Good Enough Parenting
Facilitator Level 1 Certification
Delivered by Dr. John Philip Louis, PhD, founder and creator of the GEP programme
October 2026
India's first cohort is certified
On 2 and 3 October 2026, Dr. John Philip Louis led India's first in-person GEP Facilitator Level 1 Certification at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, co-organised by The Practice Commons and Louis Counselling & Training Services, Singapore. Psychologists, counsellors and educators from across India, and from Singapore, completed the two days of training.
Schema Therapy-Based Parenting
"The only Schema Therapy-based parenting programme in the world."
What if the parenting challenge your client brings to therapy isn't really about parenting?
A parent who overreacts to defiance. A parent who withdraws when their child is distressed. A parent who knows what to do but consistently can't do it.
Often, what we see isn't just parenting behaviour. We're seeing schemas in action.
Good Enough Parenting (GEP) goes where most parenting programmes don't. While conventional approaches focus on advice and corrective techniques, GEP works at the schema level: the emotional patterns laid down in the parent's own childhood that drive how they respond, react, and repair.
It is grounded directly in Schema Therapy. It is the only parenting programme in the world equipped with psychometrically validated tools for assessing the emotional climate between parent and child. And the facilitator certification gives practitioners concrete, immediately deployable assessment tools and interventions for work with parents, children, adolescents and family systems.
Why this matters
"When we address schema patterns in parents, we interrupt the intergenerational transmission of emotional wounding."
Dr. John Philip Louis, PhD
Founder, Good Enough Parenting
Grounded in Research
A programme backed by 18 peer-reviewed publications
The GEP programme is built on the book Good Enough Parenting (2nd edition) by Dr. John Philip Louis and Karen McDonald Louis, the authoritative clinical text for Schema Therapy-informed parenting work.
Each participant receives a physical copy of the book: the clinical reference that supports practice long after the certification ends.
What You Will Leave With
Eight things you can use from Monday morning
Schema assessment of parent-child dynamics
Use validated psychometric tools to assess the emotional climate between parent and child, identifying which schemas are driving it.
Schema-informed parenting interventions
Move beyond behavioural advice to schema-level intervention: changing how parents relate to their own emotional responses.
Working with the parent's schema history
Understand how the parent's own childhood schemas shape their parenting mode, and what therapeutic leverage points this opens.
Intergenerational pattern work
Trace the transmission of emotional wounds across generations.
Integrating GEP with existing clinical work
Map GEP onto your current practice, whether you work in individual therapy, family therapy, groups, or school settings.
Facilitating the GEP programme
Deliver the GEP curriculum with parents, in individual and group formats, with confidence and fidelity to the model.
Building healthy positive schemas in children through parents
Support parents in fostering the emotional conditions that develop positive schemas in their children, using the GEP framework as a guide for this generative, forward-looking work.
Repair and reconnection
Touch upon the application of GEP concepts to carrying out repair when ruptures or strain happen in parent-child relationships.
Who This Is For
Practitioners who work with parents, children, and families
This certification workshop is designed for mental health, counselling, educational, medical and family-service professionals who work with children, adolescents, parents and families in clinical, school or community settings.
This is a professionally oriented facilitator-certification program. It is especially suitable for psychologists, psychiatrists, counsellors, therapists, school counsellors, social workers, developmental paediatricians, family therapists, family-life educators and NGO professionals.
Applicants should have relevant professional training, clinical experience or a recognised qualification in a related helping profession.
No prior schema therapy experience is required.
- Clinical and Counselling Psychologists
- Psychiatrists and Medical Practitioners
- Psychotherapists and Counsellors
- School Counsellors and Educational Psychologists
- Social Workers and Family Therapists
- Family Life Educators and NGO Professionals
- Developmental Paediatricians
What the fee covers
- ✓ GEP Facilitator Level 1 Certificate issued by Louis Counselling and Training Services Singapore, and eligibility for the Level 2 Trainer Track
- ✓Physical copy of Good Enough Parenting (2nd ed.) by Dr. Louis
- ✓ All training and presentation materials
- ✓ Validated psychometric instruments for clinical use
- ✓ Catered lunch and tea/coffee on both days
- ✓ Permission to use GEP framework in client sessions and groups (up to 15)
Your Trainer
Get trained by the person who built the program
Dr. John Philip Louis, PhD
Founder, Good Enough Parenting
ISST Certified Schema Therapist,
Supervisor & Trainer
Dr. John Philip Louis holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the United Kingdom. He was trained by Dr. Jeffrey Young (Columbia University), the founder of Schema Therapy, and has been a Certified Schema Therapist, Supervisor, and Trainer with the International Society for Schema Therapy since 2011. His research has contributed to the advancement of Young's original schema model, particularly through the development of the Young Positive Schema Questionnaire (YPSQ), which expanded the therapeutic framework and situated it within the domain of positive clinical psychology. He has also developed several other psychometrically validated instruments: the Positive Parenting Schema Inventory (PPSI), the Young Parenting Inventory–Revised (YPI-R3), and the Love and Respect Marriage Scale. These measures assess the emotional climate within families and marriages, as well as relational and individual strengths. His work has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, and these instruments are currently used and translated in over 30 countries. Dr. Louis is also a Chartered Psychologist in the United Kingdom, a Licensed Professional Counselor in Texas, USA, and a Registered Counsellor and Clinical Supervisor in Singapore.
Since launching the innovative Good Enough Parenting (GEP) program in 2009, Dr. Louis and his wife, Karen, have trained over 1,000 facilitators across more than 30 countries spanning Asia, Europe, North America, Australia, Central and South America, and Africa. The GEP program has been widely implemented in government and private schools, as well as in for-profit and non-profit organisations in Singapore, Malaysia, and other parts of the world. It has also received endorsements from the former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dato' Seri Dr. Wan Azizah binti Wan Ismail.
This is India's first ever in-person GEP facilitator certification delivered by the program creator.
From Practitioners Around the World
Thousands of practitioners have trained with Dr. Louis
GEP facilitators work across clinical practice, family counselling, school settings, and community organisations, in more than 30 countries. The programme builds a practical, lasting clinical vocabulary for parenting work grounded in Schema Therapy.
Practitioners report using GEP tools from their first sessions back: clear assessment instruments, structured intervention pathways, and a clinical framework for parenting work that travels across settings.
Read Practitioner Testimonials →
What Experts Say
Endorsed by leaders in Schema Therapy
"This ground-breaking book will help parents raise healthier children, and when they grow up, healthier and more successful adults. I highly recommend it."
The Late Charles L. Whitfield, M.D.
International Bestselling Author · Healing the Child Within
"In a world of too much information, Good Enough Parenting teaches parents how to meet core emotional needs, and, at the same time, how to avoid passing down their own dysfunctional behaviors. Schema Therapy has been successful with adults, but I have always wanted to see someone do something like this for children, and here it is!"
Dr. Jeffrey Young
Dept. of Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York · Founder, Schema Therapy · Author, Reinventing Your Life
"GEP takes an in-depth look at the before, during and after of parenting. None as practical and beneficial. A MUST for every professional working with families."
Dr. William R. Scott
Educational Psychologist · Florida, USA
"This handbook presents a detailed and scientifically based schema perspective on parenting, linking theoretical knowledge with expressive examples from everyday life (including from the authors' own family) plus vivid cartoons. The tone of the book is non-judgemental, warm and encouraging, while the title 'Good Enough Parenting' cautions us against unrelenting standards."
Dr. Eckhart Roediger, M.D.
Former President, International Society of Schema Therapy, Germany
"In Good Enough Parenting, John and Karen Louis put powerful new understandings and tools into parents' hands and show them, with an engaging blend of clarity, authority, warmth, openness and humility, exactly how to use these to transform the quiet day to day moments, common challenges and emotional crises of parenthood into opportunities to set their children on the path to flourishing as adults. In this first of its kind guide, John and Karen integrate the insights and strategies of an important new approach to meeting core emotional needs, Schema Therapy, with the latest research related to parenting."
Dr. George Lockwood
Director, Schema Therapy Institute, Michigan, USA
"The heart of practicing Schema Therapy is healing the wounds and trauma created in childhood as parents fail to meet the core emotional needs of their children. With characteristic humor, insight and commitment to an inner life, John and Karen Louis address a need of Schema Therapy in offering a practical guide for raising children with an understanding of core emotional needs and what is required to meet them. They combine experience as parents, therapists and church leaders to offer a valuable perspective on raising happy and emotionally healthy children."
The Late Catherine Amon
Cognitive Therapy Centre of New York · USA
Future Cohorts
Want to hear if GEP returns to India?
No further India cohort is scheduled. If one is confirmed, we will write to the people on this list first.
Questions? Call or WhatsApp: +91 94214 99663 · Write: connect@practicecommons.in