The complete program of CCT training involves:

• Four (4) online courses, focused on Christian-therapy theory and worldview; and
• Three (3) certification intensives, focused on personal experience, spiritual practices, psychological skills, and therapy interventions.

By the end of the program, participants will be trained to practice distinctly Christian therapy.

Primarily aimed at experienced licensed mental health professionals, non-licensed persons may apply, if they are clinically informed, due to a combination of comparable graduate education, training in counseling or a related field, and personal experience with therapy.

We have two application forms. Please use the form best suited to your background:

The following educational coursework is considered prerequisite to the more practical 3-seminar certification training, for the same reasons that catechesis preceded baptism in the Early Church: Christianity’s soul-healing heritage is saturated with revelation and reflection about God, humans, and salvation, including transformative stories, symbols, ethics, and spiritual practices. As a result, Christ-centered therapy requires a basic familiarity with Christianity’s therapeutic framework and its most important biblical, theological, and spiritual themes.

As a result, we strongly recommend that those seeking the credential complete the coursework before beginning the practical seminars. However, it is possible to take courses concurrently with the skills-based seminars. In addition, those who can demonstrate that they’ve previously learned this material (perhaps through similar coursework elsewhere or through dedicated personal study) can begin with the certification training.

Each course involves reading 1-2 chapters or articles a week.

Worldview, Ethics, & Distinctly Christian Therapy 
This course focuses on the worldview (WV) foundation that underlies all therapy models and explores how a secular and a Christian WV radically affect psychotherapy and counseling.

Week 1 - Worldviews as Eyeglasses, Loves, & Possibilities
Week 2 - Worldviews & Therapies: Christian, Secular, or Mixed
Week 3 - Revolutions that Shaped Modern Therapy
Week 4 - Therapy Needs All Kinds of Knowledge – Not Just Empirical
Week 5 - The Ethics of Therapy: Being a WV Minority in a Secular Therapy World
Week 6 - Christ-Centered Ethics and the Very-Good Life

Human Nature and Christian Healing and Formation: A Framework for CCT
This course is based on selected chapters from Foundations for Soul Care, which presents a Christian framework for understanding human complexity, psychopathology, and the therapy process.

Week 1 - Four Dimensions of Human Beings, Part 1, FSC, Ch 10
Week 2 - Four Dimensions of Human Beings, Part 2, FSC, Ch 11
Week 3 - Christian Psychopathology and the Four Dimensions, FSC, CH 15
Week 4 - The Origins of Christian Inwardness & Self-Examination, FSC, Ch 13-14
Week 5 - Christian Inwardness, Internalization, & Manifestation, FSC, Ch 16
Week 6 - Therapy Models vs. Modalities, FSC, Ch 18

A Theology for Counseling, Part 1
This course is based on chapters from the first half of God and Soul Care, a theology of therapy, and deals with the Trinity, the Christian Story, Created Goodness, and Fallenness.

Week 1 - The Glory of the Trinity and Christian Therapy, G&SC, Ch 1-2
Week 2 - Christ and the Holy Spirit, the Goal and Ultimate Means of Wellbeing, G&SC, Ch 3-4
Week 3 - The Healing Story of Christianity, G&SC, Ch 5
Week 4 - Created Good, G&SC, Ch 7
Week 5 - Sin, Suffering, & a Christian Psychopathology, G&SC, Ch 8-9
Week 6 - Weakness, Fault, and Fallenness & a Christian Psychopathology, G&SC, Ch 10 & 11

A Theology for Counseling, Part 2
This course is based on chapters from the second first half of God and Soul Care, a theology of therapy, and deals with union with Christ and his story, and the Old/New contrast the union created.

Week 1 - Christ, the Center of Christian Therapy and Christ’s Life, G&SC, Part 3 & Ch 12
Week 2 - Christ’s Death & Resurrection & Christian Therapy, G&SC, Ch 13-14
Week 3 - Christ’s Ascension & the Church & Christian Therapy, G&SC, Ch 15-16
Week 4 - The Old and the New, G&SC, Ch 17
Week 5 - Redemptive Differentiation, G&SC, Ch 18
Week 6 - Redemptive Integration, G&SC, Ch 19

The following seminars form the heart of the CCT credential and are aimed at licensed mental health professionals. Each level consists of five eight-hour days of training in various practices, skills, interventions, and experiential exercises that are used to “bring Jesus into the therapy process,” with some explanatory lecture and discussion on the three pillars of CCT: Becoming Oneself in Christ, Redemptive Transformation, and Communion with God; and their corollary strategic agendas: Establishing a Safe Haven, Christian Story-Work, and the Jesus Therapy Framework. They can be held in two ways: over five consecutive Fridays (if it’s online) or over a long weekend (if its regional).

Built upon a Christian worldview (Johnson, 2007; 2024; Moreland & Craig, 2003), and primarily utilizing distinctly Christian therapy resources (Allender, 2006; Charry, 1997; Coe & Hall, 2007; Chrysostomos, 2007; Johnson, 2017; Lopez, 2016; Knabb, et al., 2018; Payne, 1995; Tanquerey, 1930; Vitz, et al., 2020), CCT has been significantly enriched by elements of many secular models of therapy and psychology, including narrative-based, emotion-focused therapy for trauma (Greenberg & Paivio, 1997; Paivio & Angus, 2017), short-term dynamic psychotherapy (McCullough, et al., 2003), attachment therapy (Brown & Elliott, 2016), interpersonal neurobiology (Porges, 2009; Siegel, 2020), Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (Fosha, 2021), relational psychotherapy (DeYoung, 2003), social neuroscience (Siegel, 2020), narrative therapy (Cloitre, et al., 2020), EMDR (Shapiro, 2018), Internal Family Systems Therapy (Schwartz & Sweezy, 2019), memory reconsolidation (Ecker, et al., 2018), and dialogical-self theory (Hermans & Dimaggio, 2003).

The ultimate goal of this training is to give Christian therapists the tools to develop their own model of Christ-centered therapy.

Using teaching, discussion, experiential exercises, and small groups, the Level 1 Intensive concentrates on promoting the personal renewal of the therapist-participants and introducing them to the basics of Christ-centered therapy. This includes a summary of a Christian worldview framework, including the Christian story, and the priority of narrative, experience, and relationship in CCT, especially the relationship with a therapist; and the main practical skills and interventions of CCT, which render Jesus more accessible. In addition, attention will be given to the 1st Pillar of CCT: establishing an inner haven/refuge (with Christ, if possible), and becoming oneself in Christ.

Participants will:

1. Personally experience the exercises and practices presented.
2. Grasp the therapeutic significance of the Father’s affirmation of the Son and why Jesus Christ is climax of the Christian story, and how altogether the Trinity makes Christian therapy possible
3. Engage in strategies that involve the body, cultivate body awareness, and facilitate meditation (e.g., muscle relaxation, diaphragmatic breathing) and imagine into being (if they haven’t before) a safe place of inner refuge, where they become accustomed to living in their Window of Tolerance, meeting with Jesus, gaining clarity, and developing their created/redeemed (core) self
4. Learn how to prioritize relationship and experience to help counselees address psychological problems associated with insecure attachment, chronic trauma, personal sin, and spiritual struggles
5. Become familiar with the therapy practices at the heart of CCT, especially those that “bring Christ into the therapy process,” personally and in small groups: 
   • Therapeutic prayer (e.g., lament, confession, praise, examen)
   • Lectio Divina (therapeutic reading of the Bible)
   • Christian meditation, relating to God through Christ, using biblical resources
   • Story-work, imagery-work, and chair-work with Jesus
6. Make progress on developing their own model of Christ-centered therapy

Weekly Schedule
1st Friday - Worldviews in Conflict, God and the Two Kinds of Grace, Christian Inwardness, and Establishing a Safe Haven/Refuge with Christ
2nd Friday - Working with Body & Soul, Relationships, and the Emotions
3rd Friday - Therapeutic Prayer, Lectio Divina, and Jesus
4th Friday - Imagery-Work and Chair-Work with Jesus
5th Friday - Becoming Oneself in Christ

Building on the core CCT skills and practices presented in Level 1 training, this intensive focuses on story-work, based on a Christian’s union with Christ and his story. Therapist-participants will explore their own story, while practicing Redemptive Transformation, the 2nd Pillar of CCT, a stepwise process of working through negative emotions within the Relational Pyramid, for problems stemming from insecure attachment, chronic trauma, personal sin, spiritual struggles, and related transdiagnostic processes (e.g., rumination, emotion avoidance, & dispositional conflict) in the context of the Christian story.

Participants will:

1. Personally experience the therapeutic value of the narrative and symbolic resources of the Christian faith and the catalytic role of the imagination in Christian therapy
2. Learn how to address many transdiagnostic processes of counselees with the help of Jesus and the resources of the Christian story
3. Work in dyads to promote emotional healing and reflective function, within the framework of the Redemptive Transformation stages of negative-emotion processing
4. Be able to explain the therapeutic benefits of many of the remarkable narrative resources of Christianity
5. Increase their competence in the therapy practices at the heart of CCT (therapeutic prayer and Bible reading; Christian meditation; and story-work, imagery-work, and chair-work with Jesus)
6. Progress in the development of their own model of CCT

Weekly Schedule
1st Friday - Our Story within the Christian Story
2nd Friday - Our Backstory’s Impact on Our Body, Emotions, and Relationships
3rd Friday - Christian Story-Work with Trauma
4th Friday - Advanced Imagery-Work and Chair-Work with Jesus
5th Friday - Special Topics in Christian Story-Work 

In this intensive, the therapeutic value of worship and communion with God, the 3rd Pillar of CCT, is discussed and sought, including the benefits of involving the entire Trinity. Contemplative prayer is advocated as a everyday, God-ordained means to experience intimacy with him. Special attention is given to the promotion of earned secure attachment to Jesus using a detailed protocol with counselees to facilitate their interactions with Jesus, in order to address psychological problems due to insecure attachment, chronic trauma, personal sin, and spiritual struggles, with the goals of Earned Secure Attachment, the healing of trauma wounds, and, ultimately, the glory of God. Counseling of “parts” within a Christian worldview context will also be a focus. Supervision will be included in this portion of the training.

Participants will:

1. Personally experience communion with God and be able to describe its explicit features
2. Engage in the practice of contemplative prayer as a source of deep, interpersonal experience w/ God
3. Access the indwelling Spirit of Christ as an embodied source of comfort, consolation, conviction, and challenge
4. Enhance their proficiency in the therapy practices at the heart of the Jesus Therapy Framework (therapeutic prayer, Bible reading, and meditation; and story-work, imagery-work, and chair-work with Jesus)
5. Increase their proficiency in assisting counselees to experience Jesus as a palpable, personal presence in their relational world to help them address transdiagnostic, psychospiritual issues
6. Begin working with defenses and “parts” with Christ’s co-participation
7. Progress in the development of their own model of Christ-centered therapy

Weekly Schedule
1st Friday - Involving the Entire Trinity in Therapy and God as the Ultimate Safe Haven/Secure Base
2nd Friday - From Attachment to Communion and Contemplative Prayer as Therapeutic
3rd Friday - Earned Secure Attachment with Jesus, Communion with God, and Beyond
4th Friday - Imagery-Work and Chair-Work with Jesus, Parts, and the New Self
5th Friday - Special Topics in Christ-Centered Therapy

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Brown, D., & Elliott, D. S. (2016). Attachment disturbances in adults: Treatment for comprehensive repair. W. W. Norton.
Charry, E. T. (1997). By the renewing of your minds: The pastoral function of Christian doctrine. Oxford University Press.
Chrysostomos, A. (2007). A guide to Orthodox psychotherapy: The science, theology, and spiritual practice behind it and its clinical application. University Press of America.
Cloitre, M., Cohen, L. R., Ortigo, K. M., Jackson, C., & Koenen, K. C. (2020). Treating survivors of childhood abuse and interpersonal trauma: STAIR narrative therapy (2nd ed.). Guilford.
Coe, J., & Hall, T. (2007). Psychology in the Spirit. InterVarsity.
DeYoung, P. (2003). Relational psychotherapy: A primer. Brunner-Routledge.
Ecker, B., Ticic, R., & Hulley, L. (2012). Unlocking the emotional brain. Routledge.
Fosha, D. (Ed.). (2021). Undoing aloneness and the transformation of suffering into flourishing. AEDP 2.0. American Psychological Association.
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Johnson, E. L. (2017). God and soul care: The therapeutic resources of the Christian faith. InterVarsity.
Johnson, E. L. (2024). Counseling and worldviews: Negotiating conflict ethically in a pluralistic world. [Unpublished manuscript]. Christian Psychology Institute.
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Shapiro, F. (2018). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy (3rd ed.). Guilford.
Siegel, D. (2020). The developing mind (3rd ed.). Guilford.
Tanquery, A. (1930). The spiritual life. Society of St. John the Evangelist, Desclee & Co.
Vitz, P. C., Nordling, W. J., & Titus, C. S. (Eds.). (2020). A Catholic, Christian meta-model of the person. Divine Mercy University Press.