Strengthening ACT through RFT

Learning relational frame theory (RFT) can be daunting.

For many practitioners, exploring RFT can feel like wading into a sea of complicated and inaccessible terminology.

And while much of the research and writing on RFT show a fascinating evolution of the understanding of human cognition and language, they can sometimes have little bearing on what happens in the therapy room. The examples generally aren’t clinical and there’s limited recommendations for practical application.

So for a boots-on-the-ground practitioner, how can a deeper understanding of RFT — and the ways in which language and cognition inform behavior — help in sessions?

One of the fundamental principles in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is that overidentification with literal language leads to psychological inflexibility, which is at the core of human suffering. And through metaphor and experiential techniques, you can help your client break the hold of experiential avoidance and free themselves to make new choices guided by their values.

This can be accomplished without an expert’s background in RFT — studies have shown that ACT works even when delivered by beginning therapists who don’t fully understand the model.

But even the most experienced ACT practitioners encounter a challenging (and unfortunately common) situation: a client who remains stuck in rigid identities and ways of thinking despite numerous interventions.

In situations like these, RFT can do more than simply supply a new metaphor or a new eyes-closed exercise.

It can provide further insight into why an ACT principle might apply in a given moment and gives you the building blocks to design creative, adaptable, precise interventions of your own.

And it can help you expand the possibilities of your practice by drawing upon one of the most empirical and theoretically dense bodies of knowledge that exist in psychology to help bring richness and meaning into your clients’ lives.

That is what you’ll learn to do in Strengthening ACT through RFT.

About the Course

In this 6-session live online course led by Miranda Morris and Evan Marks, you’ll develop and practice new RFT-based clinical skills in an environment that’s accessible, engaging, and even fun!

Designed for clinicians who are already practicing ACT and want to broaden their repertoire and deepen their understanding of the model, this course will demonstrate the relevance of RFT to clinical work and help you increase the flexibility and efficacy of your interventions with clients.

You’ll learn the fundamentals of RFT, behavioral analysis, functional contextualism, and functional assessment in a way that goes beyond simply acquiring a new set of terms and instead focuses on utilizing your knowledge to help clients. And you’ll learn how to harness language with precision and intention — helping you to understand why your client is stuck where they are, how they are approaching language in a way that’s getting them stuck, and how to use language to help them move.

You’ll practice identifying clinically relevant relational framing as it is happening in session to help clients contact internal experiences as they are (not as language says they are) and to enhance client and therapist sensitivity to function and context.

Throughout the course, you’ll explore case examples and engage in group exercises where you’ll “play” with different frames and put the concepts into practice. You’ll discover how you can shape particular behavioral repertoires in clients using framing in an intentional way as well as experiment with your own framing. Rather than trying to find the “right” answer, these exercises are built to help you stretch yourself, ask weird questions, say weird things, and foster a fun environment of creative risk-taking as you explore the model and broaden your understanding of its practical applications.

You’ll leave the course with a much better understanding of the mechanics of RFT and how you can use them to target specific elements such as empathy, self-compassion, and psychological flexibility on the micro level.

We invite you to join this brand new course, to discover how fun and engaging RFT can be, and to enhance your ACT skills in ways that can open new avenues of growth and healing for your clients.

This training is worth 12 CE credit hours if attended live. While we can only provide CE to those who are present – i.e. logged in – for all live presentation(s), Praxis webinars are recorded for later viewing. Registrants may then access these recordings at any time for up to nine months from the conclusion of the training to which they pertain.

Prior to registering, please review speaker-planner conflict of interest disclosures and complete CE information.