Category
Functional analytic psychotherapy (FAP) is a transformative behavioural approach that uses the therapeutic relationship as a catalyst for profound change. This workshop will teach you how to spot and respond to subtle client struggles, foster healing through awareness, courage, and love, and reflect on your own journey to bring your most authentic self into the therapy room. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to learn from Dr Mavis Tsai, the co-founder of FAP, to gain an accessible yet powerful foundation in this life-changing approach.
Overview
Functional analytic psychotherapy (FAP) offers a powerful and transformative contextual behavioural approach to therapy by creating deep, meaningful, and healing therapeutic relationships. FAP helps therapists identify and respond to the subtle ways clients’ daily life struggles show up in the therapy room, using the therapeutic relationship as a vehicle for profound change.
At the heart of FAP are the principles of awareness, courage, and love—behaviourally defined concepts* that guide therapists in nurturing authentic and compassionate relationships with clients. This approach not only supports clients in addressing their challenges but also requires therapists to engage in their own personal growth. As Dr. Mavis Tsai, the co-originator of FAP, explains, “you can only take your clients as far as you yourself have gone.”
This introductory-level workshop is designed for psychologists, therapists, ACT practitioners, and other professionals in therapeutic or relational roles. It will provide an accessible foundation in FAP principles, with a focus on how therapists can bring their best self into the therapy room by addressing their own avoidances and obstacles.
*Awareness (A): Discriminative responding to a client’s clinically relevant behaviours to enhance understanding of their behaviour and therapeutic attunement.
Courage (C): Emitting behaviours that evoke and shape a client’s clinically relevant behaviors despite potential aversive contingencies.
Love (L): Differential reinforcement of a client’s clinically significant improvements to strengthen prosocial and therapeutic behavior.
What you’ll learn
By the end of this 3-hour interactive workshop, you will:
- Discover the five rules of FAP and unlock their potential to create deeper, more meaningful therapeutic relationships.
- Spot and respond to those subtle, “in-session occurrences”—the moments where your client’s daily struggles come to life in the therapy room.
- Bring to life the principles of awareness, courage, and love in your therapeutic interactions, using them to foster growth and healing.
- Reflect on your own journey, identifying personal fears or barriers that might be holding you back, and explore how to overcome them to flourish as a therapist.
- Walk away with practical tools to start integrating FAP into your practice immediately, no matter your current therapeutic approach.
Who should attend?
This workshop is ideal for:
- Psychologists, therapists, behaviour analysts, and ACT practitioners working in therapeutic or relational roles.
- Professionals interested in cultivating meaningful client relationships and exploring how their personal growth impacts their professional work.
Practitioners new to FAP who want to develop a foundational understanding of its principles and applications, or more advanced FAP practitioners who want to further cultivate their ability to harness the wellspring of therapeutic opportunity available within each unique relationship we create with our clients. Participants are expected to be experienced practitioners who are open to personal and professional reflection.
If you need to get up to speed consider reading the book: Functional-Analytic-Psychotherapy-Distinctive-Features