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For therapeutic approaches

A lab for your therapeutic approach.

We have built EFT-lab, and it is the template. We bring your approach into the same platform, and you get a lab of your own, built together with the clinicians who own the method.

EFT-labCBT-labMBT-labISTDP-lab

Talk to Jan →See EFT-lab (in Norwegian)
EFT-lab, Norwegian version: a training session with the AI client Kristine
From the Norwegian EFT-lab: a training session with Kristine.

EFT-lab is available in Norwegian today. It was developed by Jan Reidar Stiegler, specialist in clinical adult psychology, in collaboration with the Norwegian Institute for Emotion-Focused Therapy and IPR (Institutt for psykologisk rådgivning). An English lab is being built together with practitioners in the field.

What a therapy lab contains

Built like EFT-lab.

EFT-lab is the template. A CBT, MBT or ISTDP lab gets the same building blocks, with the approach’s own interventions, markers and clients. The screenshots below are from the Norwegian EFT-lab.

EFT-lab, Norwegian version: nine topic courses combining reading, exercises and simulation
From the Norwegian EFT-lab: the topic courses.
01

Courses and theory from the field

A topic course brings everything about one intervention together in a single sequence: the theory, exercises on the component skills, and a simulation where you try it out. The theory covers markers, steps, pitfalls and contraindications, and it is written together with the trainers and clinicians who own the method.

In EFT-lab: nine topic courses, from the self-critical split and alliance ruptures to complex trauma.

EFT-lab, Norwegian version: a marker exercise with feedback after the answer
From the Norwegian EFT-lab: a marker exercise with feedback.
02

Exercises that train the clinical eye

Before you can choose an intervention, you have to see what is happening. Short exercises train one component skill at a time: recognising the marker, distinguishing markers that look alike, choosing the intervention and phrasing the response yourself. After each answer you learn why.

“Test me” draws questions from across the lab, ungraded, and shows you what to practise next.

EFT-lab, Norwegian version: a focused simulation of a self-critical split with the client Henrik
From the Norwegian EFT-lab: a focused simulation with Henrik.
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Focused simulations

A short, contained session built around one intervention, with a client designed for exactly that moment. Therapists practise what feels hardest, at three levels of difficulty, as many times as they need.

EFT-lab, Norwegian version: a training session with Maja, where the mentor offers a hint
From the Norwegian EFT-lab: a session with Maja, with a hint from the mentor.
04

Open simulation with clients who react

Each client has a history and reactions of their own, and responds to what the therapist actually says, in text or by voice. The mentor follows along and offers a hint during the session, or an analysis of it, when the therapist asks.

The clients are fictional. The lab must never be used with information about real patients.

EFT-lab, Norwegian version: the client gallery, six clients of different ages
From the Norwegian EFT-lab: the client gallery.
05

Clients with a history of their own

A gallery of clients of different ages, life circumstances and difficulties, created for the situations that matter in your approach. In the topic course on the self of the therapist, therapists also practise working with their own reactions. Those self-reflections are not stored, and neither we nor the trainer can see them.

06

For training programmes and clinics

Supervisors and trainers set up training groups with a share code, assign exercises before the next session, and use the lab between sessions and in supervision. The trainer cannot see the self-reflections.

A supplement, not a replacement

The lab supplements supervision, teaching and clinical practice. It offers a safe place to practise specific skills, but it does not replace supervision, personal therapy or experience with real clients.

Fictional clients, no patient data

Therapists practise with AI-generated clients. Data is stored in Germany, and the content is not used to train AI models. Privacy policy (in Norwegian) →

How we build a lab for your approach

The method is yours. We build the lab.

We build the lab together with clinicians from your approach, from the first meeting until it is in use.

Clinicians in a working meeting around a laptopYou and us
01

We choose the core

The interventions and markers that define the approach, and what is hardest to learn.

A therapist reading and taking notesYou
02

Your experts shape the content

Theory, criteria and feedback build on the approach’s own concepts. Your trainers and clinicians approve the content.

Two therapists trying the lab together on a laptopUs, with therapists
03

We build, therapists test

We create the clients, exercises and simulations. Therapists try them out, and we adjust until they ring true.

A course leader in conversation with participants in a classroomYou
04

The lab goes into use

In training, supervision or clinical settings, and it keeps developing as you learn.

Examples

What a lab for your approach could look like.

The labs below do not exist yet. Each image shows how a focused simulation could look, with a client designed around the approach’s core skill. The illustrations are in Norwegian.

Example, in Norwegian: a focused simulation in a CBT lab with the client ThomasIllustration in Norwegian
Example · does not exist yet

Cognitive behavioural therapy

  • Socratic dialogue: the client discovers it for themselves.
  • Automatic thoughts: catching the hot thought.
  • Case formulation: a shared model.
  • Behavioural experiment: testing a belief.
Example, in Norwegian: a focused simulation in an MCT lab with the client HanneIllustration in Norwegian
Example · does not exist yet

Metacognitive therapy

  • CAS (cognitive attentional syndrome): worry, rumination, threat monitoring.
  • Detached mindfulness: letting the thought be.
  • Worry postponement: worry at a set time.
  • Metacognitive beliefs: uncontrollability and danger first.
Example, in Norwegian: a focused simulation in an ISTDP lab with the client JonasIllustration in Norwegian
Example · does not exist yet

ISTDP

  • Channels of anxiety: reading anxiety in the body.
  • Clarifying defences: making the defence visible.
  • Pressure and challenge: matched to the anxiety level, within the alliance.
  • Graded format: regulating anxiety with fragile patients.
Example, in Norwegian: a focused simulation in an MBT lab with the client SiljeIllustration in Norwegian
Example · does not exist yet

Mentalization-based treatment

  • Not-knowing stance: curious, not explaining.
  • Stop, rewind, explore: back to the rupture.
  • Non-mentalizing modes: psychic equivalence, teleological and pretend modes.
  • Empathic validation: before exploration.
Example, in Norwegian: a focused simulation in a couples therapy lab with Camilla and ErikIllustration in Norwegian
Example · does not exist yet

Couples therapy

  • The interactional cycle: one pursues, the other withdraws.
  • De-escalation: slowing the escalation down.
  • Underlying emotions: what lies beneath.
  • Holding the frame: when the partners interrupt each other.
Your approach

Is your approach missing?

We build it together with you. Tell us which approach, and we will show you how a lab could be built.

Talk to Jan →

Swipe for more examples →

Other languages

The lab can be built in your language.

Labs can be built in languages other than Norwegian and English. If you think a lab in your language would be useful in your setting, get in touch.

A translation is more than swapping words: the clinical content, the exercises and the simulated clients must be approved by someone who knows both the therapy and the language. That is the work we do together with you.

Les denne siden på norsk →

Jan Reidar Stiegler
Photo: Cecilie Bannow
Your approach

Tell us what is hardest to learn.

Schema therapy, ACT, family therapy, trauma therapy, or core therapist skills for a training programme. Jan Reidar Stiegler, specialist in clinical adult psychology, PhD, leads the psychotherapy work at DialogSkills and developed EFT-lab.

Email Jan →

jan@dialogskills.no