Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: 2-Day Intensive ACT Training

CPD

Handouts

Speaker

Jennifer L. Patterson, PsyD, LCPC Related seminars and products

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Jennifer Patterson, Psy.D., LCPC, has a mission to offer evidence-based psychotherapy to help others live full and abundant lives. She is the founder of JPI Psychological Solutions in Mokena, Illinois and specializes in treating obsessive compulsive behaviors, anxiety and depression. At JPI she uses ACT and other third-wave models to assist clients with increasing quality of life.

Dr. Patterson is an ACT trainer and has led over 500 ACT workshops across the US and internationally. She has served as vice-president of the Chicago Chapter for the Association for Contextual Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Patterson was a featured psychologist on The Learning Channel (TLC) and former co-author for Psychology Today’s blog “When More Isn’t Enough.” Dr. Patterson received both her master’s and doctoral degrees from the Illinois School of Professional Psychology. She is a formally trained ACT clinician and is very skilled in mindful-based therapies and empirically-supported treatments.

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Jennifer Patterson maintains a private practice. She receives a speaking honorarium, recording royalties, and a consulting fee from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. Jennifer Patterson is a member of the Illinois Psychological Association, the American Psychological Association, and the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science.

Objectives

1. Demonstrate effective use of the six core processes of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help clients advance psychological flexibility.
2. Employ clinical techniques for increasing psychological flexibility in clients using ACT.
3. Utilize acceptance approaches with avoidance problems to strengthen a client’s willingness to have emotions.
4. Apply clinical skills to help client effectively handle automatic cognitions.
5. Utilize effective ACT exercises in therapy to aid clients with developing new skills to engage in the present moment and move past struggles.
6. Assess and clarify a client’s values in order to develop an effective treatment plan and avoid potential clinical problems.
7. Integrate ACT into different therapeutic styles and methods as an approach to managing symptoms.
8. Create committed action plans for clients with anxiety disorders to improve level of functioning.
9. Use metaphors to undermine language-based avoidance repertoires to improve client engagement.
10. Utilize clinical strategies to develop an ACT-based behaviour therapy plan as it relates to treatment outcomes.
11. Execute emotional, behavioural willingness and exposure techniques with clients to reduce experiential avoidance.
12. Apply ACT techniques to the treatment of specific disorders including depression, anxiety, trauma and personality disorders.

Outline

The ACT Model

• The nature of human suffering
• ”Healthy normality” is a myth
• Language: The double-edged sword
• Undermine unhelpful thoughts
• Aiming for psychological flexibility and why
• The ACT hexagon model

Limitations of the Research and Potential Risks

• Children and adolescents
• Acute, florid hallucinations
• Catatonic depression
• Individuals with an adverse reaction to mindfulness exercises

Acceptance

• Strengthening a willingness to have emotions
• The opposite of acceptance is experiential avoidance
• Experiential avoidance throughout the lifespan
• Why acceptance is important
• Case example: Teenage shyness & hoarding

Defusion

• Look at thoughts rather than from thoughts
• Deal with automatic thoughts
• The power of words
• The problem with cognitive fusion
• Address CBT-based disputation techniques with defusion
• ”Taking your mind for a walk” exercise
• Case example: Eating disorders & social phobia

Perspective-Taking

• Understand the “Self” in ACT
• Self-as-content, self-as-perspective, self-as-context
• Observer self-exercise
• Deal with identity issues
• Case examples related to PTSD & childhood sexual trauma

Mindfulness

• Contacting the present moment
• Why being in the here-and-now is critical for mental health
• Relationship between mindlessness and psychopathology
• Meditation, mindfulness and mindful action
• Exercises for mindful action
• Case example: Anger, personality disorders, alcoholism

Values Work

• The positive side of language
• Identifying core values
• Differentiate values and goals
• Writing values-based treatment goals
• The ethics of values clarification
• Establishing the life line
• Case example: Heroin addiction, bipolar disorder

Committed Action

• Define “commitment” objectively
• Integrate evidence-based therapy with ACT
• Develop ACT-based behaviour therapy treatment plans
• Improve behavioural activation with ACT
• Accelerate exposure therapy with ACT
• Case example: Depression, agoraphobia

Pulling It All Together

• Hexaflex model for psychological flexibility
• Ask the “ACT Question” for self-help and case conceptualization
• Inflexahex model: Diagnosis from an ACT approach
• Case example: Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Incorporate ACT into Your Own Approach

• Social skills training
• Applied Behavior Analysis
• Inpatient treatment programs systems
• Exposure and ritual prevention
• Behavioural activation
• Parent management training
• Executive coaching

The Mindful Action Plan

• ACT simplified
• Passengers on the bus: The classic ACT group exercise
• How ACT can make you a better therapist

Target Audience

• Counselors
• Psychologists
• Psychiatrists
• Psychotherapists
• Social Workers
• Addiction Counselors
• Therapists
• Marriage & Family Therapists
• Case Managers
• Physicians
• Mental Health Professionals
• Nurses