Are you working with clients who struggle with persistent shame and self-criticism? This two-day, immersive workshop offers an in-depth exploration of a treatment approach grounded in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and informed by the latest in affective science. You’ll learn powerful, evidence-based interventions to help clients break free from the cycle of shame and self-criticism—challenges often central to depression, PTSD, borderline personality disorder, social anxiety, and many other mental health conditions.
Shame, one of the most painful social emotions, can leave individuals feeling isolated, broken, and disconnected from others. By integrating ACT and a focus on self-compassion, this workshop will equip you with practical skills to guide clients toward greater connection and belonging.
What you’ll gain:
Proven Tools for Transformation: Experience hands-on practice with defusion, mindfulness, and acceptance strategies specifically designed to target chronic shame and self-criticism.
ACT in Action: Gain practical insights into the ACT theory of self and its application to shame and self-criticism, learning how to integrate these concepts into your daily clinical work.
Compassion in Focus: Learn how to foster self-compassion and kindness in clients through flexible perspective-taking and values-based interventions, helping them shift from isolation to connection.
Personal and Professional Growth: Engage in guided experiential exercises to deepen your understanding of your own shame and self-criticism, enriching your ability to empathize with and support your clients.
Measuring Success: Discover how to use specialized assessment tools to track and enhance therapeutic progress, offering concrete ways to monitor your clients' growth.
This workshop will blend theoretical insights with experiential learning and practical applications, providing you with the knowledge and skills to confidently address shame and self-criticism in your practice. Whether you’re new to ACT or looking to deepen your expertise, you’ll leave equipped to create lasting change in your clients' lives.
AUDIENCE
This workshop is intended for those with little knowledge of ACT to those with advanced experience. Those experienced with mindfulness might benefit from new practices based on ACT. Some previous familiarity with ACT would likely to helpful for this workshop, but those completely new to ACT but interested in issues of self, intimacy, the other, shame, self-criticism, mindfulness, compassion, or perspective taking should all find something of value in this workshop.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
- Understand a functional and evolutionary account of shame and self-criticism
- Formulate problems with shame in terms of ACT and affective science
- Identify interventions they can use to work with shame in the present moment with clients
- Explain how to sequence ACT interventions for chronic shame and self-criticism
- Detect shame through nonverbal cues more easily
- Gain better facility with defusion in treating clients with self-critical thoughts
- Apply ACT theory of self, including concepts of conceptualized self and other, to guide flexible perspective taking and implementation of compassion focused interventions
- Describe how to adapt ACT processes for use with highly self-critical and shame-prone clients
- Describe how compassion-focused interventions fit inside an ACT model
- Develop a basic understanding of the use of chair work in an ACT approach to shame and self-criticism
WORKSHOP LOCATION
Hilton Garden Inn Portland Airport (Garden Ballroom)
12048 NE Airport Way, Portland, OR 97220
EXAMPLE SCHEDULE (for both days)
- 8:00am - Registration begins
- 8:30am- Workshop begins
- 90 minute break for lunch (with 2 other 15 minute breaks throughout the day)
- 4:30pm - Workshop ends
SCHOLARSHIPS
We reserve a number of partial scholarships for potential attendees who could not otherwise afford to come. We give particular priority to those who would add diverse and underrepresented voices to our field. To submit an application, please click here.
CE CREDITS
Portland Psychology Clinic, Research & Training Center is approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Portland Psychotherapy, Clinic, Research & Training Center maintains responsibility for all programs and content.
12 CE credits (with the purchase of Professionals with CE Certificate ticket, completion of the Learning Activity Evaluation, and attendance of the entire workshop)
Refund/cancellation policy:
We charge a $15 administration fee for cancellations made more than one week before the training event. For cancellations within one week of the training event, we will refund 50% of the tuition. Alternately, participants may elect to apply 100% of their tuition to a future training event. No refunds will be given after training events.
Special Accommodations :
Please contact us if you need accommodations to enable you to fully participate in the workshop. We will work with you and do our best to find a way to ensure your participation.
PRESENTERS:
Jason Luoma, PhD, is CEO of Portland Psychotherapy in Portland, OR. His research focuses on shame, self-stigma, connection, self-compassion and the application of ACT and psychedelic assisted therapy to shame and self-criticism. He is currently organizing a clinical of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for social anxiety disorder that will be one of the first trials of psychedelic assisted therapy in the Pacific Northwest. He also recently organized a special section on psychedelic assisted therapy and contextual behavioral science. He is an internationally recognized trainer in ACT, former chair of the ACT training committee, and past president of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science. He has over 80 publications including co-authoring two books: Learning Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Values in Therapy: A Clinician’s Guide to Helping Clients Explore Values, Increase Psychological Flexibility, and Live a More Meaningful Life. His work on shame and compassion can be read at www.actwithcompassion.com.
Kati Lear, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist and associate investigator at Portland Psychotherapy. Her research and clinical work focus on the development of treatment for chronic shame and self-criticism and social anxiety disorder. Kati currently serves as the project director for a phase 2 clinical trial of MDMA-assisted therapy for social anxiety disorder. She has authored more than 20 publications examining topics including interpersonal processes related to shame and self-criticism, social anxiety, compassion, psychological flexibility, and the effects of psychedelic-assisted therapies on these constructs. Kati also supervises graduate students and postdoctoral residents in psychology in ACT informed by affective science.