Do you want to

• become more fulfilled, resilient, and productive?
• practice evidence-based tools to deal with blockers and stressors such as low energy or mood levels, anxiety and worries, imposter syndrome, procrastination, and perfectionism?
• embark on that journey with other members of the community?  

Our applications are officially open for the Winter 2026-27 Cohort! You can apply within ~25 minutes. Priority deadline: 5 October. Applications stay open on a rolling basis until groups are full (final close 25 October), but applying early gets you first pick of session times and the best chance of a group matched to your goals and timezone. Later applicants get the slots that are left. 

Feel free to also share this opportunity with your employees and beneficiaries.

TL;DR

Managing your mind is key to managing your life. Rethink Wellbeing is accepting applications for the Winter 2026-27 Cohort of the CBT Lab Program. The evidence-based online group program is designed to help improve mental wellbeing and productivity of people committed to making a lasting positive change in the world by using methods from Third-Wave Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and behavioral science. Participants attend weekly group sessions (90min) together with 4-6 well-matched peers, led by a trained facilitator, and engage in readings and application of the learned tools between the sessions. This program, including its online support community, is supervised by a clinical psychologist and requires 12 weeks of commitment with a total time commitment of about 4-5h/week. This includes home practice, readings & exercises, the live sessions in weeks 1-8 and 12, and a self-directed practice period in between. 

Coaching or therapy typically costs $100-200 per hour. The CBT Lab gives you 13.5 hours of facilitated group sessions plus a peer community, and it's free: grant funding covers the cost for people committed to doing a lot of good. We only ask for a refundable deposit to protect attendance (details below). If you can afford it, you can turn that deposit into a donation at the end, or add to it, so we can keep the program free for the next person. 

What does the program consist of?

The program is experiential and practice-based; you’ll learn through repeated, deliberate practice, so your new skills can eventually become automatic and habitual. We will draw on techniques backed by a wealth of cutting-edge research, particularly those from the gold standard of third-wave CBT. These techniques can be applied to a variety of target areas: self-regulation, anxiety, low mood, perfectionism, procrastination, self-esteem, productivity, and more. You can learn more about CBT here. 

The program structure:

• Weekly participation
  • A 1.5-hour group video conference, led by a trained peer facilitator, is designed for sharing personal experiences, bonding, initiating discussions, and practising newly learned techniques together.
  • In between sessions  (~2-4h/week or ~30 min/day):
    • A reading and home practice of new skills and techniques
    • Engagement in the supportive online peer community, supervised by our clinical psychologist, for tougher questions you might have to ask an expert
• Program evaluation surveys
  • Short weekly forms for progress tracking, reflections, and feedback (< 5 min each)
  • Surveys on your mental well-being at weeks 0 and 12 (~30 min each)

We ask that people who sign up be ready to commit to the entire 8 weeks, plus week 12, which is essential because:

• You are most likely to maximize your benefits from the program by dedicating time to the weekly sessions, readings, and home practice.
• Your peers will rely on you. You will go on this journey with a small group, hand-picked for you. Poor participation or dropping out can challenge the group’s dynamics and spirit.
• We will only be able to determine whether the program is effective and scalable if everyone engages fully.

Cost: $0. The program is grant-funded. 
Refundable deposit: $200 (under $50 for lower-income countries or financial hardship). You get it back in full within 2 weeks if you attend 8 of 9 sessions and complete the surveys. We refund immediately if we can't place you in a group.

Why do we think the program will be effective? 

Mental health research suggests that laypeople-guided CBT courses show similar improvements in mental well-being as standard 1:1 in-person psychotherapy does in RCTs. 

We have collected effectiveness data for the CBT Lab program from supporting over 230 people from the Effective Altruism Community across 35+ countries,  including employees of organisations such as 80,000 Hours, Centre for Effective Altruism, Giving What We Can, Rethink Priorities, and Centre for AI Safety, among others. Together with our university partner, the KIT at Karlsruhe University, we have a scientific publication under peer review at a JMIR journal. 

Our pre-registered, controlled clinical trial with the CBT Lab Program shows: 

• near-1-1-therapy level improvement of mental health, i.e., a 20-30% reduction in self-reported symptoms of depression, anxiety, and executive dysfunction.
• a moderate increase in well-being by roughly 0.9 points on a 0-10 scale, an improvement larger than that when finding a new job or partner, amounting to an estimated gain of 2 WELLBEs per person (on average) over time.
• a significant productivity increase, i.e., an estimated 6-8 work/study/productive hours more per week after the program (our follow-up data after 6 months show the effects are likely sustained, beyond it we're extrapolating)
• high satisfaction rates (roughly 17 of 20 participants are happy with the program and 3 of 5 groups decided to continue meeting after the program ends), and dropout rates as low as in-person 1:1 therapy (<20%).

Here you can find our results summarized and visualized on slides. 

Participants chose their format rather than being randomized, and we had no untreated control group, so these are within-person changes and not causal estimates. We flag this openly and discuss it in the paper. The pre-post effect sizes, though, look similar to those achieved by similar formats in RCTs.

You can learn more about the rationale and background behind our method on our website. 

How do I sign up?

Answers will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Earlier applications are preferred as they give you a higher chance of getting placed in a group that best fits your needs, and give you time to prepare, i.e., onboarding to the online community and working through the pre-read.

As a participant

• Apply by filling out this Interest Form within ~10 minutes. With this information, we’ll make sure that you are someone who will benefit from the program.
• Then, you’ll receive the Enrollment Form within 5 seconds, which takes ~20 minutes to complete. With this information, we’ll save your spot, match you to peers you are likely to fit in with and bond with well, and prepare your group.
• We’ll ask you to complete both steps in one sitting, so plan for ~25-30 minutes total.

Then, you start your 12-week journey to improve your mental well-being. If we don’t find a suitable group for you, we’ll immediately refund your motivational deposit.

Who is eligible? People who are committed to doing a lot of good, who…

• Donate to effective causes
• Volunteer for high-impact organizations
• Work in high-impact jobs or for high-impact organizations, or
• Are on the path to a high-impact career

As a facilitator

Volunteer facilitators make the CBT Lab possible. 

You’ll: 

• Guide one curated peer group through the journey
• Also participate in the program/group, but need 7 hours per week vs. 5 as a participant
• Build facilitation and CBT skills (no mental health background needed),
• Earn an impact and training certificate.

Apply within ~25 minutes by filling out this form. You’ll hear from us soon after, and if you pass, you’ll be invited to attend the facilitator training, which includes:

• ~8 hours of self-paced training through Google Classroom, covering the CBT curriculum and facilitation guidelines through readings, exercises, videos, and reflection questions.
• An online role-play session with personal feedback with fellow facilitator candidates, guided by our trained clinical psychologist
• A 3-hour live online onboarding session covering program operations and role-playing common facilitation scenarios.

We also encourage you to join our Effective Peer Support Network, the Rethink Wellbeing Hub, via our Slack. You can connect with the Rethink Wellbeing team, participants, facilitators, and alumni.