ACTivate your practice: An introductory Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) workshop

£80.00

ABSTRACT

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Are you a health professional with an interest in mindfulness, acceptance, or behaviour change? Are you interested in dipping a toe in the water to see if this approach fits with your practice? Then this workshop is for you.

ACT is a unique transdiagnostic psychological intervention that comes from the contextual behavioural science tradition. ACT uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies, together with behaviour change strategies, to increase psychological flexibility. It is concerned with helping individuals identify what is important to them and taking committed action in order that their behaviour is more consistent with their values. 

Rather than focussing on reducing symptoms or changing thoughts, ACT promotes skills that help people to  develop a more helpful relationship with their inner experience. It is rapidly developing a wide-ranging evidence base across numerous areas of clinical practice, with over 1000 peer-reviewed randomised controlled trials, and over 350 meta-analyses and systematic reviews. It has been shown to produce either equivalent or more effective outcomes when compared to other models of therapy.

Based on a wealth of research and literature from behavioural science, this workshop is designed for therapists working in physical/mental health care who want to enhance and develop their practice by developing skills in acceptance, mindfulness, and values procedures.

Through participation in this workshop, you will:

•  Understand the key concepts of ACT’s psychological flexibility model and the underlying science of relational frame theory

•  Develop a toolkit of acceptance and defusion techniques to work with difficult thoughts and feelings

•  Use mindfulness skills to help clients connect with present moment erxperiences

•  Engage clients in clarifying their values with a view to enacting purposeful behavioural change

The workshop will be highly interactive, involving a variety of methods including didactic teaching, experiential exercises, group work, and live/video demonstrations of therapeutic interventions. There is a strong emphasis on experiential learning and applying ACT concepts and techniques to oneself, therefore delegates should expect to engage in some personal, as well as professional, development. Participation in experiential exercises is an invitation, rather than an expectation.

Previous feedback for this workshop

"An excellent introduction to ACT and how to start implementing it in practice....great use of metaphors to explain things to us but also to use with clients"

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"Fantastic.  The best CPD I've done in a long time.  Paced exceptionally wall and resonsive to the needs of the audience."

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It really exceeded my expectations - just beautifully paced.  

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About the facilitator

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Richard Bennett works as a Clinical Psychologist and Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist. He is employed as a lecturer in the Centre for Applied Psychology at the University of Birmingham, where he leads the Postgraduate Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for High Intensity Workers. He worked in adult and forensic mental health services in the NHS for over 20 years before setting up Think Psychology, an independent psychology practice offering, therapy, supervision, and training. Richard is also an active member of the Association for Contextual Behavioural Sciences (ACBS) and the British Association of Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy (BABCP). He is recognised as a BABCP accredited psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer, and an ACBS Peer-reviewed ACT trainer. He is the co-editor of 'Rational Emotional Behaviour Therapy in Sports and Exercise' and co-author of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: 100 Key points and techniques'