How it all began….

Although the college launched its first courses in October 2009 the actual idea for the College of Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy (CCBH) came about during the previous year, as most good ideas do, over a meal, at the end of a busy teaching weekend with Avy and Tony (Avy a decade earlier, had studied REBT with Windy Dryden gaining his MSc and he took to it like a duck to water.) Along with Maggie, Tony and Avy were the initial founders of the College.

 

 

A few short months later the CCBH was launched and the real work commenced!  There was a busy 6 months to launch, designing and refining the courses we developed.  We each came with strong ideas of what was important.  Ethics and exceptional learning experience with a strong desire that our students, when finishing their studies with us at whatever stage, would be confident, competent and informed was paramount.

 

 

Avy says: “After working as a hypnotherapist for many years I also became interested in the cognitive and behavioural aspects of hypnotherapy.  I pursued this interest in studying for a Master’s degree at Goldsmith College in Cognitive and Behavioural therapy.  My knowledge and confidence as a hypnotherapist grew and I started integrating the two with great results.  After running many Master Classes on specific topics combining these two styles of therapies and after listening to feedback from participants, I felt that it was time to develop a course for those students qualified in hypnotherapy and with an interest in cognitive behavioural therapy.  I initially wrote and developed a shortened version of our Diploma course in partnership with another training organisation.  After running that course for a few years and in discussion with Maggie and Tony, we decided to run cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy courses that were more in depth and effective and also contained other CBT models”.

We launched the opening of the College to coincide with the release of Avy’s first book ‘Cognitive Behavioural Therapy’ with a drinks party at our headquarters, 83 Baker Street in central London.  Our medical advisor Dr Claude Botha gave a fascinating and amusing presentation about Anxiety and how CBH can assist in its treatment.

Things move on and develop and as we approach our fourth anniversary, Tony has left to join a seminary in the Papal City and we have renamed the college to be the College of Cognitive Behavioural Therapies (CCBT).  This incorporates our progression from the original three levels of training in CBH to three levels of training in CBT too.

Windy Dryden is no longer our patron but guest lectures for us on our newly developed courses in CBT. Our lecturing team has continued to grow and we boast one of the strongest teams in the country of REBT specialist lecturers.

We have developed a wide suite of Master Classes from anxiety to mindfulness and the list continues to grow.

We are about to launch our distance learning modules to enable students to complete a large part of their studies in the comfort of their own homes and as we continue to develop will bring more of what we do online. Exciting times ahead…