The Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Association of Contextual Behavioral Science
(MAC-ACBS) is proud to bring you:
InterACT with Couples: Interpersonal Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Intimate Partners
When: Thursday October 26th, 2023 11:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Where: Virtual
Speaker: Lou Lasprugato, MFT
Detailed Schedule:
10:50 Zoom link opens
11:00 Program
1:00 Break
1:15 – 3:00 Program
Cost:
Early Registration (by 9/21) $55 MAC member $65 non-MAC member
Standard Registration (after 9/21) $65 MAC member $75 non-MAC member
Students $15 MAC member $20 non-MAC member
CE certificate (3.75 hours) $20
Target audience: Intermediate practitioners; students/trainees who have some knowledge and experience with the ACT core processes are encouraged to sign up!
This activity is pending approval to offer CEs for psychologists, licensed counselors, and social workers. You must attend the course in its entirety in order to receive continuing education credits. Attendees who miss more than 15 minutes (e.g., log on more than 15 minutes late, leave more than 15 minutes early) will not be given CE credits. CE credits are given for 3.75 hours of instruction time and are not given for the break. Partial credit is not available. CEs are awarded contingent on timely post-event paperwork submission by event organizers.
Refunds: A $25 processing fee will be charged for registration refunds up to October 18th. For cancellations after October 18th, participants will be offered a 50% refund OR can apply 100% of the cost to a future training. If you need a refund, please contact us via email at stacimartinphd@gmail.com.
Course Description:
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has been extensively studied and utilized as an individual form of therapy while its application to couples therapy has been somewhat limited to a few notable publications (Harris, 2023; Lawrence, Cohn, & Allen, 2022; Lev & McKay, 2017) and a small, but growing body of promising research (Ahmadzadeh, et al. 2019; Veshki, et al. 2017) suggesting comparable effectiveness of ACT with cognitive-behavioral couple therapy and integrative couples therapy. ACT’s model of psychological flexibility, when extended interpersonally, can offer a unique lens to case conceptualization and functional analysis when examining patterns of interaction between intimate partners. What’s more, yearnings - deep, enduring psychological needs - are often the primary motivators influencing one or both partners seeking therapy. Individual and interpersonal yearnings compete for attention within relationships, as partners attempt to satisfy yearnings in unworkable (values-incongruent) ways that create conflict, tension, and disconnection.
This 3.75-hour virtual workshop will introduce a reimagined ACT Hexaflex that situates yearnings as a core functional feature of an interpersonal psychological flexibility model. Participants will have a chance to experience the psychological flexibility processes extended interpersonally. A functional analytic case conceptualization for couples will serve as the basis for assessing and intervening on processes within patterns of interaction, which will be viewed through the lens of four "enactment zones" which integrate psychological flexibility, behavior analysis, intimate relating, and emotion regulation. The myriad intra-and-interpersonal processes that shape behavior and create contextual clashes between partners will be examined. Participants will practice shifting patterns of interaction by modeling, evoking, and reinforcing four functional classes of behavior, or foundational skills. Creative hopelessness for couples will also be briefly reviewed. The workshop will include some or all of the following components: didactics, experiential exercises, video vignettes, demonstrations, dyadic and small group practice.
Learning Objectives
In this training you will learn to:
1. Delineate how to extend the ACT core processes interpersonally within couples therapy
2. Facilitate an experiential exercise designed to build a bridge of psychological flexibility between partners
3. Elucidate the central role that yearnings play in couples therapy, including how individual yearnings compete for attention with interpersonal yearnings
4. Formulate a process-based case conceptualization examining patterns of interaction that include efforts to satisfy yearnings within an intimate relationship
5. Perform a process-based functional assessment rooted in intimacy, vulnerability, behavior analysis, and psychological flexibility
6. Describe the four InterACT Enactment Zones that shape intimate relationships
7. Model, evoke, and reinforce four functional classes of behavior that can disrupt unworkable patterns of interaction and promote fulfillment within relationships
Instructor Bio:
Lou Lasprugato is an internationally recognized trainer and behavioral health provider. He’s a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, with private practices in both California and Virginia (United States), and Peer-Reviewed Trainer in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) with the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science, for which he also serves as chair of the Training Committee. Lou has worked as a psychotherapist in a variety of settings, including an intensive outpatient program at Kaiser Permanente that he subsequently managed, and an integrative medicine program at Sutter Health. Lou has taught mindfulness meditation to health care practitioners and facilitated dozens of training events on ACT and Relational Frame Theory (RFT), as well as co-created courses on nutritional psychology and integrative mental health. Lou has also provided supervision to other mental health professionals and continues to provide individual consultation on ACT and other contextual behavioral approaches. He earned his Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology, with a specialization in Holistic Studies from Lesley University, Cambridge, MA, following a career as a professional musician.
The presenter reports no conflicts of interest. No commercial support is being received for this training.
The Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS) is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Association for Contextual Behavioral Science maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
This activity is pending approval from ACBS and by the National Association of Social Workers (NASW).