Women Rising

Join internationally recognized expert Dr. Robyn D. Walser and learn how to use acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to empower women to use their voices, act courageously, and live with more agency.  

Women carry a heavy load. 

They are systemically discounted, devalued, and oppressed.

They’re by and large expected to meet unattainable beauty standards, be their families’ social planners and primary carers, and give selflessly of themselves –– often while never expecting the same in return.

They contend with cultural messages that equate femininity with selflessness and subservience.

They worry about their physical safety, and about a future that may be even more hostile toward their rights. 

This is the air we all breathe, and it can create a pervasive sense of struggle, fear, and powerlessness in an individual’s life.

It’s likely you work with clients who perpetually exist in this disempowered state. This might look like:

• A wife whose husband’s anger takes center stage in her life (and in therapy) describes constantly walking on eggshells and making herself small.
• A young woman with a trauma background constantly betrays her own needs to make the other people in her life happy.
• A single mom tries to do it all, but feels scared, exhausted, and alone.

These issues are specific to each individual’s circumstance and history, but they are also linked to broader cultural narratives and inequities.

To help women access positive change, mental health providers must consider all aspects of their clients’ context, including the impact of gender inequality and all that goes with it.

There is no panacea for these societal problems. Still, women can rise. 

Where ACT Comes In 

Therapists have an important role to play in supporting women’s well-being, not just as a matter of promoting individual growth, but in working toward a world where more people are empowered to live their fullest lives.

ACT is a useful tool in this work.

Its unique framework and set of core processes support a contextual understanding of human struggles and the development of flexible skills that help people to move forward even in the face of adversity.

This workshop uses experiential and didactic ACT-based methods for working with women, giving you an understanding how the core processes can best support them in rising to meet today’s challenges.

By using a functional contextual lens to understand client struggles and centering psychological flexibility skills in therapeutic work, clinicians can empower women to take more ownership over the direction of their lives.

This can look vastly different across clients.

Perhaps they finally get the support they need to leave a harmful relationship — or learn how to better advocate for themselves within their current relationships. 

Maybe they recognize how societal forces have shaped their lives and begin separating what they want from what’s expected of them. 

Or perhaps they simply allow themselves to use their voices, be more fully embodied and self-directed, and pursue changes they desperately want to see in their lives and in the world. 

In any case, you can equip women with tools to navigate the cultural messages, societal rules, and systemic oppression that have impacted them and build lives that align with their own values. 

What You’ll Learn 

In Women Rising, you’ll develop an empowered, ACT-based approach to addressing women’s issues and supporting women’s well-being across all areas of their lives. 

You’ll learn how to bring systemic issues into your case conceptualizations to better understand the entire context impacting women’s mental and emotional states.  

With this foundation, you’ll be equipped to destigmatize women’s experiences of struggle and help them move forward in a way that’s courageous, empowered, and led by their own values rather than societal rules or expectations. 

The perspective and tools you’ll gain in this 4-session live online course will allow you: 

• Deepen your understanding of mental health symptoms (especially anxiety and depression) as they relate to women and women’s issues 
• Help women gain more ownership over the direction of their lives and how they want to show up in the world  
• Build psychological flexibility skills for noticing when their identities and actions have been shaped by outside sources and pivoting toward their own deeply held values 
• Empower women to use their voices, trust themselves, and act from a place of courage rather than fear — while always supporting their safety within their contexts
• Support a brighter vision of the future guided by personal agency, social progress, and values-based living for all members of society 

You’ll walk away feeling personally and professionally empowered to work from a heightened level of understanding, allyship, and profound humanity to advocate for women and support their agency and well-being. 

This training offers 8 CE hours if attended live. We can only provide CE to those who are present via Zoom for the live sessions. However, the sessions will be recorded and available to watch later. Registrants may access these recordings at any time for up to nine months after the live training ends.

Before registering, please review conflict of interest disclosures and complete CE information here.