ACT 1

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is a mindfulness- and acceptance-based model of behavior change. ACT assumes that pain—both physical and emotional—is a normal part of living. What gets us stuck is how we respond to that pain. Do we embrace it as a welcome part of our experience or do we struggle with it, expending needless effort to make it go away when doing so only makes it persist? Instead of trying to make pain go away, ACT helps both clients and practitioners increase their psychological flexibility, or the ability to mindfully encounter thoughts and feelings without needless struggle (i.e., acceptance) and act effectively in the service of what matters (i.e. commitment). This online course provides an intellectual and experiential introduction to ACT for mental health professionals using ACT.

This course is perfect for those who need a refresher on the main principles of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) or want to start from the ground up. This distance learning course contains approximately 8 hours of learning.

Unit 1: Introduction (30 minutes)
Unit 2: The Ubiquity of Human Suffering and the Limits of Control (25 minutes)
Unit 3: Psychological Flexibility (25 minutes)
Unit 4: Contact with the Present Moment and Acceptance (25 minutes)
Unit 5: Acceptance (45 minutes)
Unit 6: Defusion (60 minutes)
Unit 7: Values (15 minutes)
Unit 8: Self as Context (25 minutes)
Unit 9: Committed Action (15 minutes)
Unit 10: The Therapeutic Relationship (30 minutes)
Unit 11: Assessing Psychological Flexibility (40 minutes)
Unit 12: ACT in Action: Bringing It All Together (60 minutes)
Unit 13: Getting Experiential (40 minutes)
Unit 14: ACT as a Brief Intervention (45 minutes)

Participants will be able to:

1. Describe the limits of control and assess how ineffective control strategies contribute to psychopathology and general human suffering.
2. Describe the psychological flexibility model that informs acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT).
3. Describe how to enlist acceptance and mindfulness processes to help clients let go struggling and be more willing with painful private events (i.e., thoughts and feelings).
4. Discuss defusion and values processes to help clients undermine the power of language to influence behavior and move in the direction personally values.
5. Describe how to help clients contact a transcendent sense of self and choose effective action tied to values.
6. Describe how to bring psychological flexibility to bear in their interactions with clients.
7. Assess psychological inflexibility across six domains: experiential avoidance, fusion, inflexible attention, attachment to the conceptualized self, disconnection from values, and lack of action directed toward values.
8. Discuss how to intervene using experiential methods to mobilize the six processes of psychological flexibility (acceptance, diffusion, contact with the present moment, self as context, values, committed action) in their interactions with clients.
9. Discuss ACT as a brief intervention.

Participants should have a Masters degree in a behavioral health or related field or be enrolled in a graduate program in a behavioral health or related field.

For mental health and health professionals, beginners to advanced

Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (2012). Acceptance and commitment therapy: The process and practice of mindful change (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Luoma, J., Hayes, S. C., & Walser, R. (2017). Learning ACT: An acceptance and commitment therapy skills training manual for therapists (2nd ed.). Oakland, CA: New Harbinger.

Wilson, K. G., & DuFrene, T. (2008). Mindfulness for two: An acceptance and commitment therapy approach to mindfulness in psychotherapy. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger.