Personality Disorders Counseling Certificate Training Program

Description

Registration in this bundle includes access to both self-study courses and the Personality Disorders CounselingCertificate (PDCC) upon completion.

Personality disorder presentations can leave even experienced clinicians feeling frustrated, stuck, and disheartened—especially when symptoms overlap with other conditions, self-report is incomplete, and long-standing patterns shape the therapeutic relationship. This 12-hour certificate program brings assessment, management, case conceptualization, and treatment into a coherent, evidence-informed framework for working with DSM-5 personality disorders with greater structure, clarity, and realistic expectations.

If you’ve wanted a practical way to understand what may be driving difficult-to-manage behavior—and to choose responses that fit the client’s needs, readiness, functioning, and treatment context—this training offers a clinically grounded path forward. It connects diagnostic criteria with cognitive profiles, the 18 early maladaptive schemas, and relevant developmental, biological, cultural, and contextual influences.

Jeff Riggenbach, Ph.D., brings more than two decades of experience treating complex thinking and personality styles in inpatient and outpatient settings. His preparation includes training led by Marsha Linehan, postdoctoral training through the Beck Institute, and schema therapy training through the Midwest Schema Therapy Institute. He also helped develop an integrated program that has served more than 500 people with Borderline Personality Disorder and others with personality disorders.

The first course focuses on assessment and surface-level management. You’ll review characteristics that distinguish personality disorders from other conditions, examine categorical and dimensional perspectives, and learn how observation, history, client language, cross-context patterns, and in-session process can strengthen assessment. For each of the 10 DSM-5 personality disorders, formal criteria are connected to cognitive profiles and underlying interpersonal “agendas,” with differential diagnosis and management strategies adapted to the presentation. Extended attention to Borderline Personality Disorder addresses collaborative diagnosis and distinctions among non-suicidal self-injury, chronic suicidality, and acute suicide risk.

The second course moves from stabilization toward organized treatment. You’ll review eight evidence-based treatments, examine what research does and does not establish, and consider how DBT, CBT, and schema-focused strategies can serve different purposes. Case conceptualization maps connect significant experiences, schemas, triggers, target behaviors, and goals to guide planning, session focus, intervention, and documentation. Examples and structured tools illustrate applications across personality presentations, including more detailed work with borderline and narcissistic patterns, while relapse-prevention, booster-session, and self-therapy planning support a deliberate transition out of regular care.

Key Takeaways

• Clearer assessment and case conceptualization: Distinguish enduring personality patterns from episodic symptoms and organize complex presentations into a workable clinical map.
• Management matched to the presentation: Pace feedback, communicate, set limits, address safety, and support movement toward goals without treating every diagnosis—or every client—the same way.
• A coherent treatment framework: Use DBT, CBT, and schema-focused strategies to select realistic targets, address in-session patterns, and plan for sustained gains.

Why this course?

• A realistic, evidence-informed perspective: Clarify what research does and does not establish, recognize that progress may be gradual, and avoid overstating likely outcomes.
• Broad assessment and treatment coverage: Develop management strategies for all 10 DSM-5 personality disorders, then apply an integrated framework across a range of personality presentations.
• Practical tools for clinical decision-making: Use conceptualization diagrams, worksheets, relational strategies, and relapse-prevention planning to keep care focused, collaborative, and connected to a clear rationale.

By the end of this certificate program, you’ll have a more organized and clinically nuanced approach to recognizing personality pathology, discussing diagnoses collaboratively, selecting management responses, and planning treatment. If you’re ready for clearer direction when entrenched patterns affect assessment, safety, engagement, or the therapeutic relationship, this training is designed to help you respond with greater structure and deliberateness.

Learning Objectives:

After participating in Assessment and Management of Personality Disorders: Understanding the Hidden Agenda participants will be able to:

• Analyze the diagnostic criteria and explain key differential diagnosis considerations for each of the 10 DSM 5 personality disorders.
• Identify etiological and epidemiological factors associated with each.
• List the 5 characteristics that differentiate PDs from other psychological conditions.
• Assess the treatability of each of the 10 personality disorders.
• Describe the 18 early maladaptive schemas driving target behaviors, including historical, cultural, and other environmental risk factors influencing them.
• Plan management strategies for all 10 DSM 5 personality disorders.

After participating in Evidence-Based Treatments for Personality Disorders participants will be able to:

• Discuss 8 evidence-based treatments for personality disorders.
• Describe 5 characteristics unique to treating these diagnoses effectively.
• Explain 18 early maladaptive schemas driving target behaviors, including historical, cultural, and other environmental risk factors influencing them.
• Design case conceptualization diagrams to drive treatment planning, agenda setting, and documentation.
• Describe 3 schema modes in narcissism and design mode work strategies. 
• Compare the 2 types of relapse prevention sessions with the typical course of care sessions.

Format and Access

This is a non-interactive, self-study course that offers over 6 hours of recorded video instruction, a post-test and a course evaluation.

Course Details

Availability: 

From the time of registration, you have six months to access the coursework.

Who Should Attend: 

This course is intended for clinicians who provide behavioral health services.

Teaching Methods: 

This is a non-interactive, self-study course. Teaching methods for this course include recorded lectures, videos, a post-test, and a course evaluation.

How to Attend: 

Course access and completion instructions.

Instructor and Disclosures

Instructor

About Jeff Riggenbach, Ph.D.

Jeff Riggenbach, PhD, is a best-selling and award-winning author/speaker/clinician who has trained audiences in all 50 United States, Canada, Mexico, The UK, Ireland, Malta, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. He has devoted the past 25 years to developing advanced expertise in cognition and personality. He personally trained at The Beck Institute of Cognitive Therapy and Research to develop his hospital's Borderline Personality Disorder Treatment Program, which has not treated over 500 patients with BPD across multiple levels of care. He has since developed and directed cognitive-behavioral based programs for Depression, Anxiety Disorders, and Addictive Behavior Disorders. Jeff's approach of taking evidence-based treatments and presenting them in ways that can be used by everyday clinicians "in the trenches" has earned him the nickname "The Practical Toolbox Guy," and his trainings often receive the highest marks from conference participants.

Disclosure Statement: 

The instructor(s) for this course receive compensation for their services. There are no reported conflicts of interest to disclose.

CE Hours

Credit Hours:

This program consists of a total of 12 continuing education hours of credit. (each course offers a separate certificate of completion)

Counselors:

Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No, 6693.  Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified.  Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.

Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Mental Health Counselors. #MHC-0048.

Marriage and Family Therapists:

Many MFT licensing boards accept our courses or one of the approvals which we have from professional associations.  You can check with your board to determine if your licensing board would accept this course.

Social Workers:

Telehealth Certification Institute LLC, #1609, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: 05/02/2024 – 05/02/2027. Social workers completing this program receive 12 clinical continuing education credits.

Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Social Workers #SW-0435.

Addiction Professionals:
 

This course has been approved by Telehealth Certification Institute LLC, as a NAADAC Approved Education Provider, for educational credits. NAADAC Provider #193104, Telehealth Certification Institute LLC is responsible for all aspects of the programming.

Psychologists:

Telehealth Certification Institute LLC is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Telehealth Certification Institute LLC maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Psychologists #PSY-0128.

Art Therapists:

Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Creative Arts Therapists #CAT-0093.

Other Professionals:

This course qualifies for 720 minutes of instructional content as required by many national, state and local licensing boards and professional organizations.  Retain your certificate of completion and contact your board or organization for specific filing requirements.

This course is an-interactive, live online webinar.

Participants may request a printed version of their certificate of completion to be delivered by mail. A shipping/handling fee of $6.95 will be charged per request. Shipping internationally may require an additional charge.

Accommodations and Policies

Close Captioning is available for live webinars and recorded video presentations.

You can click on the following links to view our policies:

• Accommodations for Individuals with Disabilities.
• Cancellation Policy
• Grievance Policy
• Support Options
• Disclosure Statement