How to Become a BABCP Accredited CBT Therapist: The Basics
By Jaime G. Miralles — BABCP Accredited CBT Therapist & CBT Accredited Clinical Supervisor and Meta Supervisor
TL;DR To become a BABCP accredited CBT therapist you need to be a BABCP member, have at least four years of training and experience in mental health plus specialist CBT training, meet the BABCP’s Minimum Training Standards, and be having regular CBT clinical supervision. The easiest route is a BABCP Level 2 accredited course, because it’s built to tick every box for you.
Key takeaways
- You need to be a BABCP member before you can apply for accreditation.
- You need at least four years of training and experience, including specialist CBT training.
- A BABCP Level 2 accredited course is the most straightforward route.
- You’ll need ongoing CBT clinical supervision, ideally from a BABCP accredited supervisor.
- Once accredited, you go straight into your first year audit.
Why people ask me about this
I’m a CBT therapist and a BABCP accredited supervisor, and I’m also the programme director of a CBT Masters course online. Because of that, one of the questions I get asked over and over again in supervision is simple: how do I actually become a BABCP accredited therapist? So I want to lay it out plainly, the way I’d explain it to someone sitting in front of me.
There are a few things the BABCP is looking for before they’ll accredit you as a Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist. None of this is hidden or complicated once you know what it is:
- You need to be a BABCP member.
- You need at least four years of training, which includes experience in mental health as well as specialist CBT training.
- You need to meet the BABCP’s Minimum Training Standards (more on that below).
- You need to adhere to the BABCP Standards of Performance, Conduct and Ethics.
- You need to be having regular CBT clinical supervision, ideally with someone who is BABCP accredited.
- You need to be committed to continuing professional development — this isn’t a one-off box to tick, it carries on throughout your career.
If you do a course that is already BABCP accredited at Level 2, the course itself is built to meet all of these criteria. You step out the other end having met everything you need, and you can go straight for your first year audit. That’s genuinely the simplest path, because someone else has already done the hard work of matching the course to the BABCP’s standards.
If your course isn’t accredited, it’s still possible to get there — but it takes more legwork on your part, matching your own training against the standards one by one. I’ve written about that route separately, because it deserves its own explanation.
When people hear “450 hours” they tend to panic a bit, so let me break it down simply. You need 450 hours of specific CBT training at postgraduate level. Of that, 200 hours needs to be direct, structured teaching, with at least 100 of those hours on the core fundamentals of CBT. The remaining roughly 250 hours is self-directed study.
One detail people miss: at least 100 of those structured teaching hours must come from a single programme or course. It’s not enough to patch together bits and pieces from different short courses and add up the total — a good chunk of it has to come from one place, taught by properly qualified CBT specialists.
Alongside the training hours, you need 200 hours of supervised CBT clinical practice with clients, and 40 hours of clinical supervision. In practice, that usually works out to about an hour and a half of one-to-one supervision a week, over roughly two years, sometimes a bit longer depending on the course.
Your supervisor needs to be appropriately qualified, and things are genuinely easier if you find someone who is BABCP accredited themselves. You’ll also need five hours of clinical supervision on each of eight different training cases, which adds up to your 40 hours. That includes at least three live supervisions — sessions your supervisor actually observes, not just hears about afterwards. I personally like to see more than the minimum, not because I’m being fussy, but because observing practice directly is one of the best ways to develop as a therapist.
Always go back to the BABCP directly before you take anyone else’s word for it, mine included. Their accreditation team is the first point of contact, and they can tell you exactly where you stand. What I can do, as a supervisor, is help you make sense of it, support you through the training cases and the supervision hours, and make sure what you’re bringing to your application is solid.
Do I need to be a BABCP member before I apply for accreditation?
Yes. Membership comes first, and accreditation is a separate step on top of that.
What’s the fastest way to become BABCP accredited?
Completing a BABCP Level 2 accredited course, because the course is designed to meet every requirement, so you can go straight into your first year audit once you finish.
How many hours of CBT training do I need?
450 hours in total at postgraduate level: 200 hours of structured teaching (100 of those on core CBT fundamentals) and around 250 hours of self-directed study, with at least 100 hours coming from a single programme.
How much clinical supervision do I need during training?
40 hours of clinical supervision alongside 200 hours of supervised clinical practice, usually worked out as roughly an hour and a half a week over about two years.
Does my supervisor need to be BABCP accredited?
They need to be appropriately qualified, but it makes the process considerably easier if they’re BABCP accredited themselves.
If you’re working through your training hours and need a BABCP accredited supervisor who knows this process inside out, I’d be glad to help. Find out more about my BABCP clinical supervision here.
#cbtclinicalsupervision #clinicalsupervision #cbtsupervision #babcpsupervisor #babcpmetasupervisor #babcpclinicalsupervisorcbt #cbpsupervision #cbtsupervisoronline #accreditedcbtsupervisor