You know CPD matters. You know you need to complete your hours. But when you sit down to actually plan your professional development for the year, where do you start? The sheer volume of courses, workshops, webinars, and training events available can feel overwhelming. Not all of it will be right for you, your practice, or your clients.

This guide is designed to help you cut through the noise and make CPD choices that genuinely serve your growth as a practitioner.

Start With Your Practice, Not the Prospectus

The most common mistake therapists make with CPD is browsing lists of training before they’ve reflected on what they actually need. This tends to result in choosing whatever looks interesting or convenient, which isn’t the same as choosing what will make you a better therapist.

Before you look at a single course, take some time to reflect honestly on your current practice. Ask yourself:

• Which client presentations do I find most challenging or anxiety-provoking?
• Are there areas where I feel my theoretical knowledge is thin?
• Have I turned away referrals recently because I didn’t feel equipped to work with that client group?
• What patterns am I noticing in my work that I’d like to understand better?

Your answers to these questions can form the foundation of your CPD plan. Training that directly addresses a gap in your knowledge or skill is almost always more valuable than training that covers familiar ground.

Use Supervision as a Compass

If you’re engaging well with clinical supervision you already have access to one of the best CPD planning tools available – your supervisor! A skilled supervisor will observe patterns in your case presentations that you might not see yourself, and these observations are rich with CPD direction.

Wisely you may pay particular attention when your supervisor:

• Suggests a particular theoretical lens that might help you understand a client’s presentation
• Notices that you consistently find a certain dynamic or issue difficult
• Recommends a book, paper, or approach you haven’t explored
• Points to a recurring theme across several of your clients

It’s worth keeping a simple note of these observations between sessions. Over time, they’ll reveal a clear picture of where your development energy should go.

Balance Depth and Breadth

There’s an ongoing tension in therapist CPD between going deep into one area and building broad, transferable skills. Both have value and most practitioners benefit from a mix of the two.

Depth: specialist training

Specialist CPD, in areas like trauma, eating disorders, bereavement, addiction, or working with a particular age group, can transform your practice and open up new referral streams. If you’re considering specialist work, look for training that is:

• Substantial enough to genuinely develop your competence (a single one-day workshop rarely suffices for complex areas)
• Recognised or recommended by relevant professional bodies or specialist organisations
• Delivered by practitioners with direct clinical experience in the specialism

Breadth: transferable skills

Broader CPD, such as training in reflective practice, working with diversity and difference, or understanding neuroscience, can enrich your work with all clients, not just a specific group. This kind of training often produces the most unexpected and rewarding shifts in how you think and work.

Evaluate Course Quality Before You Commit

Not all CPD is created equal. The market for therapist training is largely unregulated, which means the quality of what’s on offer varies enormously. Before booking any course, take a few minutes to assess it properly.

Questions worth asking:

• Who is delivering it? Are they a qualified, practising clinician with genuine expertise in this area, or primarily a trainer without a clinical background?
• What are the learning outcomes? Can you clearly identify what you will know or be able to do differently as a result of this training?
• What do other therapists say? Peer recommendations, from colleagues, supervision groups, or professional forums, are often the most reliable quality signal. Testimonials can be helpful to check out too.

Consider Format as Well as Content

The best course in the world won’t serve you well if the format doesn’t suit how you learn or fit around your life. Be realistic about this.

Live, in-person workshops offer immediacy, peer connection, and the opportunity to practise skills in real time. For some types of training, particularly experiential or skills-based work, there’s no substitute. However, they require travel, often cost more, and demand you to be free on a specific date. They are also becoming rare for some types of CPD in the post-CoVid world.

Online CPD has expanded dramatically in recent years and now encompasses everything from recorded on-demand modules to live interactive webinars. For many therapists, online learning offers a practical way to fit CPD around a busy caseload without compromising quality. The key is to engage actively rather than passively, watching a recording while doing the washing up is unlikely to count as meaningful professional development!

Reading and self-directed study also counts as CPD for most professional bodies and shouldn’t be underestimated. Engaging seriously with a well-chosen book or journal article, and reflecting on its implications for your practice, can be as developmental as any formal course.

Don’t Just Collect Hours, Also Reflect on What You Learn

Perhaps the most important principle in effective CPD is this: the learning happens in the reflection, not just the attendance. Many therapists tick the CPD box by logging hours without pausing to consider what those hours have actually changed in their thinking or practice.

After any CPD activity, take time to ask yourself:

• What did I learn that I didn’t know before?
• Has this changed how I think about any of my current clients?
• Is there anything I want to do differently as a result?
• What further questions has this raised for me?

Recording these reflections in your CPD log not only satisfies professional body requirements, it also consolidates the learning and makes it far more likely to actually influence your practice.

Plan Ahead, But Stay Flexible

A CPD plan doesn’t need to be a rigid document, but having some sense of direction for the year ahead can be helpful. At the start of your CPD year how about…

• Identifying two or three priority development areas based on your practice needs
• Allocating a rough budget for training (and factoring in time as well as money)
• Mixing formal courses with informal learning activities
• Building in time for reflection and log-keeping throughout the year, not just at the end

Life, and practice, changes. A new client presentation, a supervision observation, or a chance encounter with a compelling piece of research might shift your priorities mid-year. That’s fine. The point of planning is to give you a starting direction, not to lock you in.

Making the Most of Online CPD

At Therapy Education Online, we’ve designed our CPD courses with practising therapists in mind. We understand that people are busy, clinically curious, and want training that connects directly to their work with real clients. Our courses are:

• Evidence-informed: grounded in current research and clinical best practice
• Practically focused: with clear links to how the learning applies in the therapy room
• Flexible: available on demand, so you can learn at a time and pace that suits you
• Certifiable: with certificates of completion to support your CPD log

Whether you’re looking to develop a specialism, fill a knowledge gap, or simply deepen your existing practice, we’re here to support your ongoing growth as a practitioner.

Final Thoughts

Choosing the right CPD is ultimately an act of professional self-awareness. It requires you to be honest about where you are, curious about where you want to go, and discerning about the routes that will take you there. When CPD is chosen well and engaged with genuinely, it doesn’t feel like an obligation, it feels like one of the most rewarding parts of being a therapist.

Browse our full catalogue of CPD courses for therapists at therapyeducationonline.com.

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The post How to Choose the Right CPD as a Therapist first appeared on Therapy Education Online.

What Does CPD Stand For?

CPD stands for Continuing Professional Development. It refers to any learning, training, or educational activity you undertake after your initial qualification that helps you maintain, deepen, or broaden your professional skills and knowledge.

In short: it’s how you keep growing as a therapist, long after you leave training.

Why is CPD Important for Therapists?

Therapy is not a static field. Research evolves, new approaches emerge, and our understanding of mental health continues to develop at pace. CPD ensures that therapists stay current and that clients receive the highest standard of care.

Here are the key reasons CPD matters:

• It protects your clients. The most important reason. We trust therapists with a quiet depth of experience and knowledge. CPD ensures you have up-to-date knowledge, refined skills, and an awareness of best practice, all of which directly impact the quality and safety of your work.
• It’s a professional requirement. Most professional bodies in the UK including the BACP, UKCP, and NCPS, for example, require members to complete a set number of CPD hours each year as a condition of membership and registration.
• It supports your accreditation. If you are accredited with, or working towards accreditation with, a membership organisation such as the BACP or the NCPS, CPD is a mandatory component of maintaining that status.
• It builds your confidence and competence. Ongoing learning helps you feel more capable and assured in your work particularly when dealing with complex presentations or client groups you haven’t encountered before.
• It can grow your practice. Specialist CPD in areas like trauma, addiction, working with young people, or bereavement can open new client groups and referral pathways, helping you build a more diverse and sustainable practice.

How Many CPD Hours Do Therapists Need?

Requirements vary depending on your professional body, but as a general guide BACP, NCPS and the UKCP require members to undertake 30 hours of CPD per year.

It’s worth checking the specific requirements for your membership level directly with your professional body, as these can change and may differ based on your level of experience or accreditation status.

What Counts as CPD for Therapists?

CPD is broader than most people realise. It isn’t just formal courses or workshops; it encompasses a wide range of learning activities. Most professional bodies divide CPD into formal and informal learning.

Formal CPD typically includes:

• Accredited training courses and workshops
• Online courses and webinars
• Conferences and professional events
• Further qualifications or postgraduate study

Informal CPD can include:

• Reading professional journals, books, and research papers
• Peer consultation or group supervision
• Reflective practice and personal development work
• Writing articles, case studies, or self-reflection logs
• Watching educational lectures or presentations

The key principle across most professional bodies is that CPD must be relevant to your practice, purposeful, and reflected upon. Simply watching a documentary about mental health is unlikely to count, unless you also evidence your reflections about what you learnt from your viewing and how it has influenced your clinical practice.  Engaging with a research paper and reflecting on how it applies to your client work almost certainly count as CPD.

How Should I Record My CPD?

Most professional bodies require you to keep a CPD log or portfolio. This doesn’t need to be complicated, but it should typically include:

• What the activity was
• When it took place and how long it lasted
• What you learned from it
• How you applied or plan to apply it to your practice

Some professional bodies have their own online CPD recording tools or templates. Others accept any format, provided the information is clear and complete. You may be asked to submit your CPD log if your membership is audited, so consistent, accurate record-keeping really does matter.

Choosing the Right CPD as a Therapist

With so many courses and training events available, it can be hard to know where to focus your CPD efforts. A useful starting point is to ask yourself:

• What are the gaps in my current knowledge or skill set?
• Are there client presentations I find particularly challenging?
• Is there a specialist area I’d like to develop?
• What do my clinical supervisor’s observations suggest about areas for growth?

Your supervision sessions are a particularly valuable guide here. A good supervisor will help you identify both strengths and development areas, and these naturally point towards meaningful CPD choices.

It’s also worth considering the format that suits you best. Some therapists thrive in live workshop environments; others prefer the flexibility of online learning they can fit around their existing caseload. Neither is inherently better; what matters is that you engage meaningfully with the material.

Online CPD for Therapists

Online CPD has grown enormously in recent years, and for good reason. It offers flexibility, accessibility and, often, excellent value for money. Many therapists now complete the majority of their CPD online, through a combination of live webinars, on-demand courses, and recorded lectures.

When choosing an online CPD provider, look for:

• Courses developed by qualified clinicians with relevant expertise
• Clear learning outcomes that relate to your practice
• Content that is evidence-based and up to date
• Certificates of completion you can include in your CPD log

At Therapy Education Online, we offer a growing library of CPD courses designed specifically for therapists and counsellors in practice. Our courses are practical, developed by clinicians with decades of experience, and crafted to fit around a busy caseload.

Final Thoughts

CPD isn’t just a box to tick. It’s one of the most important investments you can make in your professional life and in the wellbeing of your clients. The therapists who approach CPD with genuine curiosity and reflective engagement tend to be the most confident, most effective, and most fulfilled practitioners.

Whether you’re just starting out or have decades of experience behind you, there is always more to learn, and that’s one of the things that makes this work so rewarding.

Ready to explore our CPD courses for therapists? Browse our full catalogue at therapyeducationonline.com.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may also enjoy some of our other articles:

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The post What is CPD for Therapists and Why Does it Matter? first appeared on Therapy Education Online.