FREE 1-HOUR TRAINING
Get Unstuck
FREE 1-HOUR TRAINING
Get Unstuck
Help clients stop struggling and start thriving with tools from acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)
Learn new tools and earn 1 free CE hour:
Get access to 7 key lessons from our popular evidence-based training
Earn 1 free CE hour at your own pace
- Understand how controlling thoughts and emotions can backfire
- Reduce the power of problematic thoughts — without having to argue against them
- Stop trying to “solve” clients’ feelings and empower them to change their lives regardless of what their emotions tell them in their hardest times
- Help clients focus on living well now rather than waiting to feel good before they can move forward
- Create a collaborative dynamic rather than feeling you have to be the “expert” who has all the answers
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Why Is Change so Hard for Some Clients?
A letter from your instructor, Matt Boone
With some clients, change seems like a simple equation:
Together, you identify a pattern of thinking that holds them back. They begin to understand the pattern better, exploring its history and the ways it might not be working for them.
The client views the pattern in a clearer light, which seems to translate directly into behavior change, and the therapist feels like a superhero.
But what about when things don't go that way?
What about the clients who could argue against every logical point until the end of time?
Or clients whose fear or despair override their understanding that their thoughts aren't working for them?
Or clients who have every reason to cling to self-limiting beliefs about the world or their own pasts?
In these situations, a lot of helping professionals feel trapped.
Despite their best efforts, they can't seem to move sessions beyond the thoughts or feelings that hold the client back.
And - perhaps the most frustrating part - they don't know what's getting in the way.
A Counterintuitive Truth About
How People Get Stuck
If you find yourself getting stuck in this way, there could be a simple explanation:
It may be that your approach to clients' thoughts and feelings is backfiring.
Does your approach send the message that difficult internal experiences must be controlled or overcome before the client can change their life?
Or does it help the client realize that they are in charge, not their painful thoughts and feelings - and that these experiences don't need to control them?
The latter idea might seem counterintuitive at first. So much of our culture, and many of our therapeutic interventions, suggest there's a straight line between thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
But research shows us that trying to control thoughts and feelings doesn't always work as well as we hope it will (for example, Wegner, 1994; Levitt et. al, 2004).
Instead, those internal experiences can loom bigger and grip more tightly, and rather than taking steps toward a more fulfilling life, we get locked in a battle we can't win.
So, if we consider changing our thoughts and feelings as a prerequisite for changing our lives, we might set ourselves and our clients up for failure.
Changing Course to
Finally Move Forward
All of this begs the question:
Rather than trying to control negative thoughts or emotions, can we give clients skills to engage with them differently and move forward regardless of the internal challenges they face?
That's exactly what we'll explore in this 1-hour training.
Together, we'll cover the core principles that are central to acceptance and commitment therapy, or ACT.
We'll look at some of the data and main concepts behind this approach in simple terms, and I'll teach you two of my favorite exercises that can help clients take a new, more compassionate stance toward their struggles.
This approach is designed for anyone who is suffering, including folks who don't fit into neat diagnostic categories or face challenges that are simply part of the human experience, like losing a loved one, going through a bitter divorce, or losing a job.
And it can be easily incorporated into what you already do.
I hope you'll join me inside this free training and see for yourself how these tools might transform your work with stuck clients.
Your instructor,
A proven model of
personal transformation
The tools in this free, 1-hour training are drawn from acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), an evidence-based therapeutic model that stems from cognitive behavioral therapy.
By combining mindfulness, acceptance, and behavior change strategies, ACT helps clients stop struggling against thoughts or feelings they would rather not have and focus instead on making their lives more fulfilling - both in the moment and in the long-run.
Hundreds of studies have shown that ACT's approach to human suffering and behavior change is an effective form of treatment, especially for issues that can get clients and clinicians most stuck, such as severe depression, anxiety and OCD, addiction, eating disorders, and trauma.
Using the principles and tools in this training, you'll be able to help your clients change their relationships with internal experiences so they can finally move forward and change their lives for the better.
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Meet your instructor
Matt Boone is a social worker, psychotherapist, author, and speaker specializing in acceptance and commitment therapy. His unique ability to make complex material easy to absorb has made ACT more accessible to helping professionals all over North America.
In addition to publishing various scientific articles and book chapters, Matt co-authored Stop Avoiding Stuff: 25 Microskills to Face Your Fears and Do It Anyway and edited the collection Mindfulness and Acceptance in Social Work: Evidence-Based Interventions and Emerging Applications. He is also an Instructor in Psychiatry at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and lives in Little Rock with his wife, cats, and guitars.
Curriculum
Here's what you'll learn in the
7 lessons of this 1-hour training:
1
A grounding exercise that illustrates how language can change our relationship to experience
2
The goal of ACT, and how it can fit into the work you're already doing
3
Why trying to get rid of thoughts and feelings is a losing strategy (and what to do instead)
4
Applying the Tug-of-War With a Monster exercise to help clients experience alternative courses of action (plus see it demonstrated)
5
How your own thoughts in sessions might inform your behavior with clients
6
Metaphorical exercises that help clients gain distance from thoughts that dominate behavior
7
Using The Butterfly exercise to help clients free up energy to pursue what matters rather than struggling against internal experiences
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CEs
Upon completion of the course content plus evaluations and post-test as required, participants will be eligible for 1 CE hour approved for the following professionals:
Counselors
Psychologists
Nurses
Physicians
Substance Abuse Counselors
Social Workers
Please review complete CE information here before registering: CE Details
What clinicians are saying
about the full course
This free training comprises key excerpts from Matt Boone's full-length course.
Here's what members said about the full course and Matt's teaching style.
"I loved this course. I like how it was structured, with a great balance of information, demonstration, and Matt's affable - and at times refreshingly humorous - delivery and presence. As a relatively new counselor, I've been trying to merge aspects of narrative, CBT, and exposure in a way that works for me, and I think I found something in ACT that speaks to what I've been looking for. It really resonated. I'm excited about ACT and can't wait to learn more!"
Aislinn O., Professional Counselor Associate
"This is a wonderful introduction to ACT and it helped me start using the principles right away in my clinical work. Matt has the ability to teach the key concepts of ACT in a way that draws you deeper into their transformative powers."
Michael N., LMSW
"This course is very well designed. Matt is a great teacher - he really makes sure you get the concepts of what he is talking about and the way he presents the examples makes you really take in all the information."
Natalia N., Psychotherapist
Join now for free
access to:
- 7 high-quality video lessons on principles that can revolutionize therapeutic work
- 2 powerful exercises to use with clients (and downloadable instructions)
- Demonstrations of exercises in use
- Discussions about critical concepts between the trainer and mental and behavioral health clinicians
- 1 CE hour for psychologists, counselors, social workers, and behavior analysts
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