At Talking Therapies UK, we are passionate about equipping professionals with the knowledge, confidence, and compassion to support mental health across diverse settings. With decades of combined experience in clinical practice, public health leadership, and service transformation, our training programmes are rooted in evidence-based approaches and real-world application.
We specialise in delivering high-impact, trauma-informed mental health training tailored to the needs of health, education, social care, and voluntary sector teams. From safeguarding and suicide prevention to emotional resilience and therapeutic communication, our courses are designed to empower practitioners at every level—whether you’re frontline staff, a strategic commissioner, or part of a multi-agency partnership.
Our facilitators bring many years clinical expertise , and a deep understanding of the social determinants of mental health. We prioritise co-production, reflective practice, and inclusive learning environments that foster curiosity, empathy, and professional growth.
Whether you’re looking to upskill your workforce, embed mental health into your organisational culture, or meet statutory training requirements, we offer flexible delivery formats including in-person workshops, webinars, and bespoke consultancy.
Together, we can build psychologically safe, responsive systems that promote wellbeing, reduce inequalities, and improve outcomes for individuals, families, and communities. Let’s shape the future of mental health—one conversation, one training, one transformation at a time..
From the individual to the pattern: circularity, context and the family as a system.
Ask why one person struggles and you get one kind of answer; ask what pattern the struggle keeps alive, and between whom, and you get another kind entirely. Systemic thinking is that second question pursued rigorously, and it changes what you see in every consulting room, whether you work with families or individuals. This course teaches it from the beginning.
The first module makes the paradigm shift: from linear to circular causality, where behaviour is both response and stimulus in loops without a first cause; homeostasis and feedback, why systems resist the very change they request; and the family life cycle, with problems read as transitions the system has not yet made. The second module tours the founding schools with their working ideas intact: structural boundaries and hierarchies, strategic reframes, the Milan team's hypothesising and circularity, and the social constructionist and narrative turn that re-centred meaning and language.
Full written lessons with key points and practice tasks that train pattern-vision on ordinary material, with a built-in study tutor throughout. Six hours of CPD, around six months of access, a final assessment, and a personalised certificate on passing.
▶ See inside the digital classroom1 minute 36 seconds · how a course is laid out, how each lesson is taught, and how the tutor helps
Before you start
This is a Foundation course in the systemic and family approaches pathway. It assumes nothing: it is written for someone meeting the approach for the first time. What it adds is the working model, its vocabulary and its evidence base, so that the Practitioner course can assume them; it revisits the foundations only as far as it needs to before building on them, so it does not repeat the course below.
When you have completed it, Working Systemically is the next step in the pathway.
The systemic and family approaches pathway. Systemic thinking from first principles, through working systemically with families and couples, to advanced systemic practice.
6 study hours6 CPD hours certified6 months of accessAI tutor in every lessonCertificate on completion (pass mark 70%)
What you will be able to do
✓Think in systems: describe circular causality and how it differs from linear blame
✓Map a family system, including alliances, boundaries and hierarchies, with a genogram
✓Describe homeostasis and why systems resist change even when members suffer
✓Recognise repeating interaction patterns, such as pursue–withdraw, in couples and families
✓Ask simple circular questions that reveal pattern rather than fault
✓Describe the major schools of family therapy and their shared foundations
What you will study
Module 1: The paradigm shift
Circular causality, homeostasis and the problem as system property.
From linear to circular causalityCircular causality: patterns, not one-way causes
Homeostasis, feedback and the life cycleHomeostasis explains resistance and symptom-shifting
The Problem as a Property of the System: Re‑framing and Relational PatternsThe problem is maintained because it serves a hidden function for the system.
Second‑Order Cybernetics, Therapist Reflexivity and Co‑Construction of MeaningSecond‑order cybernetics positions the therapist as part of the observed system.
Module 2: The founding schools
Structural and strategic maps; Milan and the narrative turn.
Structure and strategyStructural: boundaries, subsystems, hierarchy, triangulation
Milan, social construction and narrativeCircular questions reveal pattern through third-person perspectives
Bowen Family Systems Theory: The Emotional SystemDifferentiation of self is the capacity to maintain one's own emotional identity while remaining connected to others, distinguishing it from fusion and detachment.
Gregory Bateson and the Cybernetic TurnGregory Bateson introduced cybernetics, shifting focus from linear cause-and-effect to circular causality and feedback loops.
Narrative Therapy: Foundations, Core Concepts and Clinical ApplicationNarrative therapy views problems as external stories rather than internal deficits.
What's included
2 modules and 9 lessons
An 8-question final assessment, with a 70% pass mark
A certificate for 6 CPD hours when you pass it
An extended clinical case study with discussion questions
A glossary of key terms
Private notes, a reflection for each module, and a CPD log you can print or save as a PDF
📖 Written lessons with key points and practice tasks◆ Visual teaching diagrams🎥 Video where it helps🎧 Listen-to-this-lesson narration👩⚕️ A full clinical case study🧠 AI tutor in every lesson📄 Full course workbook (PDF) on completion📕 The course book (PDF) while you study, with your name in it
Speak the language: by the end you will use System · Circular causality · Punctuation · Homeostasis · Genogram · Circular questioning · Reframing · Enactment · Boundaries · Triangulation and more, precisely.
The evidence base this course draws on
Watzlawick, P., Beavin Bavelas, J. and Jackson, D. D. (1967) Pragmatics of Human Communication. New York: W. W. Norton. view source ↗
Cecchin, G. (1987) 'Hypothesizing, circularity, and neutrality revisited: an invitation to curiosity', Family Process, 26(4), pp. 405–413. view source ↗
£99.00Non-refundable under the practice’s terms and conditions, as course access starts as soon as payment is confirmed.
