SummaryThis paper describes how one educational psychology training course introduces problem solving to its trainees. Over a three year period tutors have increasingly provided less and less in the way of a blueprint for trainees and more and more a set of experiences designed to help them devise and then test out their own individual models. In the main part of the paper the first two authors describe the experiences that they, as tutors, provide and in the appendix the third and fourth authors outline the models they, as trainees, have developed by the end of a training year.