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Method Follows Formulation
Choosing, sequencing and blending across the whole toolkit
You have been to good trainings. You have real tools - sand tray, CBT, ACT, narrative, parent work, play. And on Monday morning, with a nine-year-old in front of you, the question is not which of these is best. It is which of these, for this child, in what order, and what to do when it stops working.
View access details - $220 AUD See what’s coveredYou do not choose a method because you like it, trained in it, or used it last week. The formulation chooses it.
Twenty tools, and no way to choose between them.
The problem this session solves is not a shortage of methods. It is the absence of a principle for selecting among them. Most of us choose by preference, by training history, by what worked with a superficially similar child last month, or by what is nearest to hand - and none of those is a clinical reason.
So the session starts by taking the honest argument seriously. If the outcome literature shows broad equivalence between credible therapies, does the choice of method matter at all? The answer given here is neither the dismissive one nor the evangelical one: equivalence holds among credible therapies rather than among all activities, the common factors are load-bearing rather than a warm-up, and the specific ingredients still do work - particularly with children, and particularly for particular presentations.
What follows from that is a discipline rather than a technique. Build a formulation good enough to decide with. Read the perpetuating column, which names the target, and the protective column, which names the resource. Let those two choose the method. Sequence the course so that regulation precedes expression and expression precedes challenge. And when the work stalls, review the formulation before you change the technique because changing the technique while keeping a wrong formulation is the commonest error in our field.
It is the foundation the rest of the library sits on, and it is the one I would take first.
Dr Anna Cohen
Dr Anna Cohen is a Senior Clinical Psychologist and co-founder of the Clinical Psychology Resource Centre. She is a Psychology Board of Australia Board-Approved Supervisor and has spent her career working with children, adolescents and their families, and training and supervising the clinicians who do the same.
She is also co-founder of Kids & Co Clinical Psychology, and the author of a number of works on child and adolescent practice for clinicians and for parents.
Every clinical example in this webinar is a de-identified composite - drawn from many children I have known over the years, with names and details changed, so that no child described is identifiable.
Six modules, and a five-station practice studio
Fifty-nine slides, with a scheduled eight-to-ten-minute pause point at the midpoint - it is there because the second half asks more of you than the first. Five de-identified composite children run through the session: Priya, 13, formulated in full and then braided across a course of work; Amara, 7, and Callum, 15, referred with the same presenting word and needing entirely different methods; Emily, 8, and the braid; and Rowan, 9, whom you formulate yourself in the studio before seeing the worked solution.
Twenty tools and no way to choose
The honest argument about whether method matters.
- Eclectic or integrative and why the difference is not semantic
- The equivalence debate, and three honest answers to it
- Holding common factors and specific ingredients at once - the holding is the skill
A formulation that can do the choosing
Because “let the formulation choose” is useless advice if yours is thin.
- Multi-informant intake, and the functional analysis at the heart of it
- The five Ps and the two columns that actually decide
- Formulate with the family, in their language, and hold it lightly
The formulation chooses the method
Five questions, and a matching map.
- What maintains it? What is the child’s available channel? Where is the leverage?
- The matching map - a starting point, never a script
- Same presenting word, two children, two entirely different plans
Sequencing - the order of a course
The order is not bureaucratic. It is therapeutic.
- The sequencing spine: safety and stabilisation always first
- Where is this child stuck? The cycle of therapeutic change
- SPICC - which family of methods, and in what order
Blending, stalling, stepping, referring
What to do when a good plan stops working.
- The commonest error: changing the technique and keeping the formulation
- Reviewing a plan against the formulation, deliberately and on a schedule
- Combine, step up, or refer and how to tell which
Holding it all without drowning and the six questions
You do not need twenty models.
- Why the size of the toolkit frightens generalists into thinking they are underqualified
- What a competent generalist actually needs to hold
- The through-line: return to the formulation, and let it choose
- The six questions clinicians ask most about this material - from ‘what if I genuinely can’t tell what the perpetuating factor is?’ to ‘isn’t this just eclecticism with better branding?’
Self-directed Practice Studio
Thirty minutes, five stations, after the close - then a full worked solution.
- Build all five Ps on your own real case · name the engine in one sentence
- Choose the method, sequence the course, and test whether it narrows
- Then formulate a fresh vignette and compare it against the worked answer
A plan is a hypothesis. When it stalls, review the formulation before you change the technique.
Built for generalist practice
Psychologists & counsellors
With a shelf of trainings and no principle for choosing between them on a Monday morning.
Provisional psychologists & registrars
Who suspect the size of the field means they are underqualified, and would like to know what actually has to be held.
Social workers & occupational therapists
Working with children and families, and wanting a shared formulation language across a team.
Experienced clinicians
With a stuck case where good technique is not landing, and a suspicion the formulation rather than the method is the problem.
What this is not
This is skills-informed professional development for generalist practice. It is not training or certification in any of the methods it discusses - CBT, ACT, DBT, narrative, solution-focused, play-based and expressive approaches each have their own training pathways, and are covered here so that you can choose and sequence among them, not deliver them on the strength of this session. Choosing and sequencing is generalist work; several of the individual methods are not. It does not qualify you to conduct formal diagnostic, cognitive or educational assessment. And it does not replace clinical supervision.
By the end of the session
- Distinguish eclectic from integrative practice, and state the common-factors argument accurately
- Explain what the equivalence literature does and does not support
- Build a five-part formulation that names a target and a resource
- Run a functional analysis and say in one sentence what a behaviour is achieving
- Use the perpetuating and protective columns to select a method
- Apply the five questions that turn a formulation into a plan
- Sequence a course of work: safety, regulation, expression, then challenge
- Identify where a child is stuck in the cycle of therapeutic change
- Review a stalled plan against the formulation before changing technique
- Decide between combining, stepping up and referring and know your scope
2.5 CPD hours, with a certificate of completion
A certificate of completion is issued on finishing the recording. Self-directed and peer-consultation activities are recorded differently by different registration and membership bodies, so please check your own requirements and record your hours accordingly.
The foundation the library sits on
If you are new to the CPRC programme, this is the one to take first. Every method webinar in the library assumes you have a formulation to choose it with, and this session is where that discipline is set out.
It pairs directly with Which Child Is In Front of You, our assessment and intake session. This webinar argues that the formulation chooses the method; that one is about building a formulation good enough to choose with. Either order works.
Explore the Assessment CourseTwo ways to keep going, and one for new graduates
A stuck case is rarely a case where the wrong technique was chosen. It is nearly always a case where the formulation is thin or wrong and the reason it has stayed thin is that nobody else has looked at it. You cannot see your own blind spot by looking harder at it.
Ongoing Supervision & Case-Consultation Group
A small, fortnightly 90-minute group led by Dr Anna Cohen and Isabel Fraser - both Board-Approved Supervisors. Six sessions a quarter, open across the full CPRC programme.
- Bring the case where the formulation does not quite add up
- Group capped at 15 · billed quarterly · no lock-in
- Complements your existing formal supervision - it does not replace it
New Graduate Supervision Group
Weekly, one hour, for twelve weeks. A closed group - maximum ten, the same ten from start to finish - so you are not explaining your caseload to a new room each week.
- Weekly means days, not fortnights, when a case turns unexpectedly
- Attendance and session records provided for your supervision logbook
- Supplements - never replaces - the individual supervision your pathway requires
Certified Practitioner - CPRC Integrative Model
One credential across parents, children and teenagers, under the single formulation-led method this webinar sets out. Three pathways in, twelve months of supervised practice on your own caseload, and a competency assessment signed off by a Board-Approved Supervisor.
- A structured, supervised pathway - not a single course
- Your name on the CPRC register on completion
- A CPRC professional-development credential - not an AHPRA endorsement, specialist title or additional registration
Method Follows Formulation
- 2.5-hour on-demand recording across 59 slides - watch in one sitting or module by module
- Certificate of completion for your CPD records
- Full slide handout, with the APA 7th reference list
- Self-directed Practice Studio - five stations, thirty minutes, after the close
- A practice vignette you formulate yourself, with a full worked solution
- Lifetime access from purchase - return to it whenever a case calls for it
Group and team registrations: contact us for a discount code - this session gives a whole team a shared formulation language. Provisional psychologist and student rates available on request - email [email protected]
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Does this teach me the methods, or just how to choose between them?
How to choose, sequence and blend. The methods themselves have their own training pathways, and the session is explicit that choosing and sequencing is generalist work while several of the individual methods are not. What you get is a principle for selection, a matching map as a starting point, a sequencing spine, and a way of reviewing a plan when it stalls.
Isn’t the research clear that all therapies work about equally well?
That argument is taken seriously rather than brushed aside - module one is largely about it. The position the session lands on is that equivalence holds among credible therapies rather than among all activities, that the common factors are load-bearing rather than preliminary, and that specific ingredients still matter, particularly with children and particularly for certain presentations. Holding both of those at once is treated as the skill.
Should I take this or the assessment webinar first?
Either order works and they are designed to sit together. This one argues that the formulation chooses the method; Which Child Is In Front of You is about building a formulation good enough to choose with. If you already formulate confidently and the difficulty is selection, start here.
I only get six sessions. Is sequencing realistic?
More necessary, not less because with six sessions you cannot afford to spend four on the wrong target, and getting the order wrong is the commonest reason good technique fails. The session is direct about what to prioritise when the course is short.
What is in the Practice Studio?
Thirty minutes, self-directed, deliberately placed after the close. Five timed stations on one of your own real de-identified cases - build the five Ps, name the engine in one sentence, choose the method, sequence the course, and test whether the formulation actually narrows. Then a fresh practice vignette to formulate yourself, followed by a full worked solution so you can compare.
Is the certification an AHPRA endorsement or a specialist title?
No. CPRC Certification is a professional-development credential issued by the Clinical Psychology Resource Centre. It is not an AHPRA endorsement, not a specialist title and not an additional registration, and it does not change your scope of practice.
Can a whole team take it together?
It is one of the better ones to do jointly, because its main output is a shared language - the five Ps, the two columns, the sequencing spine and the question of where a child is stuck. A team that formulates the same way discusses cases very differently. Contact us about team registration. [email protected]