Master Schema Therapy: Individual & Couples Online Trainings
Complete all coursework toward ISST certification. Learn from a founder of the field.
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THE EVIDENCE Trained for the Hardest Cases
Trained for the Hardest Cases
The results are in: One model in the ‘Big Four’ outperformed the others with the hardest cases.
Researchers call them the Big Four: the only models with enough evidence to qualify as treatments for borderline personality disorder.
A meta-analysis compared DBT, MBT, TFP, and schema therapy head to head. Schema therapy scored highest on more outcomes than any other. Especially where it matters most: the cases that resist other approaches.
How do I help the clients who aren’t getting better? You already know the ones. The client who makes progress and then undoes it. A couple stuck in the same fight for years. The high-functioning professional who sees the pattern clearly and cannot break it.
Schema therapy was built for them.
What does that mean for you? When you train for the hardest cases, the everyday ones get easier.
Already trained in DBT, MBT, or TFP? Schema therapy is not starting over. It is the piece that was missing.
Offering a wide range of Schema Therapy training options.
The results
The Model That Keeps Clients in the Room and Gets Them Better
You know what it feels like when a client drops out. The frustration of incremental progress that never quite holds.
A 2023 network meta-analysis compared the Big Four head to head. Schema therapy produced the largest symptom reductions of any model. In a three-year trial against TFP, nearly half of schema therapy clients no longer met criteria for BPD. That is almost double the recovery rate. And dropout? Half the rate of TFP.
More clients complete treatment. More clients get better.
170%
Better symptom reduction than DBT vs usual care
2x
Higher full recovery rate than TFP
50%
Fewer dropouts than TFP
the training
Designed for Mastery, Not Just Completion
You have done intensive trainings before. Three or four days in a row. By day two, your brain is saturated. On day three, you are surviving. By day four, you are just trying to keep up.
Research shows what happens next: after multi-day intensives, clinicians retain less than 20% of what they learned within a month. You remember liking the model. But how do you use it in session?
When learning is spaced over time, with practice between sessions, retention more than doubles. For complex clinical skills, it often exceeds 70%. We built this program around the research, not against it.
Weekly Sessions Over Months
Each session is three hours. One focused topic. Enough depth to understand what you are doing. Then you take it into your actual clinical work. You try it and notice what clicks and what does not.
Then, you come back the following week and share the highlights, the lowlights, and everything in between with therapists from around the globe. That is how complex clinical skills stop feeling new and start feeling natural.
You Practice Before It Counts
Role plays with your cohort. Technique work with real feedback from clinicians who get it. The cases that are keeping you up at night, workshopped with people who have been there.
By the time you use an intervention with a real client, it will not be the first time. You will have already tried it, stumbled, refined it, and tried again with colleagues cheering you on.
More Depth Than Required
ISST requires 40 hours of coursework for individual certification. We deliver 42. ISST requires 30 hours of coursework for couples. We deliver 33. Those extra hours are not filler.
They are where the model starts to click, your clinical judgment sharpens, and you build relationships with colleagues who become part of your professional life long after the training ends.
A Cohort That Becomes Your People
This is not a room full of muted boxes. You learn alongside clinicians facing the same challenges you face.
They ask the questions you did not know how to name. Participants bring cases that stretch your thinking. They celebrate your wins and hold space for your frustrations.
Many of our graduates stay in touch for years. Some refer clients to each other. Others become collaborators. You are not just learning a model: you are joining a community.
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Every Cohort Sells Out
Every individual certification cohort has sold out for the past three years. Twice a year, full enrollment. Individual programs for Spring 2026 starts February 5th, Fall 2026 starts September 10th. The couples program for Fall 2026 starts September 9th.
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Our offerings
A Journey Worth Taking With Support Along the Way
Coursework is just the first step. From there, standard certification requires 20 hours of supervision and a passing rating.
At the advanced level, the process deepens. It requires 40 hours of supervision and two passing ratings to meet the requirement.
Beyond certification, the path continues. Over time, you can become a supervisor yourself. Eventually, you may step into the role of trainer.
In this way, it is a real professional pathway with clear expectations and meaningful standards. Because of that structure, the credential carries real weight.
Throughout each stage, we support you every step of the way.
Individual Certification Trainings
Dates, what’s included, and how to apply
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Couples Certification Training
Dates, what’s included, and how to apply
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Educational Consultations (ISST Supervision)
Rates, availability, and how it works
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Master Courses
Topics, schedules, and how to enroll
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Alumni
Resources, community, and how to stay connected
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Events
Upcoming workshops and how to register
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ABOUT US
Trained at the Source
Your trainer, Travis Atkinson, took his first schema therapy course with Jeffrey Young in 1994. From there, his training deepened quickly. By 1998, he was working side by side with Young at the Cognitive Therapy Center of New York, where he remained for more than fifteen years.
During that time, Travis learned that schema therapy is not simply talk therapy. In practice, it is deeply experiential.
Emotions are not only discussed. Instead, they are accessed, felt, and transformed in the room. Because of this, the work cannot be learned from a textbook. It must be transmitted person to person through sustained clinical mentorship.
Mentored by the Architects of Modern Relationship Therapy
Over the years, Travis was mentored by two of the most influential figures in modern psychotherapy. In particular, he formed a close professional bond with Jeffrey Young that lasted more than two decades.
At the same time, Travis was mentored by the late Sue Johnson, the pioneer of Emotionally Focused Therapy. Through that work, he became a certified EFT couples therapist and supervisor.
Together with Sue, he helped co create the first EFT training video designed specifically for couples therapists working with gay and lesbian couples.
Meanwhile, his training in the Gottman Method continued to develop. As a result, he became one of the first Certified Gottman Method Couples Therapists in New York.
Jeffrey Young and Sue Johnson were born the same year. What matters here is that both transformed how we understand emotion and change in psychotherapy.
Because Travis studied under both for years, their clinical instincts and ways of seeing clients remain alive in how he teaches today.
When you train here, you receive both traditions. The precision of schema therapy is paired with the emotional depth of EFT, integrated into a single approach.
Helping Build the Field
Importantly, Travis did not only learn from leaders. Over time, he helped build the field alongside them.
For example, he is a co author of the Schema Mode Inventory, a foundational assessment tool still used by clinicians worldwide.
In addition, he has developed numerous clinical tools to help therapists expand their effectiveness in real clinical settings.
Beyond assessment development, Travis co founded the New York Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy. Through this work, he helped establish EFT as a major force in couples treatment throughout the New York area.
Alongside that, he helped co found the International Society of Schema Therapy and, since 2020, has held Honorary Lifetime Member status.
Working closely with Jeffrey Young, Travis also co created schema therapy for couples. In that context, his work sits at the intersection of theory, research, and clinical application.
Carrying the Work Forward
Today, Travis continues to extend this lineage. Currently, as Vice President of Media for the Jeffrey Young Schema Therapy Association, he is helping preserve and expand Jeffrey Young’s legacy.
For example, the first JYSTA symposium, held in December 2025, drew nearly 400 participants from around the globe.
Taken together, this reflected both the vitality of the model and the international reach of the training community.
Ultimately, when you train here, you learn from someone who helped build the model and who continues to carry the experiential heart of this work forward.
Training That Is Accessible Worldwide
Diversity That Makes You Better
Your Next Step
You have seen the evidence and understand what schema therapy can do. The differences in our trainings stand out. Now it is time to choose your path.
Review the programs below. Check the dates. See if they fit your schedule. Then apply. Every cohort sells out. If you are ready, do not wait.
Individual Certification
42 hours over 14 weeks. Spring 2026 Dates: Feb: 5, 12, 19, and 26; Mar: 5, 12, 19, 26; Apr: 16, 23, 30 May: 7, 14, 21. Fall 2026 Dates: Sept: 10, 17 Oct: 8, 15, 22, 29 Nov: 5, 12, 19 Dec: 3, 10, 17. (World Bank Category Pricing A – D).
Couples Certification
33 hours over 11 weeks. Fall 2026 Dates: Sept: 9, 30 Oct: 7, 14, 21, 28 Nov: 4, 11, 18 Dec: 2, 16. (World Bank Category Pricing A – D).
Training Without Borders
World Bank income categories A: Full tuition B: 25% off C: 50% off D: 75% off
Same training. Same credential. Priced for your region. No other program does this.
What You Walk Away With
Full ISST coursework
14 or 11 weeks of live training
A cohort that lasts beyond the course
Certificate of completion
Skills you will actually use
YOUR NEXT STEP