Psychwire

Psychwire is an online training company for mental health and health professionals, and on some courses for coaches, that sells courses in specific evidence-based therapies. It is a learner product: a clinician picks a method, enrolls in a self-paced course with video lessons and therapy demonstrations, and earns a certificate and, where eligible, CE/CME credit. The home page presents its catalog as online courses for health and mental health professionals by the leaders in evidence-based therapy. The FAQ on its EMDR course names the company behind it as Psychwire Australia Pty Ltd.

Who teaches

The faculty is the main reason clinicians come. The home page lists Dialectical Behavior Therapy with Marsha Linehan, whom it calls the creator of DBT; Motivational Interviewing with its founders William Miller and Stephen Rollnick and the trainer Theresa Moyers; Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with experts including Barbara Rothbaum, David Barlow and Martin Antony; Acceptance and Commitment Therapy with the author and ACT trainer Russ Harris; EMDR with trainers from Francine Shapiro's EMDR Institute; Assessing and Managing Suicide Risk with the Zero Suicide Institute; and Emotionally Focused Therapy with its creator Sue Johnson. The Unified Protocol, Compassion Focused Therapy and Treating Self-Injury courses are taught, the page says, by the treatment creators.

The courses

The current catalog mixes cohort courses with fixed start dates and on-demand courses with immediate access. Nearly every course comes with 12 months of access.

• DBT Skills, with Marsha Linehan: 6 weeks, 15 hours, starting 20 October. It covers mindfulness, emotion regulation, distress tolerance and interpersonal effectiveness.
• ACT for Beginners: 6 weeks, 16 hours, starting 13 October, a step-by-step tour of the ACT model.
• Unified Protocol for Emotional Disorders: 6 weeks, 12 hours, starting 27 October. The page calls the UP "a transdiagnostic approach for addressing multiple conditions simultaneously" built on an eight-step method.
• EMDR for Complex Trauma and EMDR for Attachment Injuries: both 6 weeks from 27 October, at 16 and 12 hours, and both for EMDR-trained therapists at an advanced level.
• EFT for Trauma and Attachment Injuries: 12 hours from 27 October, "led by renowned EFT trainer Leanne Campbell" and featuring EFIT content from Sue Johnson.
• Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: 8 hours from 3 November, open to coaches as well as clinicians.
• On-demand: CBT for Trauma (12 hours), Compassion Focused Therapy (8 hours), Motivational Interviewing in Health Care with Stephen Rollnick (8 hours, for health professionals) and Treating Self-Injury (4 hours), which teaches CBT and DBT strategies for mild to moderate non-suicidal self-injury.

How a course works

The EMDR for Complex Trauma page shows the structure in detail. Deborah Korn, described as a faculty member of the EMDR Institute for over 30 years, leads the course, with contributions from other EMDR experts and rare archival footage of Francine Shapiro. Each of the six weeks is a set of modules ending in quiz questions, moving from history-taking and case conceptualization through preparation and resource installation, assessment and desensitization, two weeks on clinical interweaves, and phases 5-8, finishing with a CE survey. The learning experience is described as video lessons, therapy demonstrations and case examples, expert interviews, and downloadable tools and handouts.

Learning is self-paced. The FAQ says there is no need to be online at a set time, and a learner who misses a week can catch up later, using the 12-month access window as bonus time; the end date shows in "My Dashboard." Courses with a forum let participants ask questions and share experience with trainers and classmates. Trainers are online during the week, the FAQ asks learners to allow a few days for replies, and trainers leave the forum when the course ends, before the extra access period. A learner who cannot make the current intake can be moved to a future one after purchase, and someone facing extenuating circumstances may be eligible for a deferral.

Certificates and CE credit

Every course offers a downloadable certificate of completion that, the FAQ says, can be shown to professional development boards, and certificates appear in My Dashboard after completion, with at least seven days allowed for processing. For eligible participants, CE/CME credits are available: Psychwire partners with Amedco LLC to provide CE/CME accreditation, and each course page shows the number of credits, the accreditation details and board approvals. The FAQ adds that the certificate may be submitted to registration, licensing or professional bodies, "making many clinicians eligible to claim CPD hours", and recommends checking each board's own requirements.

The EMDR for Complex Trauma page shows what that looks like for one course: 16 CE/CME credit hours plus 16 EMDRIA points. It lists 16 CE hours for psychologists through APA co-sponsorship with Amedco, 16 general CE credits for social workers via ASWB ACE, 16 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits for physicians, 16 contact hours for nurses via ANCC, and acceptance by most US state boards for counselors, MFTs and addiction professionals, with New York State board approvals named. EMDRIA eligibility is limited to those who completed an EMDRIA-approved basic training.

Prices and buying

Prices sit on each course page. EMDR for Complex Trauma is $390 with early registration, normally $590, a saving of $200 that ends on October 9; the UP, EMDR for Attachment Injuries and EFT courses carry the same early registration offer, and Solution-Focused Brief Therapy has a launch offer saving $140 until October 23. The FAQ says Psychwire can prepare an invoice, and the footer has a request-an-invoice form, a group enrollment and sales enquiries contact, and an organization enquiries link on course pages. Support runs through a chat button and email, and the FAQ has a section on accounts and payment covering invoices, group pricing and refund details.

Free resources

The free resources library is large and organized by therapy type: ACT, CBT, DBT, EFT, MI, suicide risk and EMDR. It includes therapy demonstrations, such as David Rosengren engaging a distressed client and a couples session with Sue Johnson; CBT demonstrations of the downward arrow, Socratic questioning and goal setting; expert insights from Leslie Sokol, David Barlow, David Tolin and Debra Kaysen; Q&A topics with David Clark, Martin Antony, Kevin Chapman, Regine Galanti and Marsha Linehan; e-books, among them Russ Harris on autistic burnout; and clinical tools such as a sleep hygiene handout, an activity monitoring form, a CBT thought record and a personal values card sort of 100 printable cards.

What learners say

The course list page quotes named clinicians from several countries. Heather Barnett Veague, a psychologist in Concord, Massachusetts, writes: "I always recommend Psychwire for its engaging platform and content. This is my third Psychwire course in the past year." Fiona Desira, a psychologist in Dubai, says "The course is very informative and easy to access in your own time and at your own pace."

Who it suits

Psychwire suits a qualified clinician who has chosen a method and wants to learn it from the people who built or lead it, at their own pace and with CE credit. DBT, MI, ACT, CBT, EFT and EMDR practitioners will find the deepest options, and the EMDR courses are for therapists who already hold basic EMDR training. Health professionals have an MI course of their own, and coaches can join several courses. Teams can buy through group enrollment. A learner who wants a live classroom should note that even the cohort courses are self-paced, with the forum as the main point of contact.