Huiyuan Li, Melody, China

Could you please tell us a little about you and your background?
Hi, I am Huiyuan LI, Melody, and I come from China. I am a year three PhD candidate in nursing, an ACT learner and practitioner. I would like to express my sincere thanks to ACBS committee for selecting me as a scholarship recipient and having the opportunity to learn more about theories, practices and sharing my insights on ACT.

How did you become interested in CBS?
I first knew about ACT after listening to a scholar's sharing at an academic conference, and after that I became very interested in ACT and firstly attended an ACT workshop organized by ACBS China Chapter and ACBS World Conference 18 online, starting a continuous learning on CBS and ACT, and making it my PhD research topic.

Could you tell us about your research and application interests?
I am interested in helping patients with advanced cancer accept their cancer experience and promoting life meaning. I am also interested in cultivating my personal ACT competency, being open and mindful to the participants’ thoughts and experience, rather than getting trapped into complex stories and not believe in self abilities. Participating in the ACBS conference is the best opportunity to learn about all ACT-related research, technical training and guidance, and related theoretical frontiers. This is of great help to my research in terms of theory and technical practice. In the following, I would like to present the experience during at the conference and after the conference.

Could you tell us about your experience at the World Conference this year?
My pre-conference workshop was about ‘Life from the Feet Up: Supporting Client Change through ACT Process and Therapeutic Relationship’ by Dr Robyn Walser. She is so passionate and warm that I was inspired by the two-day workshop, especially on how intrapersonal and interpersonal behavioral patterns inform a functional approach, how ACT metaphors and experiential exercises can be tailored to fit the client’s experience and language practices including the social and cultural contexts, how to work through barriers to fluid implementation of ACT in an ACT consistent fashion, and the role of personal values in guiding the work done in ACT therapy. This helped cultivate my competences well when communicating with patients with advanced cancer, which has made me think about my relationship with my clients all the time that the therapist maintains a stance that instigates and reinforces psychological flexibility.

During the conference, I actively participated in various forms of lectures and presentations. A Plenary allowed me to hear from Prof Hayes their latest insights on process-based therapy. Banjamin's impressive workshop allowed me to quickly and accurately master the six steps to improve psychological flexibility with the matrix. Dr Fung’s presentation gave me a deep impression on the differences on the development and implementation of ACT based on different cultural contexts. The symposiums allowed me to learn about the research progress of scholars in different fields according to my own interests. The SIG meeting is an interesting part where I can share any insights about ACT practices with ACTors in different parts of the world. During this conference, I also gave oral presentations on ‘Patients’ experience of experiential avoidance on the trajectory of being diagnosed with advanced lung cancer: a qualitative study’ and ‘Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for improving fatigue interference and health-related quality of life in patients with advanced lung cancer: Protocol for a feasibility randomized controlled trial’, and I was honored to share my research findings on ACT to different scholars.

Was there anything that stood out to you about the CBS community?
Through this conference, I was also fortunate to meet my mentor, Dr Anastasia Keller-Collins, who provided great support for my effective learning during the conference and the communication after the conference. Overall, the conference this year and my mentor helped answer many of my questions about the ACT practice, improved my awareness of many practices issues and enhanced my confidence in implementing exercises.

What did you take back from your experience that has been helpful to you?
Inspired by the Conference, I was encouraged to buy more ACT practice and theory books to broaden my knowledge, and share ACT-related knowledge to clinical nurses. I was also encouraged to actively participate in the ACT advanced theory study and group supervision training organized by ACBS China Chapter. After mastering certain skills, I consummated the ACT intervention manual for patients with advanced lung cancer in China and conducted an ACT intervention among 160 patients with advanced lung cancers in China to examine its effectiveness, which is a process of constantly clarifying personal values and applying ACT skills more skillfully. I hope I can share ACT as much as possible with every patient with advanced cancer in China and make them know about it and truly benefit themselves.

Do you have anything else that you would like to share with the community?
Although ACT began to prevail in China, ACT implementation directly by clinical nurses is still very rare. My goal after completing the PhD project is to continue to share ACT knowledge towards clinical nurses and inspire them to realize the importance of ACT and the feasibility and practicality of ACT, no matter for the quality of life of patients or their own career development, and there will be potential practical value for clinical nurses as an alternative deliverer of ACT in the future.

I would like to spread more useful information about ACT to Chinese cancer patients, so that more patients can be familiar with it, and make it an important choice to enhance their meaning of cancer life. I will also continue to accumulate my own ACT toolbox to enrich my experience and apply ACT to guide my own life.

Many thanks to the conference committee and all members. Hope to see you next time!

Mohamed Abdelalem Aziz Ahmed, Egypt

Hi, I am Mohamed Abdelalem Aziz, Psychiatrist, Cognitive behavioral therapist (CBT), Dialectical Behavior therapist (DBT), and ACT therapist (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) from Egypt. A country located in the north of mother AFRICA. 

When I started my career as a psychiatry resident in 2015, I did not believe in the efficacy of psychotherapy, may be due to the lack of training of psychotherapy in Egypt. After some time I started noticing that some of my clients do not need medications but they have problems and also prescribing medications does not change thoughts nor the feelings. I got confused and my thoughts take me to change my specialty but something inside me was curious about psychotherapy. I registered for my first CBT course here in Egypt, it was quite expensive but I was very curious if there is something will help the clients to deal with things that medications can not deal with such as thoughts, feelings, traumatic memories and Grief.

After finishing my first CBT course, I was fascinated with theoretical background of this model and started reading more and more about it. I started working with my clients using it, it was good but I have always had the feeling that there is something missing and that I am pushing the patient towards the positive attitude. I used CBT on myself and I got the same feelings and my mind started questioning me – where do these negative thoughts and feelings come from? And why do they keep coming? - I became obsessed searching for every negative thought and challenging it and sometimes the thoughts came without feelings and sometimes feelings came without thoughts.

One of my clients who was struggling with anxiety related problems told me that he sometimes woke up in the morning and had a bad mood and I kept asking him – what did you have in mind when you woke up? And he kept answering me that he had nothing in his mind (his mind was blank). I noticed something after this client session, I am facing the same problem - sometimes I wake up with a bad mood and I did not know why. Another thing, the CBT was not effective at all with borderline personality disorder clients. All these situations left me with many questions about CBT, its theory, and effectiveness. 

One day, after a very difficult session with one of my clients who was struggling with chronic depression, I came back home disappointed and started revising the great CBT course of Beck Institute. I noticed a word called (ACT) was mentioned by one of the instructors of the course about the new waves of cognitive behavior therapy models and how this model is gaining evidence. I started searching about ACT books where I found Dr. Russ Harris great book (ACT made simple, 1st edition). I just finished the first chapter which explains the (caveman mind theory) and I started dancing- yes, yes, I was literally dancing shouting that’s amazing, amazing. I started reading about ACT with a great motivation and watching Russ Harris and Prof. Steven C. Hayes videos.

Acceptance and Commitment therapy not only changed my way of practicing psychotherapy but also, changed my whole life. Two concepts make me realize how ACT is so amazing. The first one was (the misery of human kind) - I was shocked that the main feelings for humans were the feeling which we were calling negative feelings such as fear, anxiety, panic, etc. not happiness and they are all normal feelings. I read Prof. Steven books and realized that he was searching for the source of humankind suffering even in religions. And since I am a Muslim, I did the same thing looking in my religion if there is something telling me and giving me evidence about human suffering. Guess what, I found many things in the holy book of Islam telling the same things Prof. Hayes told us. The second concept was Psychological Flexibility which gave me ways how to deal with all these difficult situations, thoughts, and feelings.

I finished all Dr. Harris and Prof. Hayes courses also read almost every book they wrote and many other authors. 2018, I started to introduce ACT to my clients and I was fascinated by the effectiveness and flexibility of this model. I started integrating other modalities to ACT especially Compassion Focused therapy and Self-Compassion exercises develop by Dr. Kristen Kneff.

I joined ACBS community which opened a huge door with its marvelous members, professionals, and resources. Unfortunately, I did not get the opportunity to travel to any world ACBS conference but I attended two virtual conferences. They were amazing, with many professionals introducing the most recent research studies and with plenty of wonderful workshops which helped me to advance in my ACT practice. 

Now and after more than four years of practicing ACT myself and with different problems facing clients, I am writing my first ACT book which is in ARABIC language and also making my final touches in a series of ACT courses for Egyptians and Arabic therapists, all in Arabic language. My most important goal is to develop an ACBS community (Egypt branch).

Finally, from all my heart, thank you ACBS community for all the support and guidance you are giving to therapists in every country around the world especially developing countries. And I am looking forward to meeting you again in the next world ACBS conference. Thanks. 

Maria Jose Vuckovich, Paraguay

Could you please tell us a little about you and your background?
Hi, my name is Maria Jose Vuckovich but mostly go by Josie. I am a 35 year old Clinical Psychologist from Asunción, Paraguay a small country located in South America. I work in a private practice, where I see teens, adults and couples.

How did you become interested in CBS?
I was first trained in psychoanalysis as it was (and probably still is) is the main psychological orientation in Paraguay. When I was in university I never heard of Contextual Sciences or any of the CBS based therapies. As I said, I started with psychoanalysis but I did not feel content with the results of my work, nor could I explain why sometimes it seemed to work and sometimes it seemed to not work. I got to CBS by getting to know Mindfulness first. I found that through the practice of mindfulness I got to change behaviors in myself and my clients that I hadn't been able to get to through psychoanalysis (and in a much shorter time). Mindfulness led me to DBT training which later led me to ACT and I have been passionately studying about CBS ever since.

Could you tell us about your research and application interests?
I am interested in understanding the roots of behavior change. Learning ACT from its roots. I have been specially interested lately in furthering my understanding of RFT and have been taking particular interest in issues
relating the SELF and body related issues. 

Could you tell us about your experience at the World Conference this year?
I was very excited to participate in WorldCon this year. Last year was my first and this was my second year attending. I found very interesting talks and was very glad that we had some time later to catch up on the talks we
weren't able to attend. I was especially interested in the talks about interbehaviorsim, the talk about psychodynamic defense mechanisms from a behavioral lense, RFT related sessions and Body Image sessions.

Was there anything that stood out to you about the CBS community?
What has always stood out to me from the CBS community is the sense that there is a genuine interest in understanding and furthering the science and sticking to the roots. At the same time it was a very welcoming community, very humble and helpful with people like me who where just starting, and very human.

What did you take back from your experience that has been helpful to you?
New people I got to know and who are exploring subjects that I am interested in. I met my current mentor through the ACBS world conference last year and contacted her after hearing a few of her talks. I definitely feel I am a much better clinician because of her and I feel that ACBS world con gives me that. A context to get to know people who are working in this field, who I can later contact to train with them or to get resources. It gets me excited and motivated to keep moving towards my values as a clinician and it gives me a sense of belonging to a bigger community.

Do you have anything else that you would like to share with the community?
I would love to bring CBS to Paraguay. Get psychologist to at least know about CBS and that it exists and that it is a real option. To get my colleagues here to know that there is more than just psychoanalysis or CBT and to help new clinicians train in this model by translating to spanish what I can. 

Lara Dobrkovic, Serbia

As graduate medical doctor and attendee of third year of CBT/ REBT training, I am mainly focused on broader CBT interventions and working with clients primarily with anxious and depressive symptoms. My main area of psychotherapeutic work is in individual sessions and clients, as well as training groups on selected topics, and experience share within peer groups and professional conferences and gatherings.

Herewith I would like to give my warm thanks and appreciation for being part of ACBS virtual conference of 2021. Topics that were covered in the conference were very relevant and useful for broader CBT therapists. In my county I attend CBT and REBT psychotherapy trainings and I am part of broader CBT community. My main activities after that conference were focused on sharing knowledge, perspectives, and insights with my peers from the same training program I am attending to. Also, during national psychotherapy congress, that was held in late 2021, I was able to discuss in small groups topics of interested from third wave of CBT and direct co-participants into the area of further investigation about ACBS areas of work and staying tuned for future possibilities and attendance of ACBS conferences. Areas that was broadly shared and discussed within our professional circles were Acceptance and Commitment (ACT) therapy in practice, and it’s supreme position in defining and leveraging on client values. I had facilitated experience group with peers where we discussed values from REBT, broader CBT perspective and ACT perspective.

In addition to sharing verbally impressions and knowledge obtained from the conference with my peers, and facilitating experience sharing sessions, I also have embedded ACT and values into training material that I use for group workshops open for non-professional attendance. Clients are responding to values concept taken from ACT quite well and applying my modest knowledge from ACT and third wave has proven to be very useful and likable by my clients. This experience of attending ACBS virtual conference of 2021 has broaden my CBT perspective as well, and intend to attend further third wave conferences and also look up for some formal training in ACT in future.

Topics that were focus for my further practice and sharing my lessons learnt with my peers were Mindfulness based interventions and Compassionate focus therapy interventions. Both were present to my peers in context of primarily anxious and depressed clients, but were also considered in wider spectrum as well. Mindfulness is growing in popularity in my country, within both professional and non-professional circles. And Compassionate focus therapy and its interventions are very useful for clients who had some childhood trauma and have suffered from poor self-image. Through my attendance of the conference I really felt the power of compassion and I was enabled to carry this knowledge, but even more importantly, this emotional and motivational insight forward. My experiencing it first hand myself, I was better equipped to take it further, share with my peers, attendance of the training and my clients.

ACBS conference was great experience for me and I am very thankful for the opportunity to attend it.
 

Nevern Subermoney, South Africa

Could you please tell us a little about you and your background?
My name is Nevern and I am a clinical psychologist from Johannesburg, South Africa. 

How did you become interested in CBS?
I have always had an interest in mindfulness meditation, which led me looking into third wave therapies, which led to ACT. The second pathway was my interest in looking at psychotherapy integration, for which I found the PBT model incredibly helpful. 

Could you tell us about your research and application interests?
I use process-based therapy and ACT in my clinical practice. I plan to do a PhD with Joe Ciarrochi as a co-supervisor on a PBT topic.

Could you tell us about your experience at the World Conference this year?
My experience was lovely. There were so many top quality talks and opportunities for engagement. It was overwhelming in a good way.

Was there anything that stood out to you about the CBS community?
I love that the CBS community is so pragmatically values driven. I also love the focus on the alleviation of suffering and promotion of flourishing. And so far, the CBS members I interact with really embody that. 

What did you take back from your experience that has been helpful to you?
I took back some very helpful information on the integration of CFT with ACT, as well as some newer digital possibilities for therapy.

Do you have anything else that you would like to share with the community?
I would like to thank the ACBS for giving me the opportunity to attend the conference, which I think played a role in me being promoted to a chapter leader in SA!