Your Further Learning & Development
The aim of INTEGRA CPD is to develop a comprehensive cutting-edge programme for continuing professional development, in collaboration with practitioners like yourself and in response to your evolving needs and feedback – a programme of workshops, ongoing groups, events and courses that is based on a broad-spectrum integration of all the therapeutic approaches and on embodied, relational and integral principles. Currently all events are taking place online, via Zoom.
How do we make our CPD learning impactful and relevant to our everyday practice? Should our own further development not be informed by the same therapeutic principles which underpin our work? In therapy as in teaching therapy, we aim to 'walk our talk' by focussing on the learning process rather than only the content - creating safe, creative and stimulating relational spaces: learning environments, suited to the variety of learning styles that therapists bring to the group. All our CPD workshops emphasise experiential engagement and the mind-body connection, integrating professional competence with personal process and self-awareness, combining left- and right-brain learning that translates directly into practice.
In our own work, we are aiming at an integration that draws on the theories, wisdom and gifts of all the therapeutic approaches. We welcome and attract therapists from across the modalities who find inspiration and challenge in the cross-fertilisation between different schools and orientations. You can read more about the main principles of our approach which can be summarised as: full-spectrum integrative - embodied/bodymind connection - relational - informed by modern neuroscience - systemic/multi-dimensional/integral - rooted in the 'Wounded Healer' - embracing uncertainty, conflict and paradox.
Recent News from INTEGRA CPD
What are therapists looking for in their CPD training?
What have been your experiences of recent CPD events?
Useful? Boring? Inspiring? Effective?
How have they affected your practice?
See some evaluation feedback from a recent workshop.
Places becoming available: Ongoing Supervision & Professional Development Group (bi-monthly Tuesdays 10.00 - 16.30 (Zoom))
There is only one place now left available from December 2023 in this ongoing small group which has been meeting since 2019 for 6 days per academic year. Always connected with practice through the supervision element and parallel process, the CPD learning has been building from session to session, through the group discussion and Michael's input, occasionally in the form of hand-outs and other learning materials. Most current participants are humanistic-integrative in orientation, some more psychodynamic, so there is rich and significant diversity. Maximum group size is 8, to allow for regular supervision space and intense learning.
Dates for 2023-2024: 21 Nov 2023, 23 Jan 2024, 19 Mar 2024, 21 May 2024, 16 Jul 2024
One places becoming available in monthly 2-hour Supervision Group for Experienced, Senior Therapists (monthly Tuesdays 15.45 - 17.45 (Zoom))
One place is now becoming available from December 2023 in this ongoing small group which has been meeting since 2012. Maximum group size is 4, to allow for regular supervision space and intense learning. This group has been restricted to senior therapists, and the current three participants (all humanistic in orientation) would like to continue the wide-ranging, personal-professional process which the group has co-created and its dynamic, reflective atmosphere.
Proposed 11 Dates for 2022-2023: 14 Nov 2023, 12 Dec 2023, 16 Jan 2024, 20 Feb 2024, 12 Mar 2024, 16 Apr 2024, 14 May 2024, 11 Jun 2024, 9 Jul 2024
Do not take our word for it! Want to know what our events are like?
Depending on topic, aims and group composition, our CPD events maximise experiential, embodied learning through engaging all aspects of your personal-professional being as a reflective practitioner. It's usually a fluid integration of individual and group process, supervision of client examples, skills practice in pairs and small groups, fish bowls in the middle of the group including demonstration sessions, plus theory and discussion. Michael has evolved a particular way of participants bringing significant vignettes of client-therapist interactions, and using two-chair work and embodied role-play to access the non-verbal aspects of the interaction. Have a look at what other participants are saying:
Register your interest now for unique CPD series coming up in 2024:
"Mastering the Creative Therapeutic Technique of Two-chair Work"
The last time Michael offered these special workshops was a few years ago, in 2015, and they are unlikely to be offered again in the near future. By attending all five days, most participants will significantly enhance their understanding and confidence in using this creative therapeutic technique. By focusing on the recurring problems and pitfalls that regularly arise when therapists try to use the technique, and developing an understanding why they are bound to arise, you will feel a whole lot more prepared to tackle them creatively, allowing you to use the technique in more elegant and effective ways.
The potential and the problems of the erotic in therapy
CPD Zoom Weekend for Practising Therapists 18 & 19 November 2023
In the early 1900s, modern psychotherapy began with a shock. Not the patient's shock, but the therapist's. Most of us as therapists, of whatever approach, inherit that shock, often without even knowing it. We haven't got over it or resolved it, and we are therefore likely to perpetuate it.
This website is designed to address the continuing professional development (CPD) needs of counsellors, psychotherapists and therapeutic practitioners in general. If you are looking for a therapist, or want to work individually with one of us, please see the following websites:
Oxford Counselling and Psychotherapy
Michael has been running an Oxford-based referral service for about 28 years, helping you find the 'right' therapy for you. Assessment and referral sessions take place in West Oxford, and are primarily oriented towards Oxfordshire, but referrals and recommendations can also be made in London, occasionally nationwide and sometimes internationally.
Michael Soth
To work with Michael individually on Zoom, please use the contact form to e-mail him. He offers short and long-term individual and couple psychotherapy, as well as individual supervision for therapeutic practitioners, coaches and consultants. He currently maintains a waiting list and is usually unable to take anybody on within less than six months.
OTS - Oxfordshire Therapy & Self-Development Centres
Michael is a founding member and director of this Oxfordshire-wide organisation that has dedicated itself to making counselling and psychotherapy more available, accessible and affordable to the general public, by offering a broad-spectrum diversity of approaches and practitioners, and matching clients to therapists to generate maximum engagement and effectiveness through prioritising 'quality of relationship' between client and therapist, the most significant factor for good outcomes in therapy. Michael is training director for OTS, supporting the continuing professional development of the community of practitioners.
All published articles & papers / presentations / hand-outs & teaching materials
You can now find all our writing, a list of all presentations (many of them available as pdf's) and all Michael's hand-outs in our new Resources section of this site.
See all Articles & Papers >>
See all Presentations >>
See all Hand-outs >>
See all Recommended Books >>
Audio >> - more mp3's to come
Since June 2013 Michael has been publishing a blog at Psychotherapy Excellence - the UK's national portal for CPD - on the dilemmas of continuing professional development in the 'impossible profession'. To make it easier for you to follow the sequence of entries (as they are really meant to build on each other step-by-step), he has created a dedicated blog site. If you have missed any of the entries, having them all in one place like that will make it easy to catch up. Here is the link:
The Impossible Profession: Counselling & Psychotherapy
Michael has been interviewed several times now for webcasts on various topics, including 'What is psychotherapy?' (see preview) and 'The embodied phenomenology of enactment' (see preview). You can find these webcasts, which feature interviews with many other well-known therapists, on sale at: Psychotherapy Excellence.
Forthcoming Psychotherapy & Counselling CPD Workshops, Courses, & Events
An ongoing, broad-spectrum integrative group
This semi-closed group has been running for several years now (since 2015), with new participants joining the 'pool' of members as places become available. Led by one of the most experienced integrative trainers in the UK, this group will provide an ideal relational container for your ongoing development as a therapist. By immersing yourself in a diverse group of colleagues from different schools and orientations, you will widen your perspective, deepen your practice, draw both inspiration and challenge from the co-created wide-ranging experiential work and have a reference point as well as resources and teaching to support your further development.
You can find a detailed description of the format and objectives of this group on the dedicated page.
An ongoing, broad-spectrum integrative group
This semi-closed group has been running for several years now (since 2015), with new participants joining the 'pool' of members as places become available. Led by one of the most experienced integrative trainers in the UK, this group will provide an ideal relational container for your ongoing development as a therapist. By immersing yourself in a diverse group of colleagues from different schools and orientations, you will widen your perspective, deepen your practice, draw both inspiration and challenge from the co-created wide-ranging experiential work and have a reference point as well as resources and teaching to support your further development.
You can find a detailed description of the format and objectives of this group on the dedicated page.
INTEGRA CPD - Trainers
