishing your own therapy group
- Philosophical perspectives and approaches to group work
- Developing your leadership style
- Understanding the natural life stages of groups
Module 2: The unconscious and psychodynamic processes in groups
- Recognising and working with transference in the group setting
- Managing conflict: games, enactments, impasses and role lock
- Applying Bion's theory of basic assumptions
- Addressing differences and the group's 'shadow'
- Techniques for deconfusion in groups
Module 3: Existential forces in groups
- Fostering co-creativity and here-and-now relationships
- Exploring existential themes as they emerge in group work
- Working with dreams, metaphors and symbols
- Developing your creative approach as a group therapist
- Facilitating meaningful endings in groups
What outcomes can I expect?
This engaging and thought-provoking course offers both personal and professional development. You will:
- Gain an in-depth understanding of group dynamics and how they impact both intrapsychic and interpersonal processes
- Develop practical skills to establish and lead therapy groups with confidence
- Learn to identify and work with complex group phenomena
- Explore your own patterns of relating within groups
- Receive a 36-hour CPD Certificate recognising your specialist training in group work
Who should attend?
This training is perfect for qualified and trainee psychotherapists, counsellors, psychologists, and mental health professionals seeking to expand their practice into group work.
The course would also support those already running groups who wish to deepen their theoretical understanding and practical skills, or anyone interested in the powerful dynamics that emerge when people come together in groups.
Dates: 21st & 22nd May | 18th & 19th June | 16th & 17th July 2026
Length: Six days in 3 x 2-day blocks
Times: 9:30 am to 4.30 pm
Mode: Face-to-Face in Hove
Cost: £690 (inclusive of VAT)
Payment options are available - contact us to find out more.
More Information
Let us know if you have any questions
Meet your course leaders
Rachel Cook
Rachel Cook TSTA, CTA (Psychotherapy), MSc, MA, PGCE is a highly experienced group, relationship and individual psychotherapist, clinical supervisor and trainer, and has been an educator for over 30 years. She is widely published, being on the editorial board of the Transactional Analysis Journal (TAJ) and author of Existential Perspectives in Transactional Analysis: The Development of the Adult Self and the Human Search for Meaning (Routledge). She is passionate about authentic and co-creative relational training and group work, striving to use her humanity, humour, integrity and authentic self in her teaching and psychotherapeutic work. In her spare time, she loves being with family and friends, creating and sharing good food, writing, walking, and cherishing the wonders of nature - and cat companions!