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.
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Genograms, circular questioning and systemic technique in couple, family and individual work.
Systemic technique looks effortless done well: a genogram that quietly reorganises how a family understands itself, a circular question that moves what direct advice could not. This course teaches that technique properly, for practitioners bringing systemic method into couple, family and individual work.
The first module teaches the instruments of pattern. You will learn the genogram as intervention rather than paperwork: three generations mapped live in session, with relational lines and repeating patterns that let a family see its own inheritance. You will then study circular and reflexive questioning as a craft, questions that reveal difference, sequence and relationship, and Tomm's reflexive forms that invite the system to observe itself. The second module places the therapist in the system: enactment and restructuring moves, managing a multi-person alliance without being recruited, and the skills of working systemically with one person in the room, holding the absent system in mind.
Substantial written lessons with key points and applied practice tasks, supported by a study tutor. Ten hours of CPD with around nine 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 Practitioner course in the systemic and family approaches pathway. It assumes that you already hold the Foundation knowledge of this approach, whether from the Foundation course or from your training and practice, which is what Systemic Thinking Foundations teaches. What it adds is formulation and treatment decisions with real caseloads: the disorder-specific or situation-specific methods, sequencing, and what to do when the standard approach does not work; it revisits the foundations only as far as it needs to before building on them, so it does not repeat the course below.
If you have not met this approach before, Systemic Thinking Foundations is the place to start; if you already hold its foundations from your training or practice, this is the right level to begin at.
The systemic and family approaches pathway. Systemic thinking from first principles, through working systemically with families and couples, to advanced systemic practice.
10 study hours10 CPD hours certified9 months of accessAI tutor in every lessonCertificate on completion (pass mark 70%)
What you will be able to do
✓Conduct systemic sessions with couples and families, balancing alliance across members
✓Use circular, reflexive and scaling questions to interview for pattern and possibility
✓Formulate systemically, including the problem's function and the system's punctuations
✓Work with enactments in session rather than reports about home
✓Apply structural and strategic techniques, including reframing and boundary-making
✓Attend to your own position in the system, including triangulation pulls
What you will study
Module 1: Instruments of pattern
The genogram in action and questions that move systems.
The genogram as interventionThree generations, relationship lines, named repetitions
Circular and reflexive questioning as craftTomm: lineal, circular, strategic, reflexive
From pattern mapping to hypothesis‑driven experiments: integrating genograms and circular questioningGenograms and circular questioning are most potent when used iteratively, each informing the other in real time.
The genogram as a boundary object: shifting the therapeutic spaceThe genogram has long been recognised as a central instrument in systemic practice, yet its significance extends far beyond a simple pictorial record of kinship…
From genogram insight to collaborative therapeutic contractThe genogram becomes a collaborative boundary object when families annotate it together, turning assessment into shared meaning.
Identifying Leverage Points and Designing Systemic Interventions Using the GenogramIdentify structural clusters, central connectors, and boundary violations on the genogram as potential leverage points.
Module 2: The therapist in the system
Enactment, alliance management, and systemic work with one person.
Enactment and restructuring movesEnactment: let the pattern happen, then restructure it live
Systemic work with individualsThe system attends in one person: voices, loyalties, consequences
Therapist Stance, Reflexivity and Alliance Management in Systemic Work with One PersonTherapist stance is a dynamic, collaborative position of curiosity and not‑knowing, requiring continual reflexivity.
Systemic Formulation and Hypothesis Testing with One PersonSystemic formulation with a single client involves externalising the problem, mapping patterns, and generating testable hypotheses.
Therapist as a Systemic Agent: Managing Therapist Effects and Boundaries in One‑Person WorkTherapist effects are a systematic influence on the client’s relational system and must be monitored as part of formulation.
Circular Questioning and Relational Mapping in One‑Person Systemic TherapyCircular questioning shifts client thinking from linear to relational, exposing reciprocal patterns.
What's included
2 modules and 12 lessons
A 10-question final assessment, with a 70% pass mark
A certificate for 10 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.
