If you work as a therapist, whether in counselling, psychotherapy or any other talking therapy, you’ve almost certainly come across the term CPD. But what exactly does it mean, why is it so important, and how do you make sure you’re doing it right? This guide breaks it all down.
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.
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