ACT Training Made Simple (all levels of experience)- Kevin Polk, Jerold Hambright, John Agee, Chad Drake, & Katharine Mocciola

ACT Training Made Simple

Registration is now closed.

Workshop Leaders: Kevin Polk, Ph.D., Togus (Maine) VA, Jerold Hambright, Ph.D., Togas VA, John Agee, Ph.D., Togas VA, Chad E. Drake, M.S., Togus VA, & Katharine Mocciola, Psy.D., Togas VA

Dates & Location: May 26 & 27, 2008, 9:00am - 5:00/5:30pm at the Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago).

Workshop Description:
This workshop is offered as a streamlined and simplified means of training ACT therapists and/or providing ACT treatment. The structure and organization of the workshop will resemble ACT as it is delivered at the VA center in Togus, Maine, to groups of veterans suffering from PTSD. The workshop will begin with a didactic review of the ACT model and quickly transition to more experiential training in that model. In addition to instructions in the techniques and skills necessary to conduct the Togus VA protocol, there will be an emphasis on relating the work back to Functional Contextualism and RFT. Over the two days, the providers will both demonstrate the model and present opportunities for attendees to practice delivering the model. Subsequently, attendees will be able to begin incorporating these new skills in their own lives and/or their clinical work.

Learning Objectives:

1. Provide a simple model for training and implementing ACT.
2. Explore the clinical relevance of functional contextualism in training and implementing ACT.
3. Review the basic skills underlying mindfulness in training and implementing ACT.

Target Audience: This workshop is for all levels of experience with ACT.

Introductory ACT Experiential Workshop (introductory)- Sonja Batten

Sonja BattenIntroductory ACT Experiential Workshop - CLOSED
(this workshop has reached its 36 participant max.)

Workshop leader: Sonja V. Batten, Ph.D., VA Maryland Health Care System and University of Maryland School of Medicine

Dates & Location: May 26 & 27, 2008, 9:00am - 5:00/5:30pm at the Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago).

General description/abstract: Clients frequently come to therapy with an agenda of the amelioration of symptoms - to feel less depressed, have fewer panic attacks, and have fewer cravings to use drugs and alcohol. Traditional treatment approaches are designed for exactly such a purpose - to assist in symptom reduction. But what if there were another way of approaching our clients' difficulties in living? What if it were not the thoughts, memories, and feelings that are the problem, but instead that individuals presenting for treatment have lost touch with what is important to them? That they are not living a life in accordance with those things that they really value?

Often we find that years of disappointment, disenfranchisement, and avoidance have led our clients to make choices based on attempts to feel good, rather than based on building a life that is meaningful to them.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, a contemporary behavior therapy, provides an alternative to the feel-good agenda and instead focuses on helping our clients to reconnect with those ideals and principles for living that are deeply important to them. This two-day workshop will provide clinicians with the tools to work with clients on identifying each person's valued life directions and then help motivate behavior change in the service of those values. Structured experiential and written exercises, along with role pays and case material, will be used to demonstrate the process of values assessment and commitment to engage in valued life activities.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand problems in living as the result of behavioral choices that individuals make that are inconsistent with their personal values
2. Identify the role of avoidance in the development and maintenance of psychopathology
3. Recognize client barriers to identifying and acting upon values
4. Be able to lead clients in experiential exercises designed to facilitate awareness of valued life directions and motivate valued behavior

PLEASE NOTE: It is important that you understand the experiential nature of this workshop. These workshops teach ACT by creating an experience of what it is like to stand in the place where we ask ACT clients to stand. The workshop will be largely experiential and may be intense at times.

Target Audience: Clinicians who have not previously attended a 2-day ACT introductory training.

Introductory ACT Workshop (introductory/intermediate)- Steve Hayes

Steve HayesIntroductory ACT Workshop

Registration is now closed.

Workshop Leader: Steven C. Hayes, Ph.D., University of Nevada

Dates & Location: May 26 & 27, 2008, 9:00am - 5:00/5:30pm at the Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago).

Workshop Description:
Difficult clients tend to be both harder to treat successfully, and to be emotionally difficult for therapists, resulting in higher levels of stress and burn-out. These clients are generally more complex and chronic, and they often been through the therapy mill. Because of the growing popularity of empirically supported methods, difficult clients may have already had courses of more traditional empirical treatments (e.g., various forms of cognitive behavior therapy) and are unlikely to be moved by another attempt within the same model. Something else is needed that is empirically based, that provides relief for clinicians, and that allows for a new, more powerful approach to difficult cases. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is such an approach. The core conception of ACT is that psychological suffering is usually caused by experiential avoidance, cognitive entanglement, and the resulting failure to take needed behavioral steps in accord with core values. According to this view, trying to change difficult thoughts and feelings as a means of coping might can be counter productive, but new, powerful alternatives are available, including acceptance, mindfulness, cognitive defusion, values, and committed action.

ACT teaches clients and therapists alike how to alter the way difficult private experiences function mentally rather than having to eliminate them from occurring at all. This empowering message has been shown empirically to help clients cope with a wide variety of clinical problems, including depression, anxiety, stress, substance abuse, and even psychotic symptoms. Research has shown that these methods are as beneficial for the clinician as they are for clients, quickly alleviating therapist burn-out.

This two-day workshop will discuss and demonstrate ACT techniques, particularly acceptance, cognitive defusion, and behavioral commitment strategies. While the procedures are broadly useful, the workshop will focus in particular on issues of multi-problem patients. Data supportive of this approach will be discussed. The workshop will at times be experiential, not merely didactic. The intention of the workshop is to provide clinicians with a workable set of ACT skills, and with personal experiences that will allow further development of these skills based on their application with difficult clients.

Learning Objectives:

Attendees will learn:
1. Why experiential avoidance and cognitive fusion underlie most forms of psychopathology
2. How modern research in human language and cognition is revealing a key source of human suffering
3. How to formulate cases in terms of experiential avoidance and cognitive fusion
4. The major steps in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
5. How to foster psychological acceptance
6. How to quickly reduce the impact of negative thoughts
7. How to mobilize and make use of the spiritual side of clients
8. How to help clients get more into contact with their core values
9. How to build larger patterns of committed action
10. How to apply these same methods to the stressful impact of working with difficult clients

Target Audience: Beginners and above.

ACT Case Conceptualization Workshop (intermediate/advanced)- Kelly Wilson

Kelly WilsonACT Case Conceptualization Workshop

Registration is now closed.

Workshop Leaders: Kelly G. Wilson, Ph.D., University of Mississippi, Emily Sandoz, M.S., University of Mississippi, Regan M. Slater, University of Mississippi, Stephanie N. Nassar, University of Mississippi, & Lindsay Martin, University of Mississippi

Dates & Location: May 26 & 27, 2008, 9:00am - 5:00/5:30pm at the Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago).

Workshop Description:
ACT does not allow a neat division between people doing treatment and people needing treatment. It is hard to get what is important about ACT without confronting the fact that in a very deep sense, we are all in the same boat. The purpose of this workshop will be to learn some core ACT strategies, but, more importantly, to learn some things that are not well transmitted in written form. The workshop will contain a mix of didactics and experiential work.

The workshop will begin with a brief introduction to the hexaflex multidimensional diagnoses, assessment, and treatment and to the Hexaflex Worksheets. This fully dimensional model allows clinicians to examine psychological difficulties across a wide range of presentations. For example, examining fusion/defusion, we will see how it is possible to view problems in thinking ranging from full-fledged thought disorders seen among psychotic patients to the “thought disorders” of everyday life. The linkage between assessment and intervention on these various dimensions will be examined throughout the workshop in the context of a series of experiential exercises and observation of these exercises.

Exercises will be completed in groups of four and the results will be processed both within the foursome and in the workshop as a whole. The clusters of four individuals will consist of two pairs. Each pair will engage in an exercise while the other pair observes and makes notes using Hexaflex Worksheets. Hexaflex Worksheet conceptualizations will be applied to both the therapist and the client in the exercises. Therapist fusion and non-acceptance is often as much an obstacle as client fusion and non-acceptance. Both observing and participating pairs will work out case conceptualizations. Through the series of exercises, we will examine a variety of interventions stemming from the hexaflex model.

The workshop has two primary aims. The first target of the workshop is to increase therapist ability to make discriminations central to ACT case conceptualization using the Hexaflex Worksheets and to apply these conceptualizations to both client and therapist difficulties. The second target of the workshop is to increase therapist ability to perform present moment focused ACT interventions with clients, as opposed to interventions done to clients.

As has been common in my recent workshops, we will examine the centrality of mindfulness processes in other ACT interventions. This workshop will contain significant use of mindfulness and present-moment focused work. Although formal mindfulness meditation practice is not necessarily emphasized in ACT, mindfulness processes are central to the work. These exercises will show how we can bring the values directed, present moment focus directly into clinical interactions and even to case conceptualization (yes, it is possible!).

Learning Objectives:
Learning objectives will be taught through both direct teaching and experiential learning methods. However, the predominant learning method will be experiential throughout the training. Learning objectives include:

1. Case conceptualization from and ACT perspective
2. Practice in acceptance, defusion, present-moment focus, self-as-context, values, and commitment interventions.
3. Practice at conceptualizing therapist obstacles using the ACT model.
4. Practice at using the ACT model to understand and create a powerful therapeutic contract and relationship with your most difficult clients.

Target Audience: This workshop is intermediate/advanced. It is intended for those who have attended a previous ACT workshop. (If you have never taken an ACT workshop before, please consider taking one of the two Introductory Pre-Institute workshops available.)

Acceptance Based DBT

Acceptance Based DBT for emotion regulation

Acceptance is Not Surrender: Applications of ACT in Treating Substance Use Disorders - M. Bricker

To many clients - and come clinicians - ACT may seem like new and uncharted territory, thus complicating acceptance of the model. This workshop draws parallels between ACT and 2 other more widely recognized "best practices" - 12 Step Facilitation, and the Transtheoretical or "Stages of Change" model.

Exploring these commonalities may help increase the usefulness of ACT for both clients and clinicians.

Powerpoint attached below. (viewalbe to paid ACBS members only)

Michael Bricker

ACT and CBT -- The plenary session with Hayes, Hofmann, and Bricker

Here are the PowerPoints for the discussion between myself, Stefan Hofmann and Jonathan Bricker on the relationship between ACT and traditional CBT

- S

Steve Hayes

ACT Early: ACT in early intervention for psychosis (Morris & Oliver) - with audio

Authors: Eric Morris, Joseph Oliver, Louise Johns, Majella Byrne & Ellen Craig

Affiliation: Lambeth Early Onset Services & OASIS Service
South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust /
Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, UK

Abstract
The stance of acceptance and committed action may allow for flexibility in response to persisting psychotic experiences, as has been suggested in ACT studies with the seriously mentally ill (Bach & Hayes, 2002; Gaudiano & Herbert, 2006). There is also the exciting potential for researching the impact of ACT in the early phase of psychosis - helping first episode clients to recover from psychosis through the development of a more mindful approach toward unusual experiences and critical appraisals, and committing to values-based actions.

More specifically, the use of ACT may:

[1] foster the development of a psychologically flexible stance toward anomalous experiences,

[2] enable a “values-based” recovery,

[3] reduce the impact of “fear of recurrence” of psychosis through development of mindfulness and self as context,

[4] enable individuals to notice the process of self-stigmatisation, contexts where this operates as a barrier, and commit to valued directions in the face of these appraisals, and

[5] improve relapse prevention plans through the use of mindfulness and committed action.

We describe a group program we have developed, as well as individual work with young people who have experienced a first episode of psychosis.

In addition we briefly discuss a pilot ACT/mindfulness group for people experiencing at risk mental states, who may be in the initial prodromal phase of psychosis.

The .pdf of this presentation is here, and an audio recording of the workshop is available from here

ACT With Couples - 2008: Russ Harris

Powerpoint from half-day workshop

ACT with Depression-Zettle & Gird

Attached are the power point presentation and experiential exercise script from the ACT with Depression workshop.

ACTs of Kindness & Compassion -- With John P. Forsyth & Sean Sheppard

Here are the slides for our 90 minute time together exploring kindness & compassion from an ACT perspective. I've also uploaded the video that goes in the spots set in the files. I hope some of this is useful. I know that I enjoyed the time we had exploring these important domains and I know that Sean did too.

Peace -john

Batten intro experiential workshop readings

These are several readings I use during my workshops to share concepts, in words that come from people who are more eloquent writers than me!

Building Skill and Flexibility in Defusion - Luoma

This workshop is aimed at improving attendees' skill in utilizing the core ACT process of defusion. Partifipants will further understand the process of defusion through a theoretical overview of defusion and a discussion of how defusion is facilitative of other ACT processes. Experiential exercises will help participants contact a defused space, while other exercises will help participants try out and obtain feedback on new defusion techniques.

Jason Luoma, Ph.D.

Creating Compassionate Intentions in Therapeutic Sessions - Wright & Sanders

Powerpoint and handout attached.

Presentation by:
M. Joann Wright, Family counseling Center, A Division of Trinity Services
Kimbery Sanders, Trinity Services, Inc.

Experiential Practice with Feedback for Learning ACT - Luoma & Torneke

This workshop is aimed at providing participants an opportunity to practice ACT by being in the role of both "therapist" and "client" in experiential exercises that mimic a therapy process. Much of the workshop will be spent in small groups where participants will work in dyads utilizing ACT techniques, both as the "therapist" and the "client" with their own personal material. As a result, participants will experientially learn more about implementing ACT, with also learning a new method for supervision and training.

Jason Luoma, Ph.D.
Niklas Torneke, M.D.

HEAT Group: ACT for Posttraumatic Anger-Related Problems in Living - Santanello

Horton Hears an Alternative -- Steve's Follies slides

It is dangerous as hell to post this since out of context it might look like this is anti-CBT or something -- especially if you've never seen the Follies and do not understand the style of roast humor. That is why I've also posted a couple of pictures of us having fun at the Follies -- including with my friend and resolute traditional CBTer Stefan Hofmann -- who is definitely not the sour CBT Kangaroo!

Maybe that will provide the context.

Have fun

- S

Steve Hayes

Mindfulness and ACT: Connecting Buddhist Meditation Practices to ACT/RFT Concepts - Fletcher

ACT is one of several third wave behavioral treatments to incorporate mindfulness into therapy. The term mindfulness is borrowed from Eastern religious and spiritual traditions that emphasize meditation practice as an important technique for the alleviation of suffering. While many third-wave therapies emphasize informal mindfulness practices, including ACT, this workshop will explore the inclusion of "formal" practices that may enhance treatment when they are adapted for use with the ACT model. Buddhist traditions provide a nearly limitless supply of different meditation practices that may be adapted to work with ACT concepts. Specifically, tonglen practice, loving kindness meditation, vipassana, and other meditation techniques will be introduced and additional exercises that were not presented at least year's workshop. The purpose of this workshop will be to teach participants how to conceptualize particular meditation techniques in ACT/RFT terms and to apply these techniques to therapy. During the workshop we will accomplish these goals by introducing a variety of meditation techniques within an experiential format. These techniques will also be tied to a larger context by relating them to ACT core processes. Thus, clinicians will learn to apply these techniques and conceptualize their application according to specific ACT core processes and RFT.

Lindsay Fletcher

OCD and Case Formulation in ACT - Brock

Polk, Hambright, Agee, Drake and Mocciola 2-Day ACT Training Made Simple

Attached is our PowerPoint. I actually use a Mac program called Keynote. It allows me to export as a PowerPoint document, but some of the bells and whistles get lost.

Some handouts are also attached.

See Kevin Polk's blog for further info.

Practices and principles of ACT for OCD and OCD Spectrum Disorders - Twohig

This presentation will first outline common clinical presentations of OCD. Next, empirical work and the theoretical conceptualization of ACT for OCD will be offered. Finally, the presenter will work through a protocol for ACT for OCD with the participants using didactic, video, and experiential presentations.

Reflections on the North of England ACT Interest Group - Brock

RFT for Clinicians (Blackledge)

My half of the Intro to RFT for Clinicians talk

RFT for Clinicians (Stewart)

This is the first half of the talk on RFT for Clinicians that was co-presented by myself and JT Blackledge. If people have questions about the content of this portion of the talk, whether you were there or not, feel free to e-mail me: ian.stewart@nuigalway.ie.

RFT Made Simple - Drake, Hambright, & Sonntag

Attached is the powerpoint presentation for "RFT Made Simple" from the ACT SI 4 in Chicago. Enjoy!

Roots of Compassion -- Steve Hayes plenary

The video of this talk should eventually be up. I tweaked the slides to remove errors ... caused by staying up all night working on the *#$%^! follies (see my Horton slides also posted in this section) ... leaving this plenary talk to the (sleepy) last minute!

Oh well. At least I had my priorities right

- S

Steve Hayes

Russ Harris: Self-as-context Made Simple

This is the powerpoint from a 3-hour workshop at ACT SI 4

Sex and Intimacy-Ando Rokx-Aad van Leeuwen

Experiential Workshop Sex and Intimacy

Spirituality Reality PPT - Hank Robb

Hank Robb's SI4 presentation on Spirituality Reality.

They've Framed Me: RFT, the Self & Language Traps (Luciano, Boulanger & Stewart)

An introduction to RFT / ACT theory on the self and perspective taking by Carmen Luciano, Jennifer L. Boulanger & Ian Stewart

Treatment of Trichotillomania and Chronic Skin Picking from a Modern Behavioral Perspective - Twohig

This presentation will first outline common clinical presentations of trichotillomania and chronic skin picking. Next, and empirically based conceptualization of trichotillomania and chronic skin picking will be offered that focuses on two motivating factors: focused and non-focused pulling and picking. Finally the presenter will work through a protocol for trichotillomania and chronic skin picking that combines ACT as well as more traditional behavior therapy procedures.

Turtle OS - Takashi Muto

The power point was presented in the workshop of "Beyond categorical thinking: Using the Hexaflex for diagnosis, assessment, and intervention". "Turtle OS" (Operating System) is created as a revised version of Hexaflex, which has a) better connotations related with ACT, b) simpler and more familiar visualization, and c) more useful interface, in doing ACT case-formulation and intervention.

Call for Submissions

Request for Session Proposals (& Posters)

ACT Summer Institute - May, 2008

I am happy to announce that planning for the ACT Summer Institute 2008 is underway. The Institute will be held at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) on May 28-30 in Chicago, IL. Pre-conference 2-day experiential workshops will be held on May 26-27. While Chicago is nicknamed “the city that works” there are many fun things to do while you are not ‘working’ at the summer institute. The city is accessible from Midway and O’Hare airports and we have reserved some lodging at the Chicago Hilton (where the ABA conference is being held just before the ACT SI) in the downtown loop, located near Lake Michigan’s lakefront, the Art Institute, Museum campus and Chicago’s “magnificent mile” of awesome shopping. The conference hotel is approximately four miles from IIT accessible by car, bus, subway, and Metra train (from Chicagoland area).

The structure of the program will be similar to previously successful ACT Institutes, and will be both ACT and RFT focused. Based on previous feedback, however, the institute will be briefer (three days rather than four and a half). We will host an evening cocktail poster session as well, which is intended to showcase clinical and experimental research in RFT and ACT—a great way to see what is happening around the world. And it wouldn’t be the ACT SI without the Follies.

At this time, we would like to put out a call for submissions to the Institute. Some of the institute events will be invited. However, we want to open the call broadly and invite proposals for short workshops (half day), panel discussions, and consultation sessions. Your submission should include the title, presenters and their affiliations (ex. University of Houston; private practice; Oregon Research Institute), topic category (ex. ACT/Clinical; RFT/Theoretical), a general description, three educational objectives, three post-test questions, a target audience (ex. beginner/ clinicians; intermediate/researcher), email addresses for all speakers, and audio visual needs. Please state whether it is a workshop, consultation, poster presentation, etc., plus the amount of time you believe you would need. Your submission description should include enough information to give the program committee a clear idea of your proposal--a paragraph or so. Vitas for accepted sessions will be collected at a later date. Feel free to propose sessions you would like to see, along with those you would like to conduct.

Please use page 3 of this document for your submissions.

Please send all proposals back-channel to: actsi4@hotmail.com
Please indicate in the subject line the following: ACT Institute Proposal 2008.

Please submit your proposal by Friday, January 11, 2008.

We are eager to hear your ideas and will continue to send information regarding the ACT Summer Institute 2008.

For further description of purpose, audience, and style of sessions please read below.

Looking forward to seeing you all here!
Patty Bach
Institute of Psychology
Illinois Institute of Technology

PURPOSES

The primary purpose of the institute is to increase the skill of attendees in implementing ACT in applied settings. This will be accomplished through a combination of targeted workshops, video demonstrations, live demonstrations, role playing, clinically focused case discussions, and experiential work.

A secondary purpose of this institute is to provide a forum for ACT trainers to conduct various training activities, receive structured feedback on their training methods from other ACT trainers as well as to examine ways to create a more consistent set of ACT training philosophies, goals and strategies.

A final purpose of the institute is to help interested attendees better understand RFT, its significance in understanding human suffering and how RFT principles can be translated into clinical practice, and to help attendees learn and develop methods and strategies for conducting ACT process and outcome studies in applied and academic settings. This will be accomplished through “user friendly” workshops and small group discussions.

AUDIENCE

The primary target audience for this institute is any practitioner interested in learning more about the clinical application of ACT, or who wishes to function as an ACT trainer. The institute will also be of relevance to researchers interested in building the ACT / RFT base of knowledge.

The Institute will be focused on people who can attend the whole 3-day institute, while still being open and providing options for those interested in or able to attend only a few days.

STYLE OF SESSIONS

We want the institute to be very interactive, with participants getting chances to develop skills, with lots of time for questions, chances to do role plays, watch videos, get feedback on difficult clients, and watch tapes of clinical work they have brought with them.

ACT Summer Institute IV Proposal, 2008

Format: (workshop; consultation; panel discussion; poster; etc.)

Amount of time needed: (20 min.; full 2.75 hr. session; etc.)

Topic/Category: (ex. ACT/Clinical; ACT/RFT/Theoretical/Contextualism; RFT/Basis of Applied Work)

Title:

Presenters/authors and affiliations: (if all authors are not presenting, please embolden the speaker’s name(s)) (affiliation ex.: University of Houston; private practice; Oregon Research Institute)

General description/abstract:

Three educational objectives: (ex. Learn a simple model for working with mindfulness; develop a range of mindfulness exercises; build understanding of Self as Context)

Three questions for attendee post-test: (ex. What is a simple model for working with mindfulness?; List 3 mindfulness exercises.; What is “Self as Context”?)

Target audience: (ex. beginner/ clinicians; intermediate/researcher)

Email addresses for all speakers:

Audio visual needs: (Laptop/powerpoint projector, TV/VCR, TV/DVD, overhead projector)

(This entire document is attached below for your convenience.)