Webinar - An Introduction to acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT): Enhancing your practice with acceptance, self-compassion, and values-based action

Description: Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is a transdiagnostic cognitive behavioural therapy grounded in mindfulness, self-compassion, and values-based action. Clients learn to encounter thoughts and feelings in a mindful way, neither dwelling on them nor pushing them away. At the same time, they are encouraged to act on their most deeply held values. In over 600 randomized controlled trials and nearly 200 meta-analyses, ACT has been shown to be efficacious for a wide variety of problems, including depression, anxiety, OCD, psychosis, substance abuse, chronic pain, dealing with cancer, stress, and stigma. Rather than going after reducing symptoms, ACT increases psychological flexibility – the capacity to turn to the present moment as a conscious human being and take action according to personally-chosen values. Psychological flexibility is comprised of six interrelated psychological and behavioural processes: acceptance, defusion, contact with the present moment, self-as-context, values, and committed action.

In this two-day webinar, mental-health practitioners will be introduced to psychological flexibility intellectually and experientially. You will learn what it is like, in practice, to open up to thoughts and feelings without getting entangled in them, identify what truly matters to you, and take meaningful action.

The presentation will teach skills that can be implemented easily via telemedicine and will take into account COVID-related contextual factors that influence mental health, such as social isolation, political tension, and interpersonal conflict related to differing worldviews.

Training modalities will include brief lecture, clinical vignettes, clinical demonstrations, mindfulness exercises, experiential exercises, large group discussions, small group discussions, and small-group skills practice. This will not be a slog of slides as you sit for hours with glazed eyes looking at the screen. You will have a lot of practice watching ACT demonstrations, practicing ACT with yourself, and in practicing ACT skills with others.

Learning objectives: 

• Define psychological flexibility and identify its six components: acceptance, defusion, present moment, self-as-context, values, and committed action
• Identify three strategies for facilitating acceptance and willingness with clients
• Identify three strategies for facilitating defusion with clients
• Help clients contact the moment-to-moment experience of thoughts, feelings, and sensations without becoming absorbed in them or trying to push them away
• Contact a sense of self that is more stable than transient thoughts and feelings and transcends personal narratives about who they are and what they are capable of
• Facilitate conversations with clients about personal values and values-based behavior activation

Registration fees: $515

For full registration details please visit https://cvent.me/rqYWa1