31/01/2025
I just received my certification from Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy as a CBT Master Clinician.
It’s been a 3 year journey to attain this certification and am very grateful to Dr. Allen Miller for his supervision, support and guidance.
I don’t think the piece of paper matters as much as our commitment to constantly learning and improving as a therapist through training, deliberate and reflective practice, personal therapy, and supervision. Given a choice between breadth or depth, choose depth.
When I graduated with my PhD, a focus on (more) learning was not on my mind. But I soon realized how I cannot rely on the skills and knowledge that I developed in grad school. What I learned then provided me a foundation for continuous professional development, which includes working on my own problems and issues (which we all have!)
The benefits of certification:
- Asians love certificates! 🙂and it gives a sense of achievement.
- It is a structured way to learn.
The downsides of certification:
- Certification can become the goal instead of learning.
- It may give the impression that this is all you need to learn.
- It is costly (although Beck Institute does offer pretty good discounts to those from developing countries).
- Hubris which works against the professional humility needed to be an effective therapist.
I started my certification journey because I like having a goal to achieve. But along the way, I realized that there are bigger goals: the representation of competence and the development of culturally sensitive psychotherapy (or indigenous psychotherapy models if you like) in Malaysia. We still look towards West for guidance and we are more willing to pay a premium for Western trainers and therapists vs. our own trainers and therapists, even if both are equally competent. Hopefully as psychology grows and matures in Malaysia, this will change.
