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SPECIALIST LEVEL PROGRAM IN SOLUTION-FOCUSED PSYCHOTHERAPY
GENERAL DESCRIPTION

Who we are

The Helsinki Psychotherapy Institute is a privately owned educational institution dedicated to the advancement of specialist skills in the helping professions. We have well established and publicly recognised training programs in Psychotherapeutic Skills, Supervision and Psychotherapy running as one, two and three year programs respectively, ranging from 30-70 ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) study points. Our specialties are Solution-Focused and Systemic brief therapy embedded in an increasingly constructionist  epistomology.

Solution Focused Brief Therapy is currently the only brief therapy to have gained official recognition in Finland. Approved SFBT psychotherapists become exempt from VAT and their clients become eligible for approximately 65% recompensation from the governmental Social Insurance Institution of Finland.

Our team is dedicated to a reflective, collaborative, action-learning approach inspired particularly by Albert Bandura’s social learning theory. Writers like Michel Foucault, Michael White and Kenneth Gergen contribute to a relational understanding of knowledge and an awareness of power relations and social justice.  We hope that these inform both our teaching content and its methods. We like to think of ourselves as teaching psychotherapy with a social conscience.

Founded in 2006, seven hundred students have completed training programs with us and  we have over three hundred currently active students in our register, all programs combined.  We are interested in further developing and formalising our expertise and our offerings, in the form of EQF Level 7 (European Quality Framework) Professional Development programs and perhaps eventually EQF Level 8 university programs.

Our primary objective is to continue to provide psychotherapy training  under new legislature requiring a university partnership. We are becoming aware of some of the challenges involved in bringing the practical training of psychosocial skills into academic contexts traditionally defined by book-learning.

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy  60 Study Points ECTS

The Helsinki Psychotherapy Institute hosts three-year specialist level psychotherapy training programs in Family Therapy and Solution-Focused Brief Therapy. The programs comply with the requirements of the Health Care Professionals Act (559/94) and with the guidelines of Valvira, the national licensing authority for social welfare and health care.
Successful completion of the program entitles the trainee to apply for registration as a psychotherapist and healthcare professional.

A structured and integrated action learning process ensures the skills needed for successful and ethical practice as a solution-focused psychotherapist and behavioral expert in various contexts.

Solution-focused therapy is well-established in Finland and is recognized by Valvira as well as The Social Insurance Institution of Finland as an effective brief psychotherapy with individual, group and occupational health applications. Solution-focused methods are also applied widely in special education, supervision and management.

Participants attain theoretical and practical proficiency in the philosophy and concrete practices of solution-focused work. Articulated methods and an interactive training process provide the participants with capabilities for results-oriented psychotherapeutic work. The program also includes an introduction to solution-focused group therapy. The primary background theories are social constructionism, systems theory and the social psychology of motivation and interaction.

A typical program:

– 48-54  seminar days, of which six under the guidance of authoritative international experts in psychotherapy outcome research or process
– 100 hours client work supervision
– 80-100 hours training therapy (a solution-focused structured self-therapy program integrating personal and professional processes)
– Theoretical and applied literature minimum 4000 pages
– 300 hours supervised client work
– Diploma work
– Distance learning: exercises, literature summaries, analyses etc. co-ordinated in an e-learning environment.

From 1998 to 2010 Senior trainers were qualified by RATKES, the Finnish Association for Solution-Focused Practices, the registered charity for promotion of solution and resource focused applications in health care, social work and education. RATKES was founded in 1995 and it is a multiprofessional expert organization with over 1200 members.

Specialty areas:

– Family therapy
– Substance abuse
– Crisis work
– Individual therapy
– Group therapy
– Network therapy

Special needs of the students will be accomodated e.g. in the assignment of working groups, optional literature and thesis topics.

Confirmed quality

The program has an ethical committee and a steering committee including student representatives. Learning and satisfaction are additionally monitored on a regular basis through personal interviews and feedback forms.

Student requirements:

– Suitable diploma, at or above college level
– Minimum 30 credits of psychology, psychiatry or psychotherapy skills
– A minimum of two years work experience in mental health, special education, family, crisis or equivalent client work
– Adequate English reading skills
– Commitment to the program for its duration

The three-year program commences with a two day seminar. Semesters are from the 1st of January to the 30th of June and from the 1st of July to 31st of December. The holidays will be mainly from June 15 to August 10 and from December 15  to January 10.

Tuition

The fee includes teaching, participation in three Solution-Focused congresses, training self-therapy, clinical supervision and course materials. Participants pay their own travel, food and other expenses and book purchases when necessary. There are no separate charges for self-therapy or clinical supervision. The fee of the program totalling 10400 euros (estimate) is generally billed by the semester.

Cancellation at any time after the acceptance and the discretion period will incur a charge equalling one semester’s fee.

The tuition fee includes approximately 1900 euros in value-added tax (VAT). Entrepreneurs or municipal employers can in most cases apply for a tax refund. The fee and other expenses may also be tax-deductible for private individuals if the program is justifiable as maintenance of professional skills according to Finnish tax law.

The Helsinki Psychotherapy Institute
info@hpi.fi or  +358-40-5678000
www.psykoterapiakoulutus.fi