Frequently Asked Questions

Regretfully, no. The Neufeld Institute is not supported by any grants or outside funding. The primary source of our income is student tuition and course registrations. We would love to get some philanthropists on board, but we have found that prevention does not have the kind of appeal that intervention does. We’re hoping that might change though. You are most welcome to direct some philanthropists, who have been touched or moved by this material, our way.

We wish! We’d love to invite you to our place but we don’t have one in the material sense of buildings and properties. Both our campus and organization are in the virtual world. Our staff and faculty work from their own homes and offices around the world. We do miss the water cooler, however. And virtual wine and cheese just don't cut it. Since Dr. Neufeld lives in Vancouver, and a few of our staff live around there, Vancouver would be considered our hub. We also have our annual conference in Vancouver, our annual faculty retreat in the Vancouver area, and Gordon typically teaches the Intensive II in the summer in Vancouver.

Thanks for your interest in sharing our material as well as for your respect and consideration in asking for our policies. The short answer is that no formal training is required to share the DVDs. The long answer is that we would love to have the opportunity to equip and support those who believe in the material enough to share it.

Our primary way of supporting the sharing of our material is through our online Neufeld Institute courses. The Neufeld Intensive One (Making Sense of Kids) is our flagship course, providing the foundation of Dr. Neufeld's relation-based developmental approach. This course will provide you with the depth you need to support the material in the DVDs.

The Neufeld Intensive II (The Separation Complex) opens the door for further support as well as for access to our advanced courses. We deliver our support through our Virtual Campus. Support includes access to our experienced course facilitators as well as study guides, handouts and other supplementary material to help in sharing the material.

Should you wish to continue to study with us and complete what we call our Foundational Studies (Intensives 1-3, Science of Emotion and Play 101), you would have the option of membership to our Support Centre on Campus. Support Centre membership includes access to Dr. Neufeld's master classes, both live and recorded. It also provides access to the special facilitator's versions of our courses as well as the option of consulting with our Faculty and listed course facilitators regarding the content as well as the sharing of the material.

Support Centre members may also apply to be listed on our website as a Neufeld Course Facilitator after they have availed themselves of our Facilitation Studies and gained the necessary experience in sharing the material.

When sharing the material with others, we would appreciate if you would provide pointers as appropriate, to our website and courses as well as to Dr. Neufeld's book "Hold On To Your Kids".

More information regarding support for sharing Dr. Neufeld's material is available on the website. We wish you all the best with sharing the material that Dr. Neufeld has developed to make sense of kids.  

As long as you are still taking the course, you can purchase the DVD at the course price. Please contact our Course Registrar. If the course has finished and you still have campus access, you may purchase the DVD at the 20% campus discount.

We think you will find the EVENTS page easy to navigate. There are options for searching and sorting on the right hand side. Just click on ‘regional’ and ‘course’, and you will get a list of events that you can quickly peruse regarding their location.

We’re not set up to offer that service. Your best bet is to check from time to time on our EVENTS page, selecting Dr. Neufeld’s speaking engagements.

We do not currently have a staff member who is dedicated to provide academic advising. You are welcome to forward your particular interest area, arena of application, degree of exposure to Neufeld’s approach, and any particular questions you may have, and our staff will do their best to give you a response. Please submit this through the website inquiry feature.

The self-paced course can be taken at any time. You would work through the material at your own pace with the guidance of a course assistant who is available to respond to your forum posts and questions. In scheduled online class, participants view the video-material on their own time and then come together typically once a week at a scheduled time for a live faculty-led discussion online. For more information, consult the overview of study options page under Courses.

We do try to offer each course at least once a year. The Level I Intensive and Level II Intensive usually begin in the Fall of every year.  Consult the EVENTS page for upcoming scheduled classes.

With regards to receiving credits for the courses you take with the Neufeld Institute, you will have to seek permission from the University you are getting your Masters degree from.  As we are not an accredited institution, it will be up to each organization to decide whether equivalent credits can be earned through taking our courses. We issue Verification of Attendance certificates for all courses.  These certificates indicate the amount of course hours and have been used in the past to present to an organization, along with the course description found on our website. Vancouver Island University does provide post-graduate credit (fifth year) for our Intensive Level One and Intensive Level Two for certified teachers. Contact Lis Kroeker for information on applying to VIU’s Inclusive Education Graduate Diploma and to set a Prior Learning Assessment. Lis Kroeker is an adjunct Neufeld Faculty member who is currently on faculty with Vancouver Island University.

Since Dr. Neufeld is a registered psychologist, his courses generally qualify for continuing education credit in related occupations. However, credits for continuing education have to be applied for individually. Each profession is regulated differently by provincial or state organizations, and we have found it too daunting,  economically and time-wise, to make the arrangements with each and every governing body. For the most part, however, students have met with success. We suggest you use the course description on the website, together with your certificate of attendance, to apply to your governing organization. Should you have the motivation to make the request to your governing body not only on your behalf but for others to follow, let us know what you need from us to assist in this regard. We would love to make some headway in this arena.

There are a number of study options, depending upon your particular needs and desires. All further study with us, however, does require completion of the foundational courses, Intensive I, Intensive II, Intensive III, Play 101, and Science of Emotion . We provide an overview of further study options on our ‘about’ pages.

Given you have a group of ten or more, we would be glad to set you up with customized support for no extra cost. The best way to start is to contact our Course Registrar. She will help you set up the group, match-make you with a course facilitator, set the dates, and assist with the other arrangements.

The online classes are all recorded and will be posted on the campus course page to be reviewed in advance of the next class.

We will provide you with a Verification of Attendance Certificate upon request.

This is a common question. The short answer is YES, you must. In our early days, we used to allow ourselves to be persuaded to permit some psychologists and psychiatrists to skip this course, and we were sorry we did. Taking psychology courses does not necessarily expose one to the attachment-based developmental approach. And even if one has been exposed, the Level One Intensive is necessary as it lays out the theory in a logical and coherent way, enabling one to master the model as well as set the stage for universal application. Also, there is the language, which is pivotal in the case of this articulation of the paradigm. Dr. Neufeld attempts to use language that does not divide expert from non-expert and that resonates with intuition. Even if one has taken numerous courses from Dr. Neufeld himself, if interested in further study or in being a resource to others, the Level One Intensive: Making Sense of Kids,  is foundational. We have never heard anyone say, no matter how educated in psychology. that taking the Intensive One was a waste of time. On the contrary, we have only received feedback that once they had taken this, they realized why it was so necessary.

For the Intensive courses you have access for eight months and for all other courses you have access for four months.

You have two options. You can either purchase a one-time 3 month study pass extension for $45 CAD through your personal online account on campus OR you can purchase a campus membership for a year for a discounted price of $120. Once you have lost access to campus the membership fee is the regular $150.

We’re glad that you miss us. Your best bet is to contact the Campus Registrar  and she will let you know your options in order to regain access.

Access to previous course material is not offered while on a study pass. However, this is one of the many perks that come with annual campus membership. We would highly recommend this.

Access to campus is not automated. We first need to install you on campus and then in the right course and in the right roles. Once we have done this, we send you an email with your login information. We try to do this within a couple of business days of you registering, but sometimes it may take a day or two longer. If we have sent you your campus credentials, and the gate still won’t open for you, check to see if it might be an issue of case sensitivity. Our campus login is hypersensitive this way. If still no luck, please let us know. If it is a study-pass, your best bet is our Course Registrar. For campus subscriptions, it will be our Campus Registrar.

If you register for the event, you will automatically receive a link to the video recording (assuming there are no technical glitches), providing you with 30 days access. For those unable to attend the live session, we are hoping to have downloadable audio/video recordings available for purchase in the future.

Technology is getting better and these problems are becoming less frequent; however, they still happen. To compensate for this, we do our best to provide you with a recording of the webinar for you to review in your own time. Unfortunately, we are not able to give refunds for these online events.

We provide a Verification of Attendance certificate upon request, but we leave the application for the continuing education credits between the individual and their regulating body. Individualized certificates are made available for the onsite Intensives. For the Vancouver Conference, certificates of attendance are available at the product table at the end of the conference.

Time zones can be very confusing. We often have up to ten time zones represented in our online events. We usually try to remember to indicate the time zone as Pacific Time as most of our online events are scheduled in that time zone. If close to the dates when shifts are made from standard time to daylight saving time, you may want to check a time zone converter to make sure.

We realize that intentions can’t always be realized and plans do not always work out. For the most part, we will try to give full refunds, less a small administrative fee, especially if we are given sufficient notice. Please refer to the cancellation policy information provided with each specific event (conference, destination event, or webinar).

We’re working on getting our official status as a post-secondary educational institute under Canadian law. So for now, the answer is no. If you are self-employed, however, these courses would qualify for deductions as continuing education or professional development.

The first step is to find a publisher who is interested in the book. If you need some preview copies to support you in this process, please let us know. The next step is for the potential publisher to contact Dr. Neufeld’s foreign rights agent to make arrangements for the getting the rights in that language. We will provide that information to you upon request through the inquiry feature. Dr. Neufeld is not involved directly in this process but certainly can provide a recommendation to the foreign rights agent. Besides a publisher, the greatest challenge is the translation. It is formally the publisher’s responsibility to provide the translation, but small publishers are often grateful for a recommendation or even an introduction to someone suitable. On our part, we prefer the translator to have some background in the Neufeld approach and particularly with the constructs and terminology Dr. Neufeld uses. Unfortunately, a number of translations have had to be redone because this background understanding was lacking. Please let us know if you need some preview copies or if you need the contact information for Dr. Neufeld’s foreign rights agent.

Yes, indeed! The amount of material and the number of languages is growing monthly. We are so fortunate to have a wonderful group of international faculty who are dedicated to making this material available in their own languages. In each of the languages where we have an international director, we also have a supporting Neufeld Institute website - French, German, Spanish, Hebrew, Swedish and Russian. We also have a Dutch website although we do not yet have a faculty member there. For future reference, you will find these websites on the home page of this website in the top left hand corner. Please check these websites for the materials available in that language. Some of these languages also have their own YouTube and Facebook accounts. The book - Hold On To Your Kids - is translated or is being translated into about twenty languages. Please consult the book page and in particular the translations section, to see if the language you are inquiring after is available and where to order the book. We do not sell these books ourselves.

Our system is set up for PayPal so that is definitely our preferred method of payment. Many people think that you need a PayPal account to pay through PayPal. Unfortunately, their payment page certainly makes it seem this way. Despite appearances however, no PayPal account is actually required. You are most welcome to use your credit card of choice while paying via PayPal. If not wishing to pay via PayPal, you will need to phone in your Visa or Mastercard number to our office - 604-263-4278. We do not keep credit card information on file for security reasons, so you will have to repeat this step for the next purchase. We realize that agencies and organizations may need to pay by cheque. Please contact our office for further instructions.

We have a very limited amount of funding available. We would prefer, of course, for those in need to find their own sponsors if at all possible - those that believe in them as well as believe in what we have to offer. We can offer charitable receipts for income-tax purposes for such designated donations. Scholarships and bursaries are not available for our webinars. Please provide plenty of time for processing if applying for assistance. Inquiries should be made via the website inquiry feature.

We aim to process your order within 3 to 5 business days. We will notify you by email once your order has been processed.  Shipping usually takes 3-7 days within Canada, 5-9 business days within North America, and 2-6 weeks outside of North America.

Yes, you can submit a PO from a qualified organization. For product orders, place your order on our Products Page, check off “pay by cheque” as your method of payment and put your PO number in the notes field. For course registrations, put your PO number and note that this will be paid by cheque in the notes field on the registration form.

No. Handouts are part of the supplementary material that is provided in our continuing education courses.

If you are a retail outlet interested in selling our DVDs, we can certainly make arrangements for purchase at wholesale rates. For wholesale terms and conditions, please contact our Products Manager.

Once you have registered or placed your order, select “pay by cheque” as your method of payment and put a note in the note field that you need to have an invoice sent to you for submission.  Your invoice will be emailed to you and the order will be processed upon receipt of payment.

There are two parts to this answer. The first part of the answer has to do with our approach. Our counsellors are committed to work with the parent(s) whenever we can to assist them to become the answers to their child. If the counsellor needs to meet with the child for the purpose of making sense of them, then they would arrange for that to happen on a case-by-case basis. With adolescents, decisions of who meets with the counsellor are typically more complex and will be decided upon in consultation with the parent. The second part of the answer has to do with resources. Unfortunately we only have a handful of parent consultants at this time, so the chances of finding a Neufeld Counsellor in your region are rather remote. Some of our parent consultants do offer parent consulting online, but again this would be with the parent, not the child. Please check the Counsellors page for the regions served and for those who offer their services online.

Unfortunately, no. He retired from private practice several years ago and therefore no longer provides consultation. His focus is now on developing courses and training others in his attachment-based model. However, we do have a growing number of professional therapists and counsellors who do provide this service. Please check the Counsellors page for options.

Genevieve Schreier is responsible for event scheduling for Dr. Neufeld. The first step is to make an inquiry through the website inquiry feature. You may be asked for more information to help her in processing the invitations.

No, we do not offer this service nor do we provide recommendations.

No, we don’t get involved in legal matters. Our mission is to make sense of kids to the adults responsible for them. We try to stay with what we do best. Our parent consultants will support parents in caring for their children through the processes of separation and divorce, but not in doing evaluations or making recommendations for legal purposes.

There are two parts to this answer. Firstly, we wish we had the resources to help; however, the limited resources we have are primarily devoted to providing individual follow-up support to the parents who take our courses. On the other hand, Dr. Neufeld’s experience and belief is that the best therapy one could ever engage in is to strive to become the parent one’s child needs. So he would probably recommend that you focus on becoming the answer to your child, and let your own growth be the serendipitous result.

No, he is not. He provides support to practitioners who are involved in our course facilitator program via regular case study master classes, but this doesn’t necessarily qualify for formal supervision hours as it is in a group setting and not individual support. However, some of our Neufeld Institute Faculty may be able to provide this service; consult our faculty page for details.

Theoretically the answer is ‘yes’. Practically it depends very much on whether it fits with Dr. Neufeld’s priorities and availability. He gives highest priority to invitations that have the greatest reach and where there are already Neufeld Institute Faculty and Facilitators to provide assistance and follow-up. Dr. Neufeld no longer can accept invitations from school-based parent groups or school-based professional development for teachers. Genevieve Schreier is responsible for event scheduling for Dr. Neufeld. The first step is to make an inquiry through the website inquiry feature. You may be asked for more information to help her in processing the invitations. We do have a great group of faculty, many of whom are also gifted speakers, and all of whom have studied intensely with Dr. Neufeld and mastered the attachment-based developmental approach. Please follow the same process as above - making your request through the inquiry feature - and we’ll do our best to match you up.

He wishes. That is one of his favorite things to do. But unfortunately, time no longer permits. We’re still hoping for a retired research fellow to join our staff who can serve as a mentor for grad students who are doing research from an attachment-based developmental perspective.

September 2021 Update: We are DELIGHTED to launch the Neufeld Scientific Research Centre website! This project was established in order to popularize the science behind the relational developmental approach as articulated by Dr. Gordon Neufeld and the Neufeld Institute. Here we collect the results of already published scientific research on specific topics that relational developmental psychology deals with. We hope, that thanks to our activities, the availability of knowledge about the relational developmental approach will increase both in the scientific world, as well as with specialists and students. __________________________________________________________________________________________________ There are a number of approaches to this question, depending upon what it is that is being asked. Hopefully the answer to your particular question lies somewhere in the following response. Dr. Neufeld’s theory is an articulation of the attachment-based developmental approach. The model has been formed through synthesis and integration of the scientific research. So yes, the theory is completely research-based. Dr. Neufeld has joined the dots of thousands of research findings to create a comprehensive model that can be put into practice. Theoretical models are evaluated by their power to explain, their power to predict and the absence of conflicting data. By this criteria, Dr. Neufeld’s model is completely evidence-based. As any student of science knows, a theory itself cannot be proven however, only disproven by evidence that conflicts with what would be predicted by the model. The question that most often gets asked by those representing school systems or public health systems is whether this approach constitutes evidence-based practice. In other words, does it work or does it have an immediate positive effect? This is not actually a relevant question for developmental science, for a number of reasons. The construct of ‘evidence-based practice’ comes from pharmacology and was applied originally to assess whether a certain pill worked. As everyone knows, a pill can work amazingly well, and yet have dreadful side-effects, terrible long-term consequences, and be completely counterproductive to ultimate health and well-being. In the developmental approach, we do not ask if something works in the short-term as growth does not happen instantly. In fact, a developmentalist would never trust a method that showed immediate results. Unfortunately, longitudinal studies are difficult to come by, as this is not generally how universities operate. The longitudinal studies that do exist certainly confirm this model, that is, the pivotal importance of relationship and the need for conducive conditions for unfolding of human potential. Secondly, this is an insight approach in which practice flows from theory. The theory must be scientifically solid, but the practice can and should vary as circumstances and dynamics dictate. As anyone knows, what works with one child will not work with another, and what works one day will not work on another day. The third issue is that ‘practice’ - or what one does - is not the main factor in change, making irrelevant the fact that there is some evidence that a particular practice has been demonstrated to work. Studies have confirmed that it is the context of relationship that is more significant that any particular practice, especially for therapists or teachers. By logical extension, we would hold the same to be true of parenting. So if the question is whether Dr. Neufeld’s theory is evidence-based, the answer is an unequivocal yes.  When a picture is put together that is based on thousands of independent findings, it is much more reliable than when something is based on isolated bits of research. There are a couple of caveats here, however. When Dr. Neufeld originally constructed his model of the attachment-based developmental approach, he was doing this primarily for himself and his immediate work as a therapist. He never expected to have an invitation to share this with the world. Once a piece of the puzzle fit into place, the piece became irrelevant to him. It was the picture that was important. However, Dr. Neufeld now regrets that he didn’t record all the original bits and pieces of research findings that went into the process of constructing the model. The big picture of course, lies in none of these pieces, and even if those pieces were available to reference at this point, there would be nothing to refer to that could tell the story, so to speak. On this matter, Dr. Neufeld has been hoping for someone among his faculty or facilitators to take up the challenge of embedding this material in the current scientific literature.  We have run into a problem, however: as soon as someone truly understands this approach or finds it useful to make sense of themselves or their loved ones, the insights become self-evident. At such a point, individuals, even students of science, are no longer interested in the supportive research as it seems irrelevant once you see. In fact, one wonders why we couldn’t see this before. So it has been challenging to find individuals willing to devote themselves to the laborious work of reframing and explaining and documenting research findings from this perspective. Nevertheless, we take this seriously and are working on this. We hope to have some reference lists on our website soon. One more thought on this matter. If the question is, does delivering the Neufeld courses result in changes in parenting and teaching and therapy? This is a valid and important question. By our own assessment measures, the material is transformative, but we are not aware of any formally published research findings regarding this as yet. We would welcome this! There has been research regarding the effectiveness of delivering the ‘teachability factor’ course to educators. We would be happy to forward these studies to you upon request.

This is typically a browser issue. Our programmers go crazy trying to make everything work with browsers who refuse to play nice with each other. We suggest first trying a different browser. The most compatible seem to be Firefox, Safari and Chrome.  The least compatible server is Internet Explorer.

Access to campus is not automated. We first need to install you on campus and then in the right course and in the right roles. Once we have done this, we send you an email with your login information. We try to do this within a couple of business days of you registering, but sometimes it may take a day or two longer. If we have sent you your campus credentials, and the gate still won’t open for you, check to see if it might be an issue of case sensitivity. Our campus login is hypersensitive this way. If still no luck, please let us know. If it is a study-pass, your best bet is our Course Registrar. For campus subscriptions, it will be our Campus Registrar.

If you can’t access the course page and you have just signed up, please contact the Course Registrar and she will help make sure we correct the problem. If you are a campus subscriber and you do not have access to the courses you have taken in the past, please contact the Campus Registrar.

Funny things these databases. Sometimes they just arbitrarily kick people off of campus for no reason at all. Contact our office for assistance.

That happens to the best of us. If you’ve changed your password from the original, we’ll have to reset it back to the original as we don’t store changed passwords for security reasons. So let the Campus Registrar know the problem and we’ll reset things on our end and then resend your credentials so you can get back on.